"Well, of course it's a real beetle," I say. "Why on earth would a plastic beetle be in the washing machine?"

Mr Young has been reading a lifestyle magazine - never a good thing. He's so impressionable.

I leave him, still sitting in the middle of the road with ketchup stains down his front, and slink home with my untouched couscous salad.

There's no neat folding involved. No tissue paper and lavender bags. Just sad little bundles of creased material ...

Well, if ever alcohol could be called a damp squib, then I would have done so last night, and in the strongest terms possible...

Picturing myself in a bonnet and Mr Young in a cravat and extravagant sideburns, eating mutton and plum pudding...

He's something of a gravy expert. Or grexpert, as I've just decided to call it.

"Quick!" I shout at Mr Young. "We have to go to the Co-Op and buy emergency cakes!"

Mr Young and I wonder just how big the hook is, and what is being used to bang it into the wall. Some sort of pick-axe? A sledge-hammer?

...resplendent in red satin and an ostrich feather hairpiece, burst through the double doors with Elvis bringing up the rear.

You should always have a punchline ready when you start a conversation. Even if it's just shouting "So there!" and running out of the room.

I search my memory bank, but unfortunately I seem to have reached my overdraft limit.

Mr Young tells me he's heard on the news they've managed to isolate the angry gene. "About bloody time, too!" I shout.

Mr Young is feigning disinterest, but I can see him sneaking envious glances at my tiny-weeny travel bag

After all, no man can possibly wear more than fifteen pairs of underpants in one week.

Apparently, I am a second alto, which sounds like being runner-up to me. The substitutes' bench is still better than sitting in the audience

"What's happened to the olive tree?" I ask in horror. "I pruned it," he says. "But there's nothing left!" I say.

Did you catch the irony there? Did you? If you didn't have another look. It's definitely in there somewhere.

"It's the thought that counts," I told Archie. If he hadn't been crunching bubble wrap, he'd probably have agreed with me.

He lifts up a lifeless hank of hair and looks t me reproachfully. "Been cutting it yourself again?"