So far, then, pretty much an average run of events.

But, about two weeks later, I'm lying on the sofa and Margret glides into the room. She is grinning broadly, so I know that, whatever's going on, something has happened that's going to depress me.

She hands me a letter. It's from the company who develop her photographs and it apologises that, due to some internal mix-up, the pictures have accidentally been sent out to someone else: they are attempting to track them down.

While I try to make myself breathe, Margret sits down by me and argues the case for this being the funniest thing in the history of the world.

90

If there's a disagreement in a relationship you should bring it out into the open: discuss the problem and how you both feel about it, reach an understanding — through compromise and negotiation — and thus resolve it so it will never be an issue again.

Ha! People actually say stuff like that, you know? Get paid to say stuff like that, in fact. Presumably their thinking is, 'Hey — it always works on The Cosby Show.'

Well, I have far more respect for the honest intensity of Margret's feelings than to think I could ever sing them to sleep with the shrill, monotonous voice of Reason and, for my part, I'm well aware that 'compromise' is nothing but Machiavellian shorthand for my cleaning the toilet sometimes. No, a good argument is immortal. Something to be dug up time and time again over the years. Something to be practised, embellished and refined. (What if the first two people who ever played chess said, 'Well, white won… no point ever doing this again,' eh?) Not only is this the way real life works, it's also a moral responsibility.

We have a disposable society; a society addicted to faddism, transience and waste. Do you think that couples in small, poor, sub-Saharan villages are constantly fed with new things to argue about? No television. No car. No bathroom. No .mp3 player that, yes, I do mean I "needed" it, actually — it's a removable media storage device, so I can use it for transferring important files — and it was on offer, very cheap… very cheap… "very" "cheap", OK? No, not £5 — don't be stupid; it's 128MB, flash-upgradeable and multi-file format — how could you possibly get an .mp3 player like that for £5? Yes, more than £5… yes, less than £500. No, no — oh no you don't. I'm not going to tell you whether it was more or less than that. Well, because, if I keep answering 'more than or less than' questions then eventually you'll get the exact figure, won't you? Doing that is effectively my simply telling you the price of it, and I am not going to do that because, as I've said, that is not the issue. No, it isn't. No — it isn't. Now, that's just insane — what do you mean "hiding it from" you? That's… I was not… I was simply keeping it there so it didn't get damaged, that's all… I don't know — a few weeks, maybe… I can't remember — "a few weeks", that's all I… I am not going to say whether it was more or less than that, so you can stop asking, OK? It's a removable media storage device that I bought so I can transfer important files and… like, say, drivers and work data and… well, yes, it's got nothing but Nickelback on it now — that's not the issue. God damn it! See, I knew you'd be like this, that's precisely why I… No… No, I wasn't going to say "why I hid it"… I wasn't… I wasn't… I was going to say… that's… precisely… why I love you…. See? I say I love you and you say I'm a lying git — I just can't win, can I?

No.

The couples in our small, poor, sub-Saharan villages aren't.

It's time we accepted that we are a very privileged minority, and throughout most of the world people have to adapt to their environments and recycle: in parts of Asia couples have as little as three distinct subjects to argue about per year, and yet somehow manage to row just as much as the Baltimore wife who can draw on such elaborate luxuries as 'an underlying feeling of nonspecific dissatisfaction which is somehow made all the more bitter on the tongue by the objective all-round and comprehensive good fortune of her life' and her husband who's been wondering whether he could pass it off as a joke if she explodes when he suggests they might try a threesome with this woman he's met in an AOL chat room. Thus, my friends, as a display of solidarity with those on our planet who are less fortunate than us, we are absolutely compelled to repeat arguments over and over again. If ever you are tempted to resolve a long-term disagreement, just picture your mother chiding you at meal times and remember: "There are people in Africa who'd be glad of that."

Which brief preamble brings me to the point. I know I've mentioned Margret hoarding things before, but I was tidying up the other day and I found a whole mass of receipts. Receipts that are years old — and for things for which it makes no sense at all to keep the receipts. I mean, for God's sake, there was one for the admission to Anglesey Sea Zoo in 1998. Never mind the fact that she'd brought this the well over one-hunded-and-fifty miles back to our house, never mind that — that's in the past — let's just focus on what you could possibly do with a credit card receipt slip dating back to 1998. Are you really going to telephone Anglesey Sea Zoo and say, 'Hello. Look, I've been thinking about it for six years now, and I've finally decided that the tank of rays you had wasn't really all that impressive. I'd like a refund, please… Yes, I do have the receipt, in fact.'? Gah.

91

When you have two languages within a single relationship there are always going to be moments of unfortunateness. Such as the fact that, after she came to live in England, it took me about ten months of pointing out her error — time and time again — until Margret finally sorted out in her head which way round the meanings of 'orgasm' and 'orgy' were. Ten months, I may add, during which she made an awful lot of friends. For my part… well — in German you often make a plural by adding 'en': ear/Ohr — ears/Ohren, republic/Republik — republics/Republiken, etc. So, it's perfectly natural, then, that I would assume the plural of 'Bus' (bus) was 'Busen'. OK, so, yes 'Busen' does mean something else entirely — that is NOT MY FAULT.

However, there are times when, far from being assaulted by language-based misunderstandings, I actually close my eyes, knit my hands and call on a succession of gods to pleeeeeease make what I just heard be, genuinely and completely, simply an Anglo-German semantic quirk.

Would you like me to give you an example, or are you impatient to go straight to the Guestbook and write, "this is just, like, sad n stuff, like, y dont u just split up n stuff if u dont get along????????!!!!!!!!!!?!?!?!?! :-( ~~tammy~~ idaho"? Are you sure? Okey-dokey, let's do the example first, then.

I was in the kitchen the other day, making myself a cup of tea as a break from the intense and demanding effort of having worked on a script for a full forty minutes before my mind meandered away into counting the holes in the ventilation grille on the front of my computer, playing tunes by slapping the sides of my face while varying how open my mouth was and, ultimately and inevitably, wondering if Alyson Hannigan, wherever she was now, was naked. As I fished out the teabag and made one, final effort to come to a decision regarding the Alyson Hannigan thing, Margret returned home from work. She dumped various bits of her day about the place until she had only a carrier bag left. From this bag she pulled a plate of cold, cooked meat covered with cling film and moved over to put it in the fridge. Before she did so, however, she peeled back the film and folded a slice into her mouth. She offered me the plate — I took a slice too. She made to turn to the open fridge once more, but then offered me the plate again in a 'Before I put it away?' fashion. I took another slice. She then put the meat away and closed the fridge door. As I stood there chewing, she swept off towards the living room, saying — distractedly, without looking back — "Eat it whenever you fancy. It's Pam's husband."