How to raise my heart rate inappropriately:

• Taxi drivers who have to handwrite receipts on little pre-printed cards whilst you are waiting to get out of the cab and catch your train/flight or get home;
• Queueing for breakfast in a hotel because the waitress has to:

• find your name or room number on a list that was supplied by a dot-matrix printer that morning
• cross your name off the list or mark it with a highlighter pen
• take you to a table like a guide dog
• ask if you would like tea or coffee
• pour you an orange juice
• return to the front of the house to repeat the process as a line of frustrated and hungry guests lose the plot

• Hotel receptionists who can talk you through a complete check in process without making eye contact and in a voice that sounds like the dietician in Little Britain
• All organisations whose employees tell me that they do not have the facility to accept emails
• Anyone who calls my mobile phone with “Unknown” or “no Caller ID” – I’m NEVER going to answer your calls – OK?
• Gossips – people who use information (always private and personal) as a currency in an attempt to improve their own popularity
• Uninformed critics

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“These “letters” are the personal observations of me, Chris Barrow and are not intended to reflect the views of 7connections and its team members, they just give me permission to publish here on the basis that they can keep an eye on me, a bit like a mad relative at a wedding reception. I’m likely to upset the sensitive and outrage the sensible – if you fall into either of those camps then read at your peril.”