Reply to Glenn's letter.

Dear Glenn I don't know why Sergeant Brighouse made you do desert training, because you certainly won't be going to Iraq. If Saddam refuses to give up his Weapons of Mass Destruction there is bound to be a long-drawn-out period of negotiation. The diplomats will sort everything out. And anyway, you are too young. You are still only seventeen and are not old enough to fight. So rest assured, son, the nearest thing to danger you will experience this year will be meeting up with a girl you found on the Internet.

Have a good time, but remember to drive carefully on the M4. Keep well back from lorries. They are constantly jack-knifing or shedding their loads, and white minibuses are notoriously accident-prone. Steer clear of them. A thousand people die on Britain's roads every year, and countless thousands are injured or permanently disabled.

Please don't drink eleven pints again. You are putting a terrible strain on your system, not to mention your bladder.

Make sure you have a condom with you. Bear in mind that over half of Britain's women have a sexually transmittable disease: 30 per cent have chlamydia, for instance, 20 per cent have genital warts and an unknown quantity have syphilis, which causes your nose to rot away and eventually fall off.

But have a good time in Bristol, son, and congratulations to you and Robbie on your darts triumph.

Love Dad Tuesday December 3rd Don't ask me why, but I had expected the chimney sweep to be a bow-legged little man covered in soot, wearing a flat cap and carrying circular brushes over one shoulder. However, the 'sweep' was wearing a suit, collar and tie, was perfectly groomed and had immaculately clean fingernails. He attached a bag over the opening of the fireplace and turned on a vacuum machine. It was all over in ten minutes.

I said, 'I don't suppose you officiate at many weddings nowadays, do you?'

He said that his grandfather used to hang about outside the church, dressed in traditional chimney sweep clothes, but had stopped doing it after an unfortunate incident with a bag of soot and a crinoline-styled white wedding dress.

I suggested to him that he should think about describing himself as a chimney sucker rather than a chimney sweep. But he seemed unwilling to take this on board.

The fireplace is very pretty. There are old-fashioned, tulip-patterned red tiles surrounding the grate.

I went to the BP garage at the bottom of the High Street and lugged back two mesh bags of logs. I went out again for matches and firelighters. When I got back I found Mr Carlton-Hayes tearing up strips of the Guardian and twisting them into spills for the fire. Don't ask me why, diary, but it was quite an emotional moment when Mr Carlton-Hayes touched the first firelighter with a Guardian spill. The little fire roared away and the logs began to spit and crack in the grate. Mr Carlton-Hayes had to stamp on some of the flying embers. Mindful of the recent announcement by the striking fire fighters' leader, Andy Gilchrist, that he intends to topple New Labour, I left the shop yet again and ran across the road to Debenhams and bought a fireguard.

Later we cleared a space around the fire by moving some bookshelves. We then amalgamated British Politics with American History, which made space for two armchairs.

The fire was an instant success. A teenage boy who came in looking for an aircraft book for his dad's Christmas present said it was the most realistic fire he had ever seen. When I told him the log fire was not a gas facsimile, he said the fire was cool.

Mr Carlton-Hayes joined us and said that it was a shame 'one couldn't buy coal these days'.

The youth said, 'Coal, what's that?'

Mr Carlton-Hayes patiently explained to the boy that once upon a time men descended into the bowels of the earth via a cage on a pit head pulley. Once there, they crawled on their hands and knees through dark tunnels until they reached what was called the coal face, whereupon they hacked at the coal with pickaxes. Coal was the fossilized remains of trees. Large lumps of coal were thrown on to a conveyor belt and taken to the surface of the mine, where it was broken into small pieces, put into hundredweight sacks and delivered by lorry to every household in the land, where it was burnt in fireplaces and kitchen ranges, supplying heat for comfort and for cooking.

The boy listened with something akin to wonder, reminding me of the famous oil painting of the old sailor mending his nets and telling two young boys about his maritime adventures.

The youth said, 'So have I got this right? You used to, like, chuck these lumps of black shiny stuff on to the fire and set them alight?'

