I shouldn't really laugh, but..... what a way to go!

Patient dies after cigarette fire - BBC News

Skateboards, wooden floors and zip flies... now I know what to avoid to bring the misfortune quotient down:

Wood floors spark trouser mishaps - BBC News

7 years' bad luck
Only hours after I had got the drill out, re-attached the bogroll holder to the wall and re-hung my bedroom door on its hinges, Matthew staggered home from the neighbour's party at 3am and was so tired and emotional that he smashed the shaving mirror in the bathroom.

To add injury to misfortune, I stood barefoot on a shard of broken glass in the bathroom the following morning. O misfortune!

An eagerly anticipated Christmas Present - Gone

At Christmas, I finally got the present I had been waiting for all year. A Sony Discman MP3 Player, which also plays Atrac format compressed audio. It's a beautiful device, and sounded great. It was from my dear mother, and was a treasured gift. At £85 retail. I should think so.
Last Friday, in a sudden fit of magnanimity, I took the afternoon off work, to see my dear friend Anna off, from Gatwick Airport (she regularly commutes over to London from the Balearics where she now lives).
So, I accompanied her to the airport on the now streamlined, comfortable, and airey Gatwick Express...And left the Sony Discman, in its carrier, on the luggage rack.

Yes, it's gone...No sign at Gatwick Lost Property. No sign anywhere in fact. Oh yes, 5 carefully planned and recorded CDs, stacked to the rafters with pristine MP3s (virtually my entire jazz favourites collection) went with it.
A great start to the year.

Friday 13th Feb
Ah, now what Misfortune Report worth its salt would be complete without an entry on Friday 13th?

Sansom Street's a bit of a disaster zone these days; in the last week I have managed to knock the bogroll holder off the toilet wall and pull my bedroom door off its hinges. Matthew also forgot his keys and locked himself out - a performance which he repeated last night.

You might think that was bad enough, but it got worse. Nina rolled home in a taxi (which Matthew had to pay for) after a few, er, refreshments, and was so tired and emotional that she fell over in the gutter, sprained her ankle and laddered her stockings.

After much drunken whimpering and running up and down with ice packs, Matthew eventually took Nina off to casualty, returning at 4:15am. Then he slept in this morning.

"If you put this on your website I'll fucking kill you!". Yes, Nina dear.


Friday 13th: update from Matthew
This morning I was supposed to pick up my boss at 9 am when he dropped his car at a garage in Lewisham. But I was so knackered from last night that I completely slept through my alarm and woke up when he called me, irate, at 9.30 am.

As you can imagine I have had limited sympathy for her – despite her protestations last that she gave me sympathy when I came off my bike. I have pointed out to her that it’s really not the same thing because:

1. I was sober
   
2. It wasn’t my fault
   
3. She is a muppet