insight

I'm sure you're all dying to know how I got on with the paper round tonight?

Aren't you?

Well, it wasn't too bad. The weather was pretty good, but physically it was damned hard work. Which I'm a past master at. For little pay.

And I ran out of papers on the last row of houses. About ten short. I did everywhere required of me, but whoever did the recon for this round has their figures wrong.

But the most surprising thing about this little adventure was Blundellsands itself. Now I've been vaguely aware of how posh and expensive it is, and all the great and good of Liverpool (legally or otherwise) tend to live here. Though it isn't until you actually go into some peoples' grounds that you realise there's monstrous amounts of money involved to get their properties spruced up in the way they have.

Some of the landscaping is art personified. Balconies, borders, water features, private indoor swimming pools, long tree-lined drives, meticulously sculptured sandstone motifs, intricately forged metal security gates.

Here, people either flaunt their wealth in the most flamboyant, imaginative ways possible, or dumb down their homes with a shameful neglectfulness. The words "spendthrift" and "miserly" come to mind.

And more personalised number-plates than the queen has corgis.

The paper-round itself is still odds-on to be sacked off in a couple of weeks. But it has given me a valuable insight into how the other half live.