'Oh my God,' Monica squealed with childlike excitement. Nobody had a front garden in Notting Hill. Not even Gwyneth.

Lizzie insisted that Monica summon Jodie the nanny from inside the house.

'She must bring sheets of Toby's thickest and most beautiful paper from the craft cupboard, and lots and lots of coloured crayons and pencils.'

Jodie rushed out with the required articles followed by a chuckling Toby, and to everyone's delight Lizzie set to work on the bonnet of the Mini, sketching out her entire garden concept right there and then.

Robbo smiled indulgently at his wife's enthusiasm and suggested to Jimmy that they mooch off to the pub. Which they did, leaving Lizzie scribbling away furiously while Monica brought strawberry tea and Toby and Jodie sat in the Range Rover and headbanged to 'Highway To Hell'.

Lizzie sketched palms, vines, great earthen pots with small trees in them, Japanese stones, soothing water features, pergolas with wind chimes attached and even a miniature English meadow. The end result was so lovely in itself that Monica had it framed and hung in her en suite.

And from that one beautiful vision plucked from the heady upper reaches of Lizzie's imagination had begun a feat of civil engineering more costly and more complex than had been the construction of the original five-storey house and those on either side of it put together. It was not, of course, the garden that was the problem. The problem now was where to put the cars.

'The answer's obvious,' Lizzie said as Monica and she toasted her creation with champagne. 'You put the cars under the garden.'

When Jimmy and Robbo got back from the pub (having had six pints in all, two for Jimmy and four for Robbo), they found Lizzie and Monica giggling over their champagne and announcing that the deal was done and the whole design was complete down to the minutest detail. Not the actual engineering, of course, but where all the shrubs and herbs were going to go and what colour smoked glass to have in the lift.

'Of course it'll take years to get the planning permission,' Robbo said, searching for more beer in the huge steel fridge. 'God, Jimmy, why do you always buy American beer? It does not make you look cool and it's too bloody sweet!'

'Horrid little Nazis,' Lizzie said.

'Who? Americans?' Robbo