First of all let me thank those who responded to my original blog piece – as Oscar Wilde said, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about, writes our Grumpy Old Man Bill McCarthy.

So we’re up and running and, as promised, some more observations about that great British tradition, car boot sales.

The one I get dragooned into visiting is held on a grim, windswept field. Even in the height of summer it looks like something from a Siberian gulag.

If your view is offended by this, your other senses are also assaulted from all quarters – your hearing by some bloke in a striped apron flogging meat with a voice capable of drowning out a stadium of vuvuzelas and your smell with the sickly smell of hot dogs, beefburgers and the unmistakeable aroma from the portable loos.

Here you have the great privilege of paying 50p to a wizened old boy who looks like Yoda from Star Wars for the privilege of driving, and then walking through ankle-deep mud and cow pats.

You then spend a couple of hours following hundreds of others up and down aisles with various displays of tat, dodgy goods and electrical ‘bargains’ that are likely to put you in a wooden overcoat.

God knows what the watching bovines make of it all and even the sheep look mystified at the blind, follow-the-leader behaviour of the humans.

Then there’s the X-rated language from the ‘regulars,’ brothers and sisters in arms from other locations who are happy to give you a volley of expletives  if you have the audacity to haggle with them. You know the type, shaven-headed, earring-wearing, and tattoo-bedecked, who can do a decent  impression of Usain Bolt as soon as police or trading standards make an appearance.

Then at the end of it, armed with a load of worthless tat and that extra 50p lighter thanks to Yoda, you spend an hour getting back out.

Traffic control by a couple of gormless, spotty youths is as good as worthless.

So there you have it. Saturday morning has come and gone and blood pressure has gone through the roof.

* I had not planned to mention politics on this blog, but what exactly is going on with our wonderful coalition government back pedalling on pledges faster than a Second World War Italian tank.

School spending slashed, a war started on public sector workers and sanctimonious homilies about cutting our spending from the well-heeled Blessed Dave and Supercilious Nick.

And then there’s Saint Vince Cable telling us we are being ripped off by the banks.

Thanks, Vince, as Basil Fawlty once said of Sybil, her speciality subject is stating the bleedin’ obvious.

So rein in the wasteful spending eh? So what about renaming the Department for Children, Schools and Families with the Department for Education?

How much does that cost with changes to stationery and all the administration and paperwork associated with it?

What about the pledge not overburden the NHS with bureaucracy and then telling the health trusts the GPs will have control of spending?

Then there’s the millions to be spent on a referendum on changing the voting system while the schools fall apart.

Talks about fiddling while Rome burns.

And while all this is going on what are the Labour party doing?

Fighting like ferrets in a sack, that’s what. While leadership lightweights knock seven bells out of each other, the smug snake-oil salesman Peter Mandelson upsets the comrades with a book about why he should have been Prime Minster.

Only Paul Gascoine turning up the Raoul Moat siege with a chicken sandwich and a can of lager seems more bizarre.

* This week sees the start of the school holidays and I just love it. Despite the fact that my daughter’s ankle-biters will strip our cupboards and fridge like a plague of locusts, it does have benefits.

Driving to work is almost a pleasure as thousands either jet off or stay in bed and the area surrounding school gates can once again be a place of tranquillity between 8.15 and 9 am and again between 3 and 4pm.

What a change from the school run. Cars abandoned, sorry parked, on double yellow lines and across people’s drives in what looks like a war zone. The worst part is they usually only live a few hundred yards away and most of them could do with the exercise. Dare to question the legality and common sense of it and you are likely to get a volley of abuse that would make the car booters blush.

What is it that turns the school run mums into snarling beasts? Yoda could teach them a thing or two about inner tranquillity. Still, at least the road are clear.