People often say the stupidest things without thinking.  Even the brightest, cleverest people do it.  And me.

Just this week I heard someone make a comment I’ve heard a thousand times, but never gave any previous thought to.

On this particular occasion the words I’d heard so many times before, got caught in the ‘fishing net’ inside my brain that occasionally provides me with a tasty ‘catch’ which I can write an article about.

I was in my local supermarket, naturally only buying essential items (with the wet weather we’ve had recently, a frogman’s outfit and harpoon gun for underwater fishing must be essential and if we have a particularly wet April and a cod shortage, you’ll be sorry you didn’t invest in them) and I overheard a conversation between a man and a woman.

They might have been an ordinary married couple, but as he was tall, dark haired and good-looking in roguish sort of way and she was a glamorous blonde who, to quote Raymond Chandler “Had a face that could make a Bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window”.

My guess was they were illicit lovers embroiled in a torrid affair that was doomed from their first passionate encounter on the Cote D’azur.  I must stop reading those Mills and Boon novels.  After I’ve finished “Love Is Lovelier The Second Time Around, But I’ll Need A Short Tea Break Before We Try For a Third!”

The couple were talking about a film they’d seen on TV the previous night which was so bad, the man said…”That’s two hours of our lives we’ll never get back!”  Which is Number One in the Phil Evans sponsored “Most Stupidly Poinltess Statements Humans Can Make!” charts.

Because whether they’ve watched a terrible film, mowed the lawn or kicked a hole in a stained-glass window, the fact is, it’s scientifically impossible for anyone to get just one-tenth of a second of their life back, let alone two hours.

So people – please stop using that expression. I need to calm down. Where’s that Mills and Boon book?