Saturday morning, the phone rang. "Hello Gorgeous, I've lost roof tiles and I'm flooding. I won't be there for lunch." I made soothing noises. And told my eldest she'd have to make up numbers at my lunch do. We set the table for eight. Given the Noah-like rains, everyone was running late. I upset the first arrivals with my tale of the kilted comedian's theatrical death. I thought they'd laugh. It happens to us all, doesn't it? But he's their mate. You'd have thought someone had... died. Then I upset both them and the second arrivals. By defending a reviled rightwing meeja harpie. Who's my mate. "How can you bear her?" one asked. And literally shrank from me. Things were not going well. Pouring vino recklessly I prayed the final guests would soon turn up. The phone rang. It was the male of the missing party. "I'm making a treacle tart for tonight, so don't defrost one of your standbys." "Tonight?" I bellowed. "It's lunch!" Silence. Holding my emotions in check, I decided to make the best of a bad lot. Roast lamb with lots of argument about and around global warming. On which one of the guests is a world expert. They'll soon bore of this, I thought. And then I can go out. Hurrah: it's Saturday! But they didn't bore. And the last two stayed till eleven. So the only place I went was bed:-o