Real life | 3 September 2015

‘Yes, you can report it, but it’s going to take ten minutes to go through the process,’ said the oppressively cheerful bureaucrat at Surrey Police when I rang to tell them about my stolen saddle.

After the first 30 seconds I could see why. She kept asking me to verify that I was all right — still coping, still breathing, still pumping blood around my body — after every sentence. For example:

‘I just need to take your name and address. Is that all right? I need to open a file and log your personal details. Is that OK?’

‘Yes, fine,’ I said, before telling her my name and address, which prompted a lot of tapping.

‘If I go silent… then it’s just because… I’m typing. Is that all right? Are you OK with that?’

‘Yes,’ I said, rather testily, envisaging not ten minutes on the phone but ten hours.

‘Right, that’s good. Now… I’m just logging those details… Are you all right with that?’

‘Yes!’ I snapped, but unfortunately my exasperation only held the process up further. ‘I did explain to you, at the start of this conversation… (she was one of those young girls who put unwarranted emphases on random words)… that it would take a good ten minutes to go through this process.’

Oh it was a ‘good’ ten minutes now was it? She only admitted to ten minutes at the start.

‘And you did say you were OK with that…’ ‘Yes, I’m fine with it, really,’ I said, affecting all the ‘seeming fine-ness’ I could muster.

Mercifully, she did manage to finish taking my home address. But then she noticed it was in London and not anywhere near where there were horses and saddles. So it took another age to explain that the horses didn’t live in Balham with me, but resided at another address in Surrey which, in turn, was not an additional home address of mine.