I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan

Putting a damp spoon back in the bowl is the tea-drinking equivalent of sharing a needle. And I did not want to end up with the tea-drinking equivalent of AIDS.

Hello, Alan." said Carol's dad Keith. "Hello, Alan." said Carol's mum, Stella, not bothering to think of a greeting of her own.

The human brain comprises 70% water, which means it's a similar consistency to tofu. Picture that for a second - a blob of tofu the size and shape of a brain. Now imagine taking that piece of tofu, and forcing your thumbs into it hard. It would burst wouldn't it? Okay, now imagine those thumbs weren't thumbs but thumb-shaped pieces of bad news. And there weren't two of them, they were about half a dozen. Imagine you were forcing all six pieces of bad news - a divorce, multiple career snubs, accusations from the family of a dead celebrity, estranged kids, borderline homelessness, that kind of thing - into a piece of tofu. With me? Good. Now imagine it's not tofu, but a human brain. And they're not pieces of bad news but six human thumbs. That's what happened to me. In 2001, my brain had half a dozen thumbs pushed into it.

I’d spend hours in HMVs, Virgin Megastores and second-hand record shops staffed by greasy-haired 40-year-olds dressed as 20-year-olds, listening to contemporary music of every genre – Britrock, heavy maiden, gang rap, brakebeat. And I came to a startling but unshakeable conclusion: no genuinely good music has been created since 1988.

For three long days, I felt the cold hand of death on my shoulder. Lost in the depths of despair I tried to figure out what I had done to deserve this. I wasn't an evil person. The worst thing I'd ever done was kick a pig - School trip to Heston Farm, 1964, I maintain it was self-defence.

The father, Trevor, was an asthmatic, but what he lacked in being able to breath quietly, he more than made up for with parental skills.

Sadly, I can't say the same for my Father, who is probably in a different place - Hell.

He is also a keen cook, gardener and birder. He has no middle fingers on one hand, so he can't swear but is permanently doing the heavy metal sign.

I woke with a start. At first I assumed I’d trumped myself awake again .

I woke with a start, at first I thought I had trumped myself awake again - it was summer so there was lots of fresh vegetables in our diet. But as I listened through the darkness I realized that something far worse was going on. My mother and father were having the row to end all rows. A sudden shot of fear ripped through my pre-pubic body. And now I did trump. The noise fizzled out of my back passage like a child calling for help. That child was me.

Snowflakes fell from the sky like tiny pieces of a snowman who had stood on a landmine.

Like a good-looking John Merrick, mine was a face that looked really shit.

Sport, on the other hand, is straightforward. In badminton, if you win a rally, you get one point. In volleyball, if you win a rally, you get one point. In tennis, if you win a rally, you get 15 points for the first or second rallies you’ve won in that game, or 10 for the third, with an indeterminate amount assigned to the fourth rally other than the knowledge that the game is won, providing one player is two 10-point (or 15-point) segments clear of his opponent. It’s clear and simple.

As I write these words I’m noisily chomping away on not one, but two Murray Mints. I’ve a powerful suck and soon they’ll be whittled away to nothing. But for the time being at least they have each other. For the time being, they are brothers. Which is more than could be said for me, for I was an only child. I

If I was feeling like a challenge, I'd kick out the plug, turn the taps on and see if I could maintain the exact water level. It was a bit like balancing the clutch in an old Mini Metro. Although tricky at first, by the time I checked out I could find the bath's biting point within three minutes. Satisfying? Just bit.

Tears streamed down my face. I was so happy I wanted to shout it from the rooftop. But at the same time I knew that that afternoon's downpour would have made the slate tiles so slippery that achieving any kind of purchase would have been impossible.