Taken as read

Yes, I do read your feedback and take it on board.

- Marc Wilson

As I strolled into work this morning, I was hailed by colleague Robert. “Have you read the Letters to the Listener this week?” he asked. “Someone complained about your column.” “Was it my wife?” I asked. Robert thought I was making a joke, but I really wasn’t.

I had already told my wife I would publish a correction to my recent column about misokinesia (a pathological dislike, some sources might say hatred, of repetitive movements such as me jiggling my leg) in which I had, clearly incorrectly, suggested it wasn’t my jiggling that was the problem. “It makes me feel nauseous,” she corrected sternly. Consider me chastened.

No, Robert told me I had been “flippant about the elderly”, presumably in my article about the victimisation of old people in online scams. I apologise to old people for flippancies both recent and historical.

Why stop with apologies to my wife and all old people? So, I went back through my