ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE

It turns out that I'm not paranoid, the world really is trying to have me killed completely TO DEATH.

This week's brush with the Grim Reaper's attempts to recruit me for his own personal version of the Final Destination movies comes on the lovely five miles of country road from Heckfield to Hartley Wintney, which comprises part of my commute to work. It's moderately dangerous, claims lives on a semi-regular basis, and invites people with lead boots to treat it like their own personal race track.

It's not. It's MY personal race track.

So, it hardly came as much of a surprise as I reached a sweeping left-hand bend (fifth gear, don't lift) that I should meat* ...err... meet somebody coming the other way in a Vauxhall Astra. He might think he is on the racing line, but to those of us attached to the skin we're in, we call it "my side of the road".

There is the briefest moment that lasts a lifetime, where I can almost smell the Old Spice and read the Ben Sherman tag on his shirt, before I am able to give him the briefest critique of his driving skills ("Cuuuuuunnnn...."), and a skeletal looking bloke holding a scythe and dressed in a poor quality Jeremy Clarkson disguise slinks back into the trees.

I arrive home dripping in fear and fury. Not because I am alive, but because I am alive, the battery has gone in my MP3 player, and Steve Wright in the Afternoon has come on. A living death, and more than a sane person can take in a single day.

Who knows what madness tomorrow might bring?

Let's hear it for near death experiences!

* This is what you get when you type things up on your iPad. Stupid predictive text.