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This is how much I hate vacuum cleaners. If you put a vacuum cleaner and a George Osborne in front of me, and told me I could either smash the vacuum cleaner into tiny pieces with a lump hammer, or set fire to all George Osborne’s money, note by precious note, right in front of his grieving piggy eyes, I would smash the vacuum cleaner.

Here’s how much I hate vacuum cleaners. If I was striding along the beach on a sunlit desert island and happened upon a dusty old bottle and gave it a polish and a genie popped out and granted me three wishes, the first thing I would wish for, before world peace and an end to poverty, before sex and drugs and rock’n’roll, before an army of tanned Swedish nannies to look after the children for me, before all that, the first thing I would wish for is to never ever ever have to pick up a fucking hoover for the rest of my life, ever. That’s how much I hate them.

Yeah, yeah. I know they keep our homes clean and therefore prevent us getting all sorts of unspeakable diseases. Blah-di-blah.

They’re a self-fulfilling prophecy, that’s what they are: you clean your house so the next time a speck of dust lands on a polished surface it stands out like a principle in the Conservative Party, so you have to get the thing out again. Back in the day, when we had nice friendly simple brooms, the dust and filth just piled up until Easter and then you flung open the windows, scraped it all out the door and heaved a sigh of relief at the end of the chores for another year.

Now the dust shows up all the time, on our bare wooden floors and our scrubbed pine furniture and our electronics and our shiny children, so we must clean all the time, dragging a recalcitrant 10-ton weight behind us, snagging cables on every obstacle, blocking nozzles with semi-chewed crisps or eight-day-old underpants, plugging and unplugging, blocking and unblocking as we move from room to room, dropping the nozzle, losing the clever little brush attachment, changing the hoover bag and then dropping dust from the old one all over the floor, hauling the bloody thing upside down with a resounding crash because the wheels got stuck on a carpet edge, chipping paint off the walls and skirting boards when you give the thing a tug.

Once, Old Father Cullingham and I were talking Hoovers: “Mine’s called Henry”, he said; I replied: “Mine’s called You Bastard.”

Actually, I’ve changed my mind. About the first wish, I mean, not about vacuum cleaners.

This is what I would wish for: a reversal button. I would use this so that I could make everything that’s supposed to be bad for me, good instead. Then, pausing for buttered toast and a bacon sandwich, a strong black coffee and about five cigarettes, one after the other, I’d crack the first bottle of the day – 10am, surely not too early? – and have a stiffener before heading off to the pub. An army of generously paid staff would do all the things I’m told I have to do to be healthy: walk the dog, dig the garden, eat the muesli, drink the water, abjure the tasty food, while I prepared to finish the day with rampant indiscretion and a curry. That’s what I’d do.

Politics of mercy

Let’s leave the politics up to others for a change this week, eh? Please, though, do read Matthew Norman’s outstanding article from the Independent in which he defends the principles of care and compassion against the wicked assault of the right: www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/not-since-the-1980s-have-our-leaders-so-cruelly-bullied-the-poor-8531520

And thanks once again to Brother Fiddle, always on the lookout for voices raised against unfairness and injustice, for spotting Fleet Street Fox’s brilliant assault on the bedroom tax: www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/bedroom-tax-second-home-politicians-1765546

Finally on politics: as you know, I am not a vindictive man, so I can only note that the Coconut Eating Crab, who holds the fate of all of us in His or Her mighty pincers, has extended His or Her gracious but very very rare mercy even unto the least deserving. Jeffrey Archer said last week that Margaret Thatcher was now so far gone with dementia that, when he visits, she doesn’t know it’s him. A great mercy indeed.

What is it we organise in breweries?

And finally, Brother Hamster, this may be a well-kept secret to you, but there is an old proverb warning about the difficulty of organising well-lubricated social events in centres of alcohol.