I'll tell one you thing that really annoys me: film credits. No other business finds it necessary to tell you the name of every last person who had even the slightest involvement in making the product. When you buy, say, a bucket (and buckets are really useful things, more useful than films) it doesn't tell you on the side the name of the kid at the moulded plastics plant who gets sent out for chips at lunchtime, does it?

Yet the film game, sorry, “motion picture industry”, is so up itself that it thinks we want to know every last detail of its collective endeavour. And the one thing we do want to know, the names of the songs on the soundtrack, they come right at the end, in letters too quick and too small to read.

The other thing that bugs me about film credits is the way that after you've found out who changed the lightbulbs but before you come to the name of the sausage roll supplier on location in Arizona, there appears some poor sap called Assistant to Mr Clooney, or Mr Pitt, Mr Damon, whoever. It's always Mr Clooney's suits by so-and-so as well, Mr Pitt's hair, Mr Damon's wardrobe and so on. No-one else in the whole interminable list gets an honorific.

The hypocrisy is repulsive. In interviews stars always go out of their way to say that it's not about them, it's about the whole cast and crew (and that, presumably, is the ethos behind listing every last person's name on the credits.) But then you get this sneaky, toadying, lickspittling “Mr” business. If George and Brad and Matt are such good democrats, before they bother to tell us who they think should be the next president, they should first sort out this blatant inequality in their own backyard. You're either a man of the people, or you're not. I'm not, incidentally, which is why I have my name on this column.

Squirrel secret

I was at the pub yesterday, Indian summer, lovely evening, enjoy smoking, so I sat outside overlooking the park. The couple at the next table spent the whole time cajoling and controlling their two terriers, which were being driven to distraction by a grey squirrel perched on the parapet around the pub terrace. It sat there, this squirrel, eating litter, making a racket, generally taking the mickey. As the couple wrestled and restrained, I thought: why not just let the dogs have him?

Consider the facts. There are too many grey squirrels. Nobody much likes them. Nasty, ratty, noisy little things. Quite justifiably dogs want to kill them. What's the problem? It's not as if it's an unequal contest, like bullfighting. The squirrel has more than a sporting chance of getting away. Everyone's always moaning that we're too divorced from nature in this country, 18th-century enclosures, early industrial revolution, can't get local cheese in the village shop any more, etc etc. And yet we stop their dogs doing what every bone in their body is telling them to do, because it would be socially unacceptable to let them loose. But why is it socially unacceptable? I can't think of one good reason.

Pub rules

By my second pint the terriers had gone and this new chap entered my airspace, furtive manner, bulging satchel over one shoulder. “DVD?” he mumbled, allowing me a glimpse in his bag. “No thank you,” I said, feeling all proper and law-abiding.

He sidled off, leaving me wondering, now why did I say no? I don't have moral issues with DVD piracy, indeed I rather welcome a few chunks being chewed out of Mr Clooney's, Mr Pitt's and Mr Damon's share of the gross.

Nor was I worried about being ripped off. I've seen this man in this pub before, and I don't suppose he'd be a regular if he was selling something he'd shot on his mobile with a tub of popcorn blocking half the screen. No, I decided, the middle-class instinct that was kicking in was even more primitive than a concern over legality. And that instinct says everything in its proper place. Pubs sell alcohol, soft drinks and fattening snacks. They do not sell entertainment software, stolen or otherwise. You've got to do your bit to maintain some order in an unstable world.

Last chance saloon

Speaking of which, some friends of mine, property developers, enjoyed a night out with their bankers not long ago. Usually, the form is for the borrowers to treat the lenders, keep them sweet against the possibility of needing some leeway on the loan. On this occasion, everyone had a good night, a very good night, and at the end of it my pals reached for their wallets as usual. No way, slurred the City boys, what you've got is your money, what we've got is the bank's money, and the bank is finished (I suspect they used another verb beginning with “f” instead), the game's up, let's spend it while we can, have another one. Looks like they had the right idea.

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