A tree fell on the stables.

One eye witness had to be treated for shock.

And another for splinters.

When this turned up on Christmas Eve...

...reactions were mixed.

But a nice cup of tea soon sorted everything out.

As Mary - Katy Price, glamour model, singer, amateur porn star and purveyor of filth.

As Joseph - Peter Andre, self-confessed nymphomaniac and owner of the famous 'acorn willy', liable to dry hump anything that will stand still long enough to let him.

As Our Lord Jesus Christ (Amen) - Princess Tiamaria Mulligatawny Andre-Price, born by C-section in a private hospital.

With thanks to IKEA for the tea towels, Max Factor for Jordan's face TM and Bristol Zoo for letting Pete out for the day.

West Wales has a surprisingly large Italian community. Surprising because it's hard to associate a country in which fashion, gourmet cuisine and fiery temperaments reign supreme, with one famed for its love affair with the leek, primitive attitudes and continuous rainfall.

I don't know why the Italians chose to settle in a place with more sheep than people, but the influx adapted well to their new climate. In fact, they seem to fit right in. They are mostly farmers. They disregard fashion in favour of country casuals (bind-a-twine for belts and wellington boots). They are insular, and ill-at-ease with even the slightest change. Perhaps the decision to emigrate in the first place had something to do with these similarities in character and outlook. Perhaps these outcasts deliberately sought out a part of the world that wouldn't insist on congregating in pavement cafes or sipping wine on yachts from beneath the brims of their sun hats.

A few people in our village could lay claim to a Mediterranean heritage. One such family were the...urm, I probably shouldn't use real names. We'll call them the Goodfellas. There was definitely an element of Mafia mindset about them. Their main priority in life was land, and keeping other people off it. They lived on the outskirts of the village, up a long track. They didn't like neighbours. They didn't really like people. They used to bring the kiddies down to catch the school bus in a manure splattered 4x4, and I clearly remember one rainy day, where they sat in the vehicle and watched an unfortunate fellow pupil shiver and cough for a full ten minutes, without even considering inviting him inside.

The kiddies were difficult to tell apart. They all had regulation short back and sides. I imagine father would line them up with the sheep and shear them to create this effect. I think the daughter got the worst deal in this respect. It was incredibly easy to confuse her with her brothers. We used to call them Elvis, Elvis and Elvis. The youngest one suffered from a weight problem, if he fell over in the playground, it was impossible for any of the other children to help him up without popping an arm out of its socket. The oldest one suffered from rage. He came across a group of us hanging around the end of their drive once (I think somebody may have had their big toe resting on it) and when we refused to meet his demand that we get off at once, he threw his bike at us. So the following night, we drove up to their house, and knocked their gate off its hinges. A small victory, but for a family who thought the purpose of electric fencing was not to keep animals in, but to keep people out, it couldn't have caused more outrage if we'd sent them a dog turd in the post.

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Ever wondered why that important third date never materialises?

Why your best dinner party stories fall flatter than the souffle?

Why you buff and preen and do 1,000 sit-ups every night and he STILL doesn't call?

The answer, it seems, is simple.

Episode one - ‘Bastard psychotic’

Not only would the village I grew up in survive a nuclear war, it was probably the result of one. The title of this chapter could be used to describe a disturbing percentage of the natives. We enjoyed the neighbourly efforts of the deaf and dumb man, who chased some unfortunate Jehovah’s Witnesses down the street with a loaded shot gun. A woman whose husband would row out into the middle of the small lake on their property whenever they had a visitor, and remain there until the person had left. A gypsy. A mad scientist. A flasher. But we’ll come on to them later. They require at least a volume each.

I want to start by talking about what many believe to be the heart of any community, but which I prefer to think of as the lower bowel; the local pub. Every evening, after the sun had set and it was safe to come out, the jaded doors would be heaved back and allow anybody making a stab at standing upright through. Inside these trusted walls, the villagers could dribble into their pint, or play with their genitals, or kick back and discuss the day in a language which requires a pint of saliva just to ask for the time.

It was a popular place; I had to drag our pet goat out of there a few times (but not before she’d got herself a few phone numbers).The barman had three small children, hence he was at work every night. He ran the place for his wife’s parents, and his mother-in-law would play hymns on the organ in the back bar every Sunday. It was rumoured that her illegitimate son was the man who hid in hedges at night, and had replaced the carpet in his house with newspaper. He would often sit staring into the abyss of a half-empty glass in the company of another regular, who always liked to wrap the evening up by propping himself against a wall, and asking passers-by if they ‘fancied a shag?’ I don’t know what these two found to talk about. Maybe they didn’t talk at all. Maybe they ended up going home together one night and rolling about on the newspaper? Maybe that was the reason it was down in the first place?

Being children, and not allowed within fifty feet of a sherry trifle, we would devote ourselves to trying to spend as much time in there as we could get away with. It didn’t prove too difficult. Either the room was spinning so fast that nobody noticed we were there, or my grandad would be keeping everybody busy, perched at the bar like a geriatric budgie, accepting shots of whisky in return for stories of his youth. Jackanory for piss-heads.

Occasionally, the kids whose fathers would be lying under the pool table by 8.30pm would nip in to ask for money, sweets, cocaine, and it would be handed over without a murmur. We once managed to get twelve bottles of coke out of one loving parent who’d spent the majority of the night chatting up a bar stool. (Whether he got lucky remains a mystery, but nine months later, there were six little bar stools next to his seat). Sometimes there was a fight, but it was normally between the kids (we actually used to organise fights between our friends when there was nothing good on TV). Or we would dare somebody to down the juice from the jars of cockles that replaced the customary bowls of peanuts.