My mistress, in her addiction to McDonald’s apple pies, has finally got to the bottom of why they can’t sell her one before 10.30 in the morning. It is not, as she had first suspected, that they are just being difficult. It turns out that the fryers they use to cook them aren’t turned on until 9.30 and they then take an hour to heat up. You may wonder how she found this out. Did she take to spying, in an undercover industrial espionage project? Did she get a job in McDonald’s to be able to read the manuals? No, in her desperation to get an apple pie the other day, having had no breakfast, she resorted to asking why they couldn’t sell her one and bothering to explain to them she was allergic to most of the other things they sell. I think I am being generous in my description here. If I am being blunt, in her distressed and hungry state she was practically begging them to serve her an apple pie. I had a serious word with her when we got home. “Have you learnt nothing from living with me?” I asked her. “If you are going to beg, it isn’t just about the words. It is the whole body language and the longing puppy-dog look that you need to do to go with it.” She admitted I was much better at begging than she is and has agreed to submit herself to some training from me. So mistress, how does it feel ‘now the boot is on the other foot’? Of course, I don’t mean that literally, I tend to trip over the laces. I just hope she is a more willing student than I am.