Mark Andrews: Why my combi boiler was a mistake, and John Major only has himself to blame about Brexit

I'm sure it does. You only have to look at the effect it had on Councillor Murray's muggers in Only Fools and Horses to realise that Batman outfits are great at cutting crime. 

Sign up for our FREE weekly Nostalgia Newsletter - with scores of archive pictures and exclusive features on the history of the West Midlands - all sent to your inbox every Friday. Sign up here: expressandstar.com/newsletters

But I know this may sound a bit edgy, but I think there is another, more tried and trusted way, of improving behaviour, both on public transport, and the world at large. 

How about some people in police uniforms?

*****

Back in the summer, I was persuaded to replace my wheezing old cast-iron boiler,  having been told for years that it was on its last legs, was using far too much energy, and not doing a great deal for the quality of life of polar bears.

So in the summer game my all-singing, Greta-friendly new combination boiler. 

"You will really notice the difference on your bills," I was assured. Much the same way as everyone told me when I had double glazing fitted. And in both cases, the only difference I noticed was that two radiators sprang leaks that weren't there before. Coincidence? Possibly. But let's give it the benefit of the doubt, and blame the newfangled technology. 

Anyhow,  on Wednesday night, two days before I was due to go on holiday, I went to turn on the hot tap, and nothing came out, not a drop. The boiler's pressure gauge started furiously wagging in the red zone, and water started gushing out of the overflow. 

"You'll need to bleed a radiator," said the man on the warranty helpline. At which point I sprayed the hallway with steaming hot water, and scalded myself as I tried to stem the unstoppable flow. 

Problem is, having spent most of Thursday fulminating about the failings of modern technology, and preparing to write a column to this effect, it turned out the problem was actually down to human error. The pressure taps were set wrong, apparently. Not so much the newfangled boiler, more the oldfangled operator.

Some may think a bit of humble pie is in order, and maybe I shouldn't be so quick to blame everything on change in future. Maybe, maybe.

But then again, I never had to worry about the settings of the pressure taps wrong on the old boiler. Because it didn't have any. 

*****

Good old Sir John Major, don't you just love him? Every time you think it might be time to cut the daft old duffer a bit of slack,, and let him enjoy his retirement, the former prime minister pops up to remind us why he became a national joke. 

So he's at it again, almost a decade after the Brexit vote, claiming that it wasn't really valid because only 37.5 per cent of the electorate voted for it,

Maybe has a point. 

Because when he was re-elected in 1992 on a 32.5 per cent share of the vote, the turnout was only 77.7 per cent, so by his criteria little more than a quarter of the electorate vote for him. So, by his own yardstick, he had no mandate to force the ghastly Maastricht Treaty on us, which would have meant there would have been no European Union to leave - just a common market, which most people were generally happy with.

Maybe, Sir John, you should stick to talking about things you know about. Like the traffic cones charter, or Chelsea getting walloped by Leeds United. 

*****

What Major doesn't grasp is that not all Brexit voters are foaming xenophobes, and that millions of us were quite supportive of the idea of a Common Market with our neighbours, even if it did waste money on wine lakes and butter mountains. It was the vision of a United States of Europe, with all its stifling regulation, overbearing parliament, silly flag and national song,  that was the problem.

And had Major given us a vote on the matter, like almost every other member nation, we would have grudgingly accepted the outcome, whatever it was.

But he didn't because he knew what the vote would have been. stirring up 30 years of bitter resentment which is still with us now.