Mary was just lucky she never had to explain her story to the Child Support Agency

Anyway, a childbirth is pretty bad if the child hasn't turned in the womb. It was routinly fatal for both mother and child not so long ago.

I find having to pay for a round of drinks to be pretty painful, if that counts

You think you guys are debauched? Try doing a google on the antics of the Roman Emperor Elagabalus. He makes the likes of Caligula and Nero seem like paragons of virtue in comparison, although sadly modern scholars think that the stuff about his chariot and the four women was just later propoganda.

I nominate Charlotte Church. There are plenty of other irritating singers, but she wins out because she is Welsh, which means she gets lots of media attention here in Wales, especially on a slow news day when there's been less than a dozen murders in Newport.

The local media have dubbed Charlotte Church and whoever she is shacked up with this week as the Welsh equivalent to David & Victoria Beckham, basically because the most trivial aspects of their lives are headline news.

So would the boys if it wasn't for one key factor - Bond girls!!!

Don't be surprised if the family at number 14 don't recognise you either. I know several people who went home from university only to find out that their family had moved house without mentioning it to them

For me, the very worst adverts are those adult chatlines that advertise after the watershed. I mean, what kind of pathetic individual seriously thinks that the scantily clad women they feature in those adverts have any trouble picking up men?

That depends on how much it costs you to visit your mother. Train fares and petrol costs are ridiculous these days.

A highly sensible and enlightened attitude towards Mother's Day. If we don't make a stand now, where will it end? Will we be expected to shell out on cards wishing people a happy holocaust day? Far better to be honest with the world and take pride in the fact that you are a miser than to boost the profits of Hallmark and Thorntons!

FA, I'm glad to know that if bird flu wipes out most of the human race, we can rely on you to do your bit to repopulate the planet.

Don't worry, I am very sensitive to my local environment, and I therefore pick most flowers from my NEIGHBOURs garden.

Bearing in mind what sort of grumpy person I am, I think that it is entirely appropriate for me to give a loved one a bouquet of poison ivy, stinging nettles, bindweed, wild foxgloves and thistles.

After all, if she is put off by a few stings and a spot of poison, she is hardly likely to be able to cope with a lifetime of being married to me.

And don't get me started on May Day traditions such as the Oxford University bridge jump and the symbolism of May Poles.

Easter? I resent spending out good money on one molecule thick easter eggs. And as it's a school holiday, I also have to put up with my paper arriving late for two whole weeks!

For me, it also means the tourist season starting in ernest. This means more crowds of American tourists saying "Gee, isn't this a cute lil English village?", which is a mortal insult in Wales. Yes there are actually tourists who say stuff like that, usually just before they ask me for directions

I've got an idea that valentines day roses are importd from the tropics and the southern hemisphere. The need to provide artificial sunlight and warmth makes them expensive to grow in Holland over the winter.

I would suggest going over to what species are growing wild where you live in mid-February. Try kidding your partner into thinking there is an old romantic tradition associated with poison ivy or a Leylandii cutting.

Remember that picking wild plants and doing a bit of flower arranging is infinitely cheaper than dealing with Interflora.

I'm not so sure: a bloke sratching himself where it itches as opposed to where it is more polite is hardly a revelation

As for Valentines Day, I hate it. Why should I spend literally pounds on a bit of cheap card? As for the association of red roses with Valentines Day, whose bright idea was that? Where do they expect me to get roses from at this time of year? The few people who sell (imported) roses know they can get away with a spot of price gouging. And don't get me started on Valentines day themed chocolate.

My advice is to dump your partner on February 13th, and find a new one on the 15th. If everybody does this, we can end the scourge of Valentines Day!

Well, Norway is still a major oil exporter, which helps their government to balance the budget.

The tax system in Britain is daft. You even get penalised if you try to save money instead of irresponsibly buying stuff you cannot afford on credit and going into a debt you will probably never escape from. Share dividend and interest in most bank accounts are treated as taxable income. If you try to set up a private pension scheme instead of depending on the soon to be cancelled state pension, you can be sure that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will do a Robert Maxwell. And then a surprising number of state benefits are already means tested, which means that people who find themselves on benefits are punished for having any savings.

Things are only going to get worse over the next few years. Gordon Brown's tax and spending plans assumed that the economy would grow at a far greater rate than it has been managing lately, which has created a black hole that can only be filled by either budget cuts or tax increases. Just guess which one he will go for...

Around one million jobs have been lost in manufacturing since Blair came to power. Coincidentally, this is about the same as the number of local and national government jobs that he has created. It has been a long time since I had the courage to look at Britain's balance of trade figures.

As for the war in Iraq, we budgeted for a quick victory and the cost of the occupation and rebuilding being entirely met by Iraq's oil revenues. Instead, there is a long, drawn out war with no end in sight and the Iraqi oil industry largely shut down by the insurgents. Wait until the Iraqis start demanding compensation for the invasion and occupation. Cherie Blair will no doubt get millions of pounds in legal fees by fighting their case.