20

We're staying at a German friend's flat in Berlin and he brings out the photo album, as people do when conversational desperation has set in. It's largely pictures of a holiday he went on with Margret and a few friends several years previously. And consists pretty much entirely of shots of Margret naked. 'Hah! So, here's another photo of your girlfriend nude! Good breasts, no?' I sat on the sofa for hours of this — I think I actually bit through my tongue at one point. Fortunately, though, everything turned out all right because Margret, me and one careful and considered exchange of views revealed it was, '…just ( my ) hang-up.' Great. I'm sooooo English, apparently.

21

See if you can spot the difference between these two statements:

(a) «Those trousers make your backside look fat.»

(b) «You're a repellently obese old hag upon whom I am compelled to heap insults and derision — depressingly far removed from the, 'stupid, squeaky, pocket-sized English women,' who make up my vast catalogue of former lovers and to whom I might as well return right now as I hate everything about you.»

Maybe the acoustics were really bad in the dining room, or something.

22

She keeps making me carry tampons around — 'Here, have these, just in case.'

'Oooooooh, why can't you carry them?'

'I've got no pockets.'

Then, of course, I forget about them. And the next time I'm meeting The Duchess of Kent or someone I pull a handkerchief out of my pocket and shower feminine hygiene products everywhere.

23

She really over-reacts whenever she catches me wearing her underwear.

24

Now, what you have to realise is that this was from nowhere, OK? Don't think there were previous conversations or situations that put this in context. Oh no. Just imagine the, 'What the f …?' moment you'd have been standing in if your partner had said this to you, because you'd have had as much preparation as I did. So, it's just after Christmas and Margret's moaning about her present (I forget what it was, a Ferrari, I think — but in the wrong colour or something), um, actually, let me come back to this, that reminds me…

25

Presents. Before every birthday, Christmas or whatever I'll say, 'What do you want?' And Margret will say, 'Surprise me.' And I'll reply, 'Noooooo, just tell me what you want. If I guess it'll be the wrong thing, it's always the wrong thing.' And then she'll come out with that, 'No, it won't. It'll be what you chose, and a surprise, that's what's important,' nonsense. And I'll say, 'Sweetest, you say that now, but come Christmas morning it'll be, "What the hell were you thinking?" again, won't it?' And she replies, 'No. It. Won't.' And I say, 'Yes, it will.' And she says, 'Don't patronise me.' And the neighbours freeze in their seats for a moment next door, before jumping up and removing anything they have on the shelves on the adjoining wall. And, in the end, Margret gets her way. And I hunt around in utter desperation for two months for something before finally finding the one item that will work at 7.30pm on Christmas Eve for a cost of twenty-three-and-a-half thousands pounds. And on Christmas morning it's, 'What the hell were you thinking?' But anyway.

26

Back at the previous item, it's just after Christmas and Margret's going on about her present, which was, you'll recall, a necklace of a single diamond suspended on a delicate chain of white gold and sapphires. And this is what I hear come out of her mouth — 'Why didn't you get me a wormery, I dropped enough hints?' You what?

27

I get accused of hoarding things by Margret. Now, this is entirely unfair — electrical items never die, you see, I am merely unable to revive them with today's technology. In the future new techniques will emerge and, combined with the inevitably approaching shortage of AC adapters and personal cassette players, my foresight will pay off and the grateful peoples of the Earth will make me their God. Anyway, never mind that now, because the real point is that it's Margret who fills our house with crap. And I'm not talking about doing so by the omission of crap-throwing-away here, but by insane design. While sorting out the stuff in the boxes, these are some of the things I've discovered that Margret actually packed away at our last house and brought to our new one:

* A dentist's cast of her teeth circa 1984.

* Empty Pringles tubes.

* Rocks (not 'special ornamental rocks', you understand, just 'rocks' from our previous garden).

* Old telephone directories.

* Two carrier bags full of scraps of material.

* Those little sachets of salt and sugar you get with your meal on planes.

* Some wooden sticks.

* Last year's calendar.

And yet, were I to throw her from a train, they'd call me the criminal.

28

Look, if you don't understand the rules of Robot Wars by now then I'm just not going to continue the conversation, OK?

29

Damn, damn, damn washing up. Now, in the normal course of things I do all the cooking and washing up. (This is partly due to a tactical error I made in an argument many years ago. You know when you're so angry you start blurring the line between masochistic hyperbole and usefully hissing threat? 'Well, maybe I'll just microwave all my CDs — look, look, there goes my Tom Robinson Band — feel better now?' Been there? Splendid. So, several years ago we're having this argument and somehow I found myself inhabiting a place where saying, 'OK, OK, OK — I'll do all the cooking and all the washing up all the time, then!' seemed like a hugely cunning gambit. In fact, though, this is not too bad a deal. You see, if Margret is cooking turkey (unstuffed, three-and-a-half-hours) and oven chips (20 minutes, turn once), then she'll begin putting them in the oven at precisely the same time. If Margret's preparing tea, then its style will be her variation on Sweet 'n' Sour that runs Burnt Beyond Recognition 'n' Potentially Fatal.) Can you remember what I was saying before I opened those brackets? Hold on… ah, right — washing up. Now, the thing is, if you're an English male, what you do when you leave home is go to the shop nearest to your new place, buy a Pot Noodle (Chicken and Mushroom), feast on its delights slumped on the sofa in front of the TV, swill out the plastic carton it came in, then use this carton for all your subsequent meals until you get married. There's a beauty of economy to it. Thus, when I cook a meal for four, the aftermath left in the sink as I carry the gently steaming plates to the table is a single saucepan and, if I've pulled out the all stops to dazzle visiting Royalty, perhaps a spoon. Margret cannot make cheese on toast without using every single saucepan, wok, tureen and colander in the house. Post-Margret-meal, I walk into the kitchen to discover a sink teetering with utensils holding off gravity only by the sly use of a spätzle glue.