"Money ploughed in to a house is a value multiplier" I breezily told a friend . We were talking about house renovations. Never, ever done one, of course, which was why it was easy to talk so assuredly: "...it´ll get messy, always does, builders never easy to handle. Still stay the course, keep the betablockers locked in the medical cabinet, it's absolutely worth it..." I omitted to either top or tail that piece of glibness with... eventually.

One thing lead to another and I found myself backtracking through my girlfriend catalogue (single page, lots of white space. Font size 36. Double spaced.), and picked out an interesting theme: women like men who build things (I don´t. I can´t. I've tried).

Four of the women who have held my arm at some point in time, have been out with a builder before they met me, or gaduated on to one later. That is n't coincidence. Maybe it's this so called nest building thing. Now, if someone had given me a meccano set when I was a kid.

And it was n't as if I came from a soft handed family either: my father was a steel worker. Ergo, I should be at one with the lathe, saw, or angle grinder. In transcendental unity with all tools. I'm not.