So, this week, it’s Histon Feast Week. A Feast Week is a thing they have in Cambridgeshire villages that’s a bit like a week-long village fete. There’s a parade, and a funfair and… well, apparently, there’s a bunch of other stuff, but I can’t find out what it is.

See, the organisers of the feast don’t publish details of the week’s programme online. They do this deliberately, so you’ll go and buy a programme. They’re available from “most local retailers” for £2. That’s fine, they want us to support the feast and it helps fund it. That’s good. Except, by “local retailer”, they mean all the actual small local village shops, not the Tesco Express or Co-op or any of those kinds of things. Again, I understand – they want local people to support local shops and not national or multinational chains. That’s also good. The problem is, these local shops are the kind that are open from 9am until 4:30pm, Monday to Friday. I work from 8am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. I can’t buy a programme from a local shop because they’re not actually open when I’m in the village.

Even today, at the parade – where most of the village was out watching and joining in with the celebrations and having a jolly fun old time, no-one was selling programmes. None of the local shops were open. Of course, Tesco and Co-op were, and they were doing a roaring trade selling ice creams and sweets and fizzy drinks to people. But not programmes, because they’re not allowed to. Genius.