- they had to make a last minute dash to Spar as they forgot you were coming.
- they are saving the upmarket biscuits for somebody more, well, upmarket.

The only way I can get though all the various meetings, training days and conferences which are a dispiritingly large part of my job at present, is the prospect of discovering new and exciting biscuits during the coffee break. I can just about stand the group icebreaker exercises, the blinking Power Point displays and the icy terror which wraps itself around my tongue when I realise that I've been asked to give an opinion, if I know there is an array of interesting snackage being laid out in the other room for my perusal.

If, what I find on offer are a few packets of custard creams tipped onto a wilting doily, then you'd better make sure all the windows and doors are firmly closed, because I'll be attempting to lob myself out of one post-haste.

Why not a Jaffa Cake? They only have 1g of fat per cake. As well as offering your guest a more zesty choice of biscuit, and hence showing them you respect their tastebuds, you're also letting them know you care about their health.

Or a chocolate digestive? Grandma's favourite, and rightfully so, withstands multiple dunkings and gets stuck in your fillings.

She may have a point...

On the way home, at around 2.30am, we staggered past a fudge shop, and Oirish Caroline noticed that there was somebody inside. Convinced it was a burglar, and eager to receive a 'citizen of the year' award and a special mention on Crimewatch, she decided to confront him. And have her picture taken with him.

Turns out, the fudge burglar was in fact an employee, who had spent the evening getting drunk, and then returned to the shop, hungry for sugar in it's most sickening form. In the spirit of inebriation, he offered us the biggest bag of fudge we were ever likely to see. We accepted, and followed him inside to marvel at the dexterity of his tongs as he flipped every flavour imaginable into a plastic bag, handed it over and stated 'I'm probably going to get fired for this.'

* Karl is no longer a doctor.
* Boyd has left town.
* Evil fake doctor was found out and suitably punished.

YET

Jeff didn't cope very well with this, he spent most of his time circling the lake, honking for Maud. Apparently he had no idea how to work the kettle, and couldn't find any clean socks. It was decided that the whole family would have to be brought into the rescue centre. They stuck the eggs under a heat lamp, and got Jeff settled in a nice pen with plenty of straw and satellite TV, but he continued to circle and honk, until his woozy wife was returned to him, one wing down and in no mood for marital pleasantries.

I want that.

I want the puppy, and the pregnant belly, and the snoozing tot. I especially want the red balloon.

We'll overlook that -
a) the puppy was a bull mastiff, the notorious baby face biting breed.
b) the pregnant woman was sucking on her own illicit cigarette.
c) the partner looked only a few years older than his child.
d) they looked like they were on their way to the job centre. I've spent a lot of time at the job centre over the past few months. Forgive me a moment of narrow-minded snobbery, but I know the type.

"The plot concerns Maurice, an elderly actor who finds himself increasingly attracted to his friend's young great-niece Jessie while simultaneously finding himself in deteriorating health due to what is apparently prostate cancer. Maurice's friend describes the great-niece as a trouble maker and a nuisance, but Maurice discovers that Jessie warms up to him when he starts interacting with her. He takes her to view his favorite painting, The Rokeby Venus by the Spanish artist Velázquez. Jessie had expressed interested in modeling and Maurice arranges for Jessie to model nude for an art class. As a result of Jessie posing for the art class, and inspired by his favorite painting, Maurice decides to give Jessie the nickname "Venus". Maurice and Jessie develop a passive/aggressive relationship over the course of the film. Maurice is forward in terms of his attraction toward Jessie while Jessie occasionally indulges his whims to a limited extent, such as touching her hand and smelling her neck, but also retracts the indulgences when she feels that he has gone too far. The plot of the film revolves around the evolving friendship or relationship between the two characters."

Perhaps I was either too conservative, or too narrow-minded (although you could say the two are synonymous) to understand all this. It seemed to me that:

a) Pensioner wants a piece of barely pubescent girl.
b) Barely pubescent girl wants sparkly things.
c) Pensioner buys barely pubescent girl sparkly things, in exchange for permission to lay his trembling hands on her perky young body.
d) Barely pubescent girl puts up with this for a time, before she loses her nerve and knees him in the particulars.
e) Repeat ad infinitum until pensioner dies in barely pubescent girls arms. All is forgiven.
f) Barely pubescent girl has standard epiphany, starts embracing life etc.

Anybody whose nipples still point north is not a suitable romantic interest for somebody who now calls a plastic bag his bladder. It's never going to work. He'll look like a predator, and she'll look like a daft kid who lets her desire for presents and attention come before her self-respect. What were you thinking, Mr Kureishi? Maybe you were trying to make a point about getting older not meaning that cardigans and cough sweets become your only interests.

Fair enough.

"Sharon had never come before when we made love, but since I've become thicker and longer, she comes every night.

"Mother left home last night. That’ll be the third time this year. Her last attempt at a ‘new life’ lasted 16 days, so I predict she’ll be back before we’re all very much older. She stood outside father’s bedroom (he was lying down with a cold cloth on his forehead, expecting a migraine to turn into meningitis) and announced that she was planning to farm olives in Greece with a naïve teenage lover. As the teenagers round here tend to be sexually active by the time they are twelve, I don’t think she can have met him yet. Also she seems to be unaware of the exact location of Greece, because she’s staying at the bed and breakfast next to the station. I know this because she is demanding I visit her there tomorrow. She couldn’t keep a cactus alive, so I hope her teenage lover knows how to farm olives. Otherwise we’ll probably see her on the news after being arrested for credit card fraud.

After she left, I had to spend the remainder of the evening looking up my father’s symptoms in his medical dictionary and reassuring him he did not have a brain tumour. I asked him when he thought my mother would be coming back. He said he hoped Tuesday, because he has an appointment at the hospital and can’t be expected to drive. Also that the carpets needed a weekly shampooing or his allergies would get worse. Sometimes I can see why she leaves him, but I wish she’d do it properly. Last time she only got three miles down the road, living in a static caravan in a friend’s back garden, and she soon cracked when she couldn’t get any reception on the television.

Oh good, you've chosen sex. I really can't be bothered to form an opinion just now.

This morning, I went into the kitchen at work and encountered the man from the office next door whose name I can never remember, but whose wardrobe sticks in my mind (socks, sandals, shorts from April to September, sensible trousers in neutral tones for when it gets a bit parky round the testicular area).

I realised at the precise monent he offered to douse my tea bag with water, that last night I had a dream about the two of us in the throes of passion on the back of a bus. He wasn't wearing his shorts.

No harm in planning ahead though. When I do finally manage to persuade somebody to fertilize my field, so to speak, the kid will undoubtedly be as pale as egg white, and about as robust. It'll probably have rickets by the time it's 3. So it's going to need good, solid, memorable name, something that will mean it doesn't get absorbed into the background of photos or picked last for team games.

Here's a few that I reckon will have teacher tripping over her tongue during registration.

* Sputnik
* Samosa
* Chrysanthemum
* Treehorn
* Krakatoa
* Mung
* Boadicea
* Hoop
* Eagle
* Telstar
* Kiwi

I'm still mulling over the possibility of cemetery, when said in a Welsh accent - 'Cem-e-ter-ee' - it has quite a ring to it.