They say women go for men in uniform. I have comprehensively disproved this theory having spent the last week dressed as a traffic warden.

I did have my uniform torn off. But it wasn’t a romantic affair, more a scuffle. My assailant, who resembled a tattooed pork pie in a jump suit, evidently resented my giving her parking tips. Perhaps she’d intended to park her 4x4 on top of the confused elderly man in a mobility buggy.

It took the poor devil seven minutes to pull himself from under the wheels. If only he’d done it in five, then I wouldn’t have had to give him the fixed penalty notice. Rules is rules.

Every weekday morning at 6.48 you can find me shivering on the platform, waiting for a train that will always be four minutes late, until the day I am too, when it will run on time.

Four minutes is a long time when you're freezing to death. The railway staff cheer us up by distributing hot chocolate and staging impromptu fire-eating competitions. Last week one over-enthusiastic passenger accidently set herself alight and, in her panic, stumbled into the path of the fast train to Dover. I bet she regrets paying for an annual season ticket now.

Onboard we crawl through the Kent countryside at the speed of a Victorian bicycle, but in less style. Tinned sardines have more space (and benefit from being soaked in a tasty tomato sauce, the lucky devils). 

Just outside Sittingbourne there's a bump that sometimes causes passengers to spill their coffee or tumble into a stranger's lap. I've written to the train company requesting they make the bump big enough to fling us all out of the windows. 

If they agree they'll probably make it the subject of one of their Infinite Pointless Automated Announcements. 'This is carriage four of 12'; 'Please mind the gap between the train and the platform'; 'Would passengers sitting in the rear four carriages please be aware that you will shortly be flung out of the window'; 'Please remember to take all of your personal possessions with you when you leave the train'.

Broadly speaking, humans fall into two categories. You can determine which category you belong in by selecting the paragraph (below) that best describes your views and aspirations.

Category A
You are worthy and strive to live a better life. You are compassionate towards animals, worry about the environment and dream of world peace. You may own books by authors with unpronounceable names and you enjoy going to arts festivals, the theatre and/or shopping at Waitrose. You know a vegan and someone with really bad allergies.

Category B
There’s nothing better than a really cheap pie. It is your right to litter the world with unwanted children and you dream of owning a really big car. You don’t have a ‘character’ as such; rather your personality is a facade of prejudices and ignorant assumptions. You know someone called Darren.

I have taken the test. Disturbingly I was more B than A. But to be honest I’m not that bothered and the pie was lovely.

Obviously the science is pretty complex, but basically it involves shoving a probe into the animal's head and reading out its thoughts on a laptop.

I get better results when the animals are put in a mildly stressful environment, that's why I do my experiments in an abattoir. I had to slaughter nearly 500 pandas just to calibrate the machine. But their sacrifice is more than worth it. I have already gained many revealing insights. For example, cats think we’re stupid, dogs are stupid and frogs think in German.

Occasionally nature throws up uniquely gifted specimens, such as the stoat who was composing an opera and the pigeon pondering how long God's beak is. Perhaps these remarkable creatures represent evolutionary progression; fortuitous abberations destined to liberate their species. I sort of regret killing them now. Oh well, that's science for you.

During my bedridden captivity she tried to equip me for independent living by giving me the benefit of her own experiences. But as she'd spent her entire adult life as a U-boat commander in the Norwegian Navy and I was planning to open a Pork Pie shop, I found no practical use for anything she said. Not least because I don't speak Norwegian.

When finally I was well enough to leave she wasn't there to see me go.

Perhaps the emotion of seeing her last child leaving the nest was too much for her. Maybe I'd been such a disappointment to her that she couldn't bear to be near me. Or possibly it was the fact that I ran away secretly in the middle of the night whilst she was asleep.

I guess I'll never know for sure.