AnneMarriott

Is the garage yours and does it have an electric socket? If so I recommend getting a dehumidifier. We store a huge amount of stuff, including books and ballet programmes in our garage (there's just enough room to squeeze a car in as well) and the humidifier does a wonderful job of keeping damp at bay. Dirt-proof containers are easier to obtain when damp is no longer a problem. Good luck. I also recommend decluttering, or I would if only we could get round to doing it ourselves ...

Yes, recognisable scenario. Nowadays we seem to have lost awareness of appropriate behaviour in public, especially that involving consideration for others, and replaced it with "me, me, me and what I want now, this minute". Grumpy old woman speaking ...

Supermarket checkout behaviour. I often complain about it but I've found a new variation on the usual annoyances. After a minor domestic hiccup (broken floor mop handle) I went to my local supermarket to buy a replacement. I bought a total of 3 items and was surprised and delighted to find a checkout queue with no-one in front of me - just three ladies and their trolley apparently about to pay and go. Ha, ha - no such luck! The three ladies, one elderly mother and two daughters probably, had loaded up their trolley to overflowing, put all their items on the conveyor belt and then reloaded the trolley. A lot of reshuffling of the contents of the trolley but no evidence of packing it into bags or anything. Then came the payment. Not one but two mobile phones were deployed involving two presumed daughters showing the checkout assistant their phones which she scanned or zapped or whatever it is, accompanied by a lot of discussion and gesticulations. Meanwhile, to my left and right, other queues went through without problems. It took ages. Can someone please tell me what is the benefit of all this technology?

If you can get to a Cook shop their range is excellent. They deliver if you're able to order in time. I don't recommend any of Tesco's veggie offerings - too small for the supposed number of servings, too flavourless, too mushy. Sainsbury's a bit better but heavy reliance on curries and "sides". Don't know enough about Waitrose (no local store). M & S has some good tasty options but usually only for one or two persons. Good luck! P.S. If you go down the takeaway route Indian and Chinese are good options since both have vegetarian traditions. Chinese do a lot of bean curd dishes and would be mortified to think of them as fake meat. Indians do lots of bean/lentil dishes and paneer (cheese) dishes, not necessarily too spicy. The problem with veggie/vegan non-fake meat dishes is the lack of protein ...

Lovely evening in Birmingham yesterday - a well-balanced triple bill. I didn't know what to expect from Interlinked but to my surprise I loved it. I think it would come under the heading of "easy watching" rather than anything thought-provoking although the blurring of the gender lines is pretty topical just now. Loved Penguin Cafe - main reason for being there because we hadn't seen it for a long time and don't know if it will be performed again any time soon. Brandon Lawrence made a superb Zebra and it was a good choice for his final performance with the company. My favourite was the flea, though. Without wishing to upset any diehard Balanchine lovers, I was surprised not really to enjoy Apollo. I have loved it in the past but last night I thought it looked outdated and even stilted. No disrespect to the dancers who were lovely, just the choreography seemed a bit past its sell-by date. (Puts on tin hat and ducks behind sofa). In my defence it was the first item on the bill and the drive through Birmingham to get to the Hippodrome was trying to say the least. And the drive out of Brum after the performance was even worse!

I haven't (and won't) contact them - I probably can't spell most of what I'd like to say. However I've cancelled the subscription and found an alternative supplier - fingers crossed!

Into Room 101 goes Amazon Subscribe and Save. We feed our dogs on complete dry food (kibble) with a few tempting additions. It makes sense to buy in bulk so having a 3-monthly delivery of 18kg of kibble saves the effort of heaving heavy bags home from the shops. This time, after the usual slew of emails about reviewing the order and then a blow-by-blow account of proposed delivery date and tracking, I was annoyed to receive the following message on the day of delivery: "...undeliverable, apologies for the inconvenience." The previous delivery arrived damaged - the bag torn and haphazardly patched together with a lot of sticky tape. I am assuming that "undeliverable" means that this time the bag was so badly torn that either the entire contents were rolling about on the floor of the van or that the courier didn't have enough sticky tape to effect a credible repair. That's all bad enough, but my blood pressure rose when I read the following paragraph: "A refund will be issued 5 to 7 working days after the return has been processed (my italics). What a cheek! They know it has been despatched, they know it is undeliverable so why should the recipient have to wait for the return to be processed before a refund is issued?

