This is actually not that funny to those who've been thru the mill and out the other side with only half a brain hanging by a thread.

Is there a phrase for esprit de cercueil or esprit de tombe? There should be.

I write to my girls and complain that only now that I am emerging from the brain-dead numbness to which I was reduced to see me through the past six years am I discovering the violence of word and deed that I should have had at my command.

How I could have used that cartoon up there:

Print copies to have within reach of the dinner table.

Wait until I'm having to nod for the umpteenth fucking time at the line.

Rise and stride to bookshelf. Take down any old book and rip wrench tear it from its bindings.

Crumple pages and drop them into the bin

March back to kitchen, collecting copy of the cartoon en route.

SLAM page flat down in front of maman. No, I said slam, not poncy slapping it down as if you were merely trying to make the rafters rattle.

"There! You think you're so fucking clever coming up with that line every time, as if 'Ooh, listen to me, aren't I thoughtful, remembering that I don't always remember?

I mean, my memory can't be that bad, can it? I can't really be repeating myself 'ad fucking murderous nauseam', as he pretends I go on ... not if I can still remember to tell people to stop me.'

See this so-called cartoon? Ha ha, very funny. You can tell he hasn't bloody gone through it.

I'm going to pin it up here and when we have dinners I'm going to make it the centre-piece and the moment you spout the line, I'm going to take the main course from the oven, chuck it out the window, then down to the Marina for fish n chips, decent sane conversation with points made once only ... and lots and lots of anaesthetising grog to once again wash away the humiliating memory of your treadmill gardenry hobby!

Be doing the guests a favour, too. They don't fancy hearing the same old roobish for the 100th time any more than I do for the 1,000th. Anyway, all that trying to keep a polite expression - can't be good for their Botox.