Last night a dinner party chez nous. Late afternoon I get a call. "X and I aren't coming. We've split up. I'm sorry. It would be too awful to come alone." This is unfortunate. Because I've cooked chicken and leek pie in their honour. This despite pleas from others that I change my repetoire. "You make a fantastic pie," one guest trilled when I finally dished up. "But why do you have to make so many?" A second invited couple turned out to be at war, too. Though still together. She arrived, graciously apoplectic, 90 minutes ahead of him. Thankfully, I'd put them at different ends of the table. My consort for the evening was a gay friend who announced: "I'm fed up of sex, aren't you? All that endless stoking!" I'd never thought of sex in those terms before. "I think," I said, "that it's about politics. In the bedroom the woman is necessarily the receptor, and deferring to the man feels natural and right. When two men get together, they're equal in equipment and status. The act has more serious connotations." Oi vey! Meanwhile, two media luvvies were indulging in starbursts of venom against their perceived rivals. I watched as the poor man seated between them suffered aural pulverisation by harpies. His wife said admiringly: "Your children are very good. Do they always just leave you to it?" My children aren't particularly good, but they're smart. They'd elected for a separate feast, with a friend, in the kitchen. There were moments, it must be said, when I was tempted to join them;-)