I told the youth that in my boyhood coal had been superseded by electric storage heaters, which consisted of a pile of electrically heated bricks inside a metal box.

The boy's eyes widened further.

'My father used to sell them,' I added. 'Before he was made redundant, like the miners.

Mr Carlton-Hayes said, 'The miners were not made redundant, Adrian, their jobs were stolen from them by Mrs Thatcher: The youth said, 'We haven't done Thatcher yet. We're still on the First World War.'

I managed to flog him The Observer's Book of Aircraft for his dad.

Wednesday December 4th New Moon 3 a.m.

Unable to sleep tonight due to money worries. Will my car have to go?

Thursday December 5th Received an invitation for a New Year's Eve party from Tania Braithwaite. It is fancy dress. I can't afford to hire an elaborate costume: I may go as Osama bin Laden. All I will need are a few sheets, an old bathrobe, a pair of sandals and a false beard.

Friday December 6th According to the Daily Mail, Cherie Blair is dabbling in the occult and cannot decide whether to have tea or coffee in the morning without consulting a medium in Dorking called Sylvia. Mrs Blair surrounds herself with gurus and mystics. It seems you cannot move in No. 10 before tripping over crystals and astrological charts.

Marigold said, 'It's good to know that someone of the New Age is married to the most powerful person in Britain.'

Saturday December 7th We are getting through four bags of logs a day at a cost of PS3 a bag.

I was slightly nervous all day while I was at work. I had given my parents a spare key to my apartment and ntl were calling at 11.30 to connect me to over 200 television channels, at a cost of PS66 a month. I will find the money somehow. A man of my intellect cannot afford to ignore global culture.

I got home from work to find my mother on the balcony, feeding the swans with croissants she had taken from my freezer. When I objected that (a) I do not want to encourage the long-necked bullies to congregate below my balcony, and (b) the frozen croissants were for my personal consumption -- I eat two every morning before going to work -- she said swans are strange creatures with special powers, you have to be nice to them or they'll turn against you and make your life a misery.

I could see that the ntl engineer had turned up as promised. My father was watching Formula One racing live from Adelaide. I asked him to turn the volume down. He dithered over the five remote controls that are needed to operate the home entertainment centre, but only succeeded in turning the volume up to a torturous level that made my heart beat faster and my ears vibrate. It sounded as though Michael Schumacher was in my living room, revving his engine.

I tried to turn the television off at the front of the set, but there was no obvious button or switch. The noise became intolerable.

My mother screamed, 'Where's the operating manual?'

Before I could find the relevant page, there was an angry banging on my door. I opened it to find a tall, gaunt-looking young woman with long blonde hair parted in the middle. She looked like the type of woman my mother would have described as 'living on her nerves. She shouted, 'Turn it down.' Her voice sounded tight in her larynx. Her hands were clenched. I could imagine that under the white tracksuit she was wearing, her buttocks were also clenched.

I shouted above the screaming of the Formula One cars that I couldn't work the remotes. The young woman pushed in, picked up one of the five remote controls and pressed a button. Silence fell.

She said, 'Sorry, but I cannot bear noise. I live above you.

I introduced myself and my parents. She shook our hands and said that she was Mia Fox. I apologized for disturbing her and said that I was normally a considerate neighbour. She said that she would have to go back upstairs because she had left something on the stove.

My father asked me if he could watch the Miss World Competition. He said, 'We've only got terrestrial and the BBC are refusing to show it.'

I have watched the Miss World Competition with my father since I was a small boy. In those halcyon days I knew no better. My father would spend an hour before the competition started on drawing up two identical charts, one for him and one for me.

My father taught me to give points for face, bust, legs, bum and niceness. We would enter the marks for each contestant. It was one of the few activities that I ever shared with him. I was a great disappointment to him when I was a boy. I did not like football, cricket or fishing, but he was proud of my skill in predicting who would wear the crown and sash and weep tears of joy on being pronounced Miss World.

