How to Make Your Life Difficult

There are a number of "Robert's Laws" that I have formulated over the years. Most of them have to do with computers:

• Any Given Computer is Too Slow
• Thinking About Saving Makes Your Program Crash

..but I do have some more general purpose ones:

• Every now and then, for no reason that you can ever figure out, something really horrible will happen to you.
• Every now and then, for no reason that you can ever figure out, something really nice will happen to you.
• An infallible way to make your life more difficult is to try and do someone a favour.

The last one sprang to mind today. Some time back, in agreement with rule two above, number one wife allowed me to buy a nice big LCD screen for my guvvy room. So we thought we'd offer the TV it replaced to a worthy home. In accordance with rule number three I offered it to a friend of mine without checking what number one wife had done with it. Result, a chum who has had the prospect of 28 inches of telly goodness snatched from under his nose. To make matters worse, it is the same chum whom I offered a telly last year, only to have the telly in question to toes up before I could deliver it. I hope Ian will keep speaking to me....