The turf: Not my week

Mrs Oakley hopes it will be a lesson to me after all the abandoned umbrellas, mislaid mobiles and washbags left in hotel-room bathrooms over the years. When changing planes at Mumbai Airport at one o’clock in the morning en route for Hong Kong, I failed to pick up my laptop after the security check. Retrieving it from Britain took seven weeks. The airline didn’t want to know and airport authorities would hand it only to a personal representative. It only ever came back thanks to old friends at CNN: thank God, I still work occasionally for an international organisation.

‘Never mind the £150 in airport fees and freight charges,’ I thought as I popped into CNN’s London office to collect it. ‘Things can only improve now.’ Only to find a parking warden outside fixing a £65 ticket to my windscreen. I had called in with my phone parking fee. But it was, it seemed, for the space the other side of the line between public and residents’ parking.