I heard from the radio next to my futon on the BBC World Service that Miss Turkey won. Apparently they are going mad in Istanbul.

Iraq has presented the United Nations with 12,000 pages of documentation about their weapons programmes. So it looks as though war has been averted, thank God.

Sunday December 8th Marigold rang me at 8.30 this morning and begged me to come to Beeby on the Wold for lunch. She said something terrible had happened.

I said, 'Why can't you tell me over the phone?'

She said that she couldn't possibly talk about it over the phone and started to cry.

I wanted to shout, 'I don't care what catastrophe has happened to you. I would sooner eat my own arm than drive fifteen miles and spend five or six hours with your gruesome family, being patronized and used as a domestic drudge.'

But I didn't. I agreed to be there on time for the humanist prayer that Michael Flowers intoned at the head of the table instead of saying grace.

I stopped at an off-licence and bought a bottle of French rose as I had read in the Sunday Times that it was newly fashionable if served chilled.

Marigold ran out of the house to greet me as I parked.

She didn't look like a woman who'd had a recent terrible experience. However, she did look terrible. She was wearing harem pants, a plaid shirt and the tartan headband. Her hair needed washing and her spectacles were smeared.

I could not resist taking them off and cleaning them with my handkerchief.

She said, 'So you do love me?'

I made a noncommittal grunting noise and said, 'So what has happened?'

She said, 'Mummy and Daddy might be getting a divorce. They've called the family together to talk about it. Daisy has come up from London and Poppy is here.' She was pulling me towards the front door.

I said, 'But the family won't want me there. I'll leave you all in peace to talk it over among yourselves.'

Marigold said, 'Please don't go. I need your support. But please don't be offended by anything Daisy might say. She's half Mexican, you know.'

The front door opened and Michael Flowers bellowed, 'Come in, come in, my boy. The food is on the table!'

Daisy Flowers sat next to me in the dining room. Her perfume was overpowering. She looked as though she had stepped out of the pages of TV Quick. Her black hair was piled on top of her head and skewered together by what looked like a thin bone. She had dark olive skin and her breasts wobbled like the jellies my grandma used to serve up for Sunday tea. I didn't know where to put my eyes. Her legs were hidden under the table. She was almost, but not quite, as beautiful as Pandora Braithwaite.

She said, 'Hello, Adrian. I know everything there is to know about you. Marigold is never off the phone to me.

Her voice was deep. I asked her if she had a cold. She laughed and threw her head back, exposing her lovely throat. I wanted to sink my teeth into her neck.

Poppy sat opposite. She had tamed her hair into two immensely long, fat plaits. She looked disturbingly like a middle-aged Heidi. She said disapprovingly, 'Daisy has been smoking since she was thirteen years old, that's why she sounds like a mating walrus.'

Netta Flowers came in with a gravy boat full of what I presumed to be vegetarian gravy and set it down. My rose wine was the most colourful thing on the table.

Michael Flowers got to his feet, paused dramatically and then announced, 'This could be the last meal we eat together as a complete family unit. Netta and I are no longer sexually compatible. My darling wife informed me last night that she is about to embark on a sexual adventure with Roger Middleton.'

Netta looked around at her daughters for their reaction. Poppy and Marigold looked down at the tablecloth.

Daisy reached for the rose, took a corkscrew from out of her bag and said, 'Roger Middleton? The seriously weird lavender supplier with the nose?' She pulled the cork and slopped the rose into my glass before filling her own.

Poppy said, 'Roger Middleton is half your age, Mummy.'

Netta smiled and adjusted the ruched neckline of her gypsy blouse.

Flowers said, 'For what we are about to receive, may Mother Nature make us truly grateful.'

Bowls of food were passed around and various brown baked things were put on to plates.

I thought about the magnificent roast dinners that my grandmother used to make for me, of how she would cut the fat off the beef and hand it to me as a special treat.

When everyone had food on their plates, Michael Flowers said, 'I would like to open the debate. The question is, should Mummy and I have an open marriage during which Mummy and Roger Middleton have it off and I cast myself into the uncertainties of the singles circuit? Or should we divorce, sell the house and shop, and go our separate ways?'

