THERE I was, feet on the sofa, watching the umpteenth repeat of a Midsomer Murder, determined to solve how Inspector Barnaby could walk from Thame Buttermarket, through an alley and emerge outside Henley Town Hall, when the phone rang.

“I understand you have trouble with your lower back and have difficulty in walking,” he said in a rather too cheerful tone.

“Who’s told you that?” I asked, knowing for certain it wasn’t me.

“It was on the questionnaire you returned.”

“I haven’t seen a questionnaire, let alone returned it.”

“Could someone in your family be thinking about your welfare?”

I paused. Was this one of my family playing the fool? Later checks cleared the entire family of such a jape.

“To whom am I speaking?” I asked somewhat imperiously. He gave me his name and that of a company, which I later found impossible to trace. I asked for a phone number. This turned out to be unobtainable.

The disturbing thing is he knew my name, address, phone and email numbers. To make matters worse, when I returned to the sofa, Barnaby had nicked the murderer and the Thame-to-Henley mystery went unsolved.

WERE I to take up busking, the last instrument I would choose to play would be the tuba – or its young brother the euphonium. They seem so heavy.

But this doesn’t worry Tanya and Ian from Faringdon. Tuesdays finds them blowing away on the latter somewhere in the city centre. This week Ian was working solo.

All Things Bright And Beautiful could be heard wafting from outside M&S in Queen Street. It brought back memories of junior school assemblies and Sunday school outings. I wandered over and thanked him.

Why had he chosen this hymn on a morning that was as yet far from bright or beautiful? It was not the usual buskers’ fare heard in the city centre.

Tanya and Ian are part of a worship band at Faringdon Baptist Church. Such tunes are the norm and when they’re busking the public seem to enjoy them. Other favourites follow. I saw happy-faced members of the public lustily singing or mouthing the words as they dropped coins on to his instrument cover.

What is it they say about the things we learn in childhood?

WHILE on the subject of euphoniums and the like, this was heard on the Water Eaton park-and-ride bus: “The annoying thing about playing the tuba was that people threw sweets into the horn and they were a problem to get out.”