It could be advancing age – I do chuckle at television’s "Grumpy Old Men" – but I am confused by a lot of what passes for business practice these days.

It seems to be a prerequisite that deals are made as complicated as possible. Mostly this is to give work to lawyers (I know this as there is more than one in my family) but sometimes it’s to spread confusion in the apparent hope that people will just take the easiest option. That, of course, is usually is the most expensive one.

Off the rails

Take rail fares. There has been, quite rightly, a hue and cry about them recently and I am sure it will feature on "Gumpy Old Men" soon enough. Whether Will Self is old enough to remember steam trains and proper fares is open to debate.

I am attending a conference in York shortly and, armed with my Senior Rail Card, I looked for fares on the internet. The best I could get was £43.50, which seemed a lot when I was booking well in advance.

So I clicked on the ‘single fares only’ button which the rail companies are obliged to feature. Lo and behold I was able to buy two singles at £29 for the two. Where’s the sense in that?

I might even have got it cheaper if I had the time and energy to investigate fares between cities on the route.

Then, of course, there’s telecoms and energy and now the Royal Mail is at it.

We have received a missive which tells us that they are introducing a new system in August which means we not only have to weigh our outgoing mail, we have to measure it too.

Keep it simple

As it happens, one of the most regular missives we send out will cost us 30p less when the new system comes in.

But that’s not the point. It used to be simple. We had to weigh everything and frank it accordingly. Then we put it in either a red pouch for first class or a green one for second. Now we have to get out the ruler and then weigh it.

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