I understand swans are highly sought after in the Middle East for ponds in private gardens. Perhaps the egg-stealers are incubating them and smuggling them - easier than trying to export protected fully grown birds. Just a theory of my own. On the ill brought up children front, I did once remonstrate with a group of young thugs throwing rocks at a pair of swans and their cygnets on our local river. I wasn't polite - something along the lines of "what miserable little lives you morons must lead if all you can do is try to hurt something beautiful". To my surprise (and relief) they had the grace to look a bit embarrassed and shuffled off muttering. Luckily I couldn't hear what they were saying.

...and weren't we all told after the dreadful murder by a serving police officer to flag down a bus if a policeman tried to arrest us late at night?

In my experience of stalls circle standing, the ushers could occasionally be a real nuisance walking about, alone or in pairs, wearing audible shoes and apparently not bothering to be discreet. They may have been following orders, perhaps to ensure the audience were behaving themselves, but it detracted from enjoyment of the performance.

We've got this in our bathroom!

Dave, I think you've hit the nail on the head!

I should add that the parcel contained a candle holder so I've no idea why that should be detained!

Either that or it finds its way to a postal worker locker ...

Lucky you! Incidentally a couple of years ago a friend in Italy sent me a birthday present which arrived at the Heathrow Royal Mail hub at Langley, Slough. It remains there to this day. My friend assures me it didn't contain any explosives, inflammable liquids, Class A drugs, nerve gas or Japanese knotweed seeds so we've no idea why it was detained.

I'm putting Royal Mail in here. On 9th March I posted a small parcel to a friend in Norway for her birthday on the 23rd. I sent it International Tracked. It spent a week at Greenford, West London and then found its way to Northampton where it remains. After a fruitless online search for an explanation for the delay I found a contact number and rang, only to have a recorded voice telling me the same dismal news i.e. "We've got it. More information will be available as it travels through the system." At the current rate of travel I can only hope it arrives for Christmas! Trying to find out how to make a complaint is even more frustrating - round and round in a loop getting nowhere.

Or me - in our case it's next-door neighbours and it's been going on, off and on, for 15 years.

Surely this was a stunt. Glad I've never experienced anything quite so gross but it would be fun to think up possible deterrents - pump action water pistol? giant size butterfly net? half-strength taser? I would suggest ejector seating but that might be too disruptive itself.

Before the ROH closed for renovations you could have a complete supper delivered to your Grand Tier box before the performance and during intervals. The waiter used to explain the programme too. In my experience the boxes either side were either enjoying the same service or were empty during the intervals so I hope we didn't disturb anyone. I hasten to add that at that time we made regular use of stalls circle standing tickets for ourselves - the boxes were for entertaining clients, not at our personal expense! Happy days ...

To add to the discussion about who got the survey, I got the email a couple of days ago and deleted it unread, then retrieved it when I saw others' comments about it. I was a friend for years until the business about the PR person being so dismissive about the "regulars". I didn't renew membership after that and I pointed it out in a comments box.

Exactly my experience! What a very strange set of scenarios to choose from. I always go for side stalls circle (not standing any more these days, sadly) and there were no options so I finished up with the Ashton mixed bill at £80 as my sole choice - although in reality I'd have to think quite hard about it. As I don't like being too far from the action I never choose the amphi and wouldn't be tempted by any programme at any price.

No they didn't, certainly not on the opening night when many members of the audience got up, pushed past seated members thinking it was an interval only to be sent back to their seats by front of house staff. This went on for the entirely of the pause. An announcement before curtain-up would surely have prevented this.

I have very little experience of pop or rock concerts - three in total in my long life so far - but from what I have seen on television the audience is part of the experience, waving arms, holding mobile phones aloft, singing along etc. whereas ballet, like music concerts or straight theatre (I don't include musicals) is expected to be enjoyed without audience participation except for applause at appropriate moments. Who cares if the view of the stage is blocked by audience behaviour when there are giant screens all around and the performers are actively encouraging the crowd to get involved? Forgive me if I'm stating the blindingly obvious, but that isn't the case at the ballet - even discreet use of mobile phones to film the action is distracting to say the least.

That's really nasty!

I think some people just need to be noticed! Perhaps in this case the perpetrator was noticed in a different way from his expectations. What a shame for the young singer, though.