Mystery shopper is where you go into a shop and check whether the staff are behaving in the micro-managed way that modern managers think is good for business. You check up on how robotically poorly-paid staff act, and how good they are at their aesthetic labour.

“Aesthetic labour", by the way, is something I came across a while ago and is a new “skill” required of low-paid employees (i.e., most of us) – here’s a short introduction. One of the attractions of working in a bookmakers is that I don’t think I’ll have to bother with it much.

About my relocation, I won’t be moving into Kirsty’s (née mine) for several months. It’s pencilled in for the end of the year. You will hear my renewed joie de vivre as soon as I do though.

And yes, I’m going to hyperlink kono in his name whether he likes it or not. (There, done).

What ever happened to your relocation?

I agree. Kono is a great read but good luck finding his URL.

I have a similar patchwork quilt of an income stream. I lurch from hard-up to skint, but I really think I have a good life, with all its temporary difficulties. Our political class works relentlessly to banish pleasure from our lives. I don’t just mean in terms of rugs, I mean in the way that work is organised, and the way it makes people throw away their natural gifts.

Re the CV – I’ve listed a non-existent job for a company which is not so imaginary as to lack a honey-voiced twentysomething secretary from an area with a good accent. When I give that phone number to him, and he rings it, I’m hoping that she’ll create a sexual imprint on him which, when he calms down, he’ll link with my name.

The recruitment process is so warped that you need to control as much of it as you can, and your cv, your work history true or false, your experience (which one would hope is true in some sense) and the pliant, uninquisitive secretary – who’s doing the same for many other chancers – is under your control. I literally tell her what to say for the approaching telephone call. It’s great and well worth £16 a month. And best of all she keeps her gob shut about why I am telling her to say something a bit different every time.