I’m an insomniac. I am rarely asleep before 3am. I have a friend ‘Colin’, who occasionally drunk dials me late at night. He’s never managed to wake me. Once I was actually about to go to bed. It was 4.30am.  Lately, when the phone rings, I would like it very much to be Colin posing a difficult philosophical question with that complex, sozzled mind of his, because recently, it’s Dad.

When was the last time we praised the House of Tar-jay? Yesterday I was in there and discovered this generously sized basket - nay almost a mega BUCKET - in which we, the consumers, can place the treasures we find at that citadel of retailing opulence. Maybe they pinched the idea from Colonel Sanders , I'm not sure, but the fact that we will be able to BUY MORE without wheeling a cumbersome trolley through the aisles, makes one feel happy and satisfied with the Target experience. Mr Trivia

 According to the Wikipedia ‘tsk!’ is American English and ‘tut!’ is English. Both are supposed to be onomatopoeic representations of the disapproving sound one makes with the teeth and tongue to indicate disapproval. Personally, I prefer the ‘tsk’ to the ‘tut’ but let’s focus on the doughnut and not the hole, fellow zeitgeisters. I learnt early on the power of the ‘tsk’ from my mother. Strangely she didn’t overuse it in real life, preferring to reserve it for watching television. Some of jewels of 1970s and 1980s television were tsked over with great gusto. The bombing of NUMBER 96, Fergo the Freak’s reign of Terror in PRISONER, JR’s latest dirty trick in DALLAS; all were occasions upon which Mum would shake her head and tsk at the acts of low character she saw taking place first on the Healing black and white set, then on our Kriesler 36-inch colour telly. Over the years, I’ve become used to Mum’s habit of dismissing a character’s act of evil with the slow, tut. Usually a tr...