When nobody said anything, he said, looking at me, 'C'mon, family, what do you think, eh?'

I grew more alarmed with every minute that passed. For some inexplicable reason, he was treating me as though I were a member of his family.

Marigold half sobbed and said, 'But, Daddy, I want you and Mummy to live in this house for ever.

Netta said, 'Oh, Mazzie darling, you're being a teensy-weensy bit selfish. You'll be getting married yourself and leaving us one day, won't you? Perhaps one day soon?'

The Flowers family looked at me en masse. I felt a bit like sobbing myself.

Marigold said, 'Nobody will ever marry me, will they? I'm far too plain and dull.'

She waited for a response.

Netta said, 'Remember what your therapist told you, Mazzie. You must learn to love yourself first.'

Poppy said, 'She should have spent the money on having her hair done.'

Daisy added, 'Or buying a few decent clothes.'

Marigold buried her head in my shoulder. I felt obliged to put my arm around her.

Daisy said to me, sotto voce, 'If I were you, I'd run while there's still time.'

Michael and Netta Flowers both got to their feet and said, 'Hug time,' and enveloped Marigold in their parental embrace.

Daisy turned her head away and put her index finger down her throat.

I don't know how I got through the rest of the meal. Netta and Michael Flowers talked openly and frankly about their psycho-sexual problem in toe-curling detail. At one point we were forced to listen as Netta recounted how she had pleasured Michael during a Bob Dylan concert on the Isle of Wight.

Eventually Poppy stood up and said to her parents, 'I can't listen to any more of this filth. You have both put me off sex for life. I hated the way you both walked around the house naked and wouldn't allow us to have locks on any door.'

The meal ended in tears and recriminations. Michael Flowers said over the heads of the sobbing women, 'It's so good that a family can talk openly and frankly about these things, isn't it, Adrian?'

I said, 'But nothing has been decided. Is Netta going to sleep with Roger Middleton or not?'

Netta said, 'I will decide by visiting a rowan tree at midnight. If an owl hoots after I have sung my rowan song, I will sleep with Roger in an open marriage. If the owl is silent I will divorce Daddy and take him to court, for half the value of this house and half the value of the shop.'

Then, to my horror, she sang the rowan song: 'O rowan tree, O rowan tree, Hey nonny no, how sad I be, There is a man that I do love, He be my dear, my turtle dove, If I do lie with him abed And he do kiss my bonny head, Will he stay or will he go?

Hey nonny, nonny, nonny, no.

When she had finished singing, Daisy, quite cruelly I thought, gave an owl impression.

I started to clear the table, but Michael Flowers said, 'No, let the women take care of the washing-up. I'd like to see you in my study.'

I would sooner have climbed into the bear pit at Whipsnade Zoo naked and covered in honey than gone into Flowers's study, but I went anyway, because anything, anything, was better than staying in a room with three weeping women.

Flowers sat behind his desk and put a hand over his eyes. I didn't know whether to remain standing or sit down on the battered leather and mahogany chair in front of the desk.

He said, 'Adrian, I think I am a good man. I have certainly tried to better the lives of humankind. I walked in a wet duffel coat to Aldermaston every Easter weekend for ten years. I donated and erected tents for the women at Greenham Common. I sent a fruit basket to Nelson Mandela at Robben Island. I delivered 100 vegetarian samosas to the picket line at a Nottingham coal field and I attempted to bring a little culture to the working men's clubs by singing Schubert, but bingo put paid to that. I'm bitterly disappointed with the English working classes, Adrian. They've chosen consumerism over art, materialism over culture and celebrity-worship over robust spirituality.

'I have asked for so very little for myself. My needs are few: sufficient daily quantities of vegetables and fruit, good bread, a jug of home-brewed ale, books of course. But most of all, Adrian, most of all I have had the love of my family. I have been blessed with two extraordinary wives and three daughters, two of them loving.'