I've just been across the road to grab a bottle of wine to drink over the next few nights. Now I really don't mind getting IDed so I'm not complaining about that, but what just happens is shocking.

The woman who served me looked at my driving licence for about 30 seconds. Time a 30 second pause next time you're at a checkout, it's a bloody long time. I was wondering what her problem was. I know I'd just cycled back from work but surely a little bit of red cheek doesn't stop me looking like my photo. She then blurted out to her colleague on the next till "Can you check this please? I can't work the date out."

I apologies if through some utterly strange set of coincidences she gets to read this, but how can anyone take more than 30 seconds to work out that 1984 to 2005 is a longer period than 18 years?! I might come across as a pretentious graduate but even on the most simplest level there are two lots of ten between 1984 and 2005. Can it really be that hard?!

And that's even before I rant about the fact that every point of sale system I've ever come across prints up the date 18 years ago when alcohol is scanned so that the dumb people using the terminal don't have to to any mental arithetic at all!