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of Australia”, although, thinking about it, when you’re in there, it never really feels as though you’re in Australia, you never really forget that you’re in Watford, to be perfectly honest, but then if you’re like me, and you like living in Watford anyway, what’s wrong with that?, I mean, some people are just happy with what they’re given, aren’t they, and I don’t see anything wrong with that, I mean, I wouldn’t say it had ever been my ambition to live in Watford, I don’t ever recall my father sitting me down on his knee and asking me, Son, have you ever thought about what you want to do when you grow up, and me saying back to him, Well, Dad, I don’t really mind, just as long as I end up living in Watford – I don’t remember any occasions like that, it’s true, but then, for one thing, my father just wasn’t that sort of person, he never did sit me down on his knee, as far as I can remember, he was never very tactile, or affectionate, or very … present really, in my life, in any meaningful way, from the age of about – well, for about as long as I can remember, I suppose – but anyway, my point is that just because Watford isn’t the sort of place you dream of moving to all your life, that doesn’t make it the sort of place you can’t wait to move out of, in fact I had a conversation along these lines a few years ago with my friend Trevor, Trevor Paige, who is one of my oldest friends actually, we go right back to the 1990s, right back to when I used to be a sales rep for this toy company that I was telling you about, he used to cover Essex and the East Coast, and I was doing London and the Home Counties, but I left that job after a year or two, as I said, to go to this department store in Ealing, but Trevor stayed on, you see, and we carried on being friends, mainly because he only lived a couple of streets from me in Watford, until about two years ago that is, because about two years ago we were having a drink together in Yates’s Wine Lodge in the precinct, and suddenly, he said, You know what, Max, I’m fed up, I am, I’m really pissed off, and I said, Pissed off?, what are you pissed off with, and he said, Watford, and I said, Watford?, and he said, Yes, I am, I am well and truly pissed off with Watford, I’ve had it up to here with Watford, I’ve lived in Watford for eighteen years now and to be perfectly frank I really think I’ve seen everything that Watford has to offer and it can truly be said that Watford holds no further delights or surprises in store, and I’ll go further than that and say that if I don’t get out of Watford soon I shall probably kill myself or die of boredom or frustration or something, which was a huge surprise to me I must say, because I’d always thought that Watford suited Trevor and Janice – that’s his wife’s name, Janice – down to the ground, and in fact that was one of the things that Trevor and I had always had in common, really, the fact that we were both quite partial to Watford and more than partial, actually, we were both quite fond of Watford, you know, a lot of our best memories and the most treasured … shared moments in our friendship were associated with Watford, like for instance the fact that we’d got married in Watford and our children had been born in Watford, and to be honest I thought that Trevor had really just lost it that night and it was the alcohol talking, and I can remember thinking to myself, No, Trevor will never leave Watford, he can talk the walk but he can’t walk the … talk, or take the walk or something, anyway, I thought he’d never go through with it, but credit where it’s due, there was more to Trevor than I thought, and it hadn’t all been bluster, he wanted a clean break with Watford and a clean break with Watford was what he got, and six months later he and Janice moved to Reading, where he got this new job – a very good new job, by the sound of it – with a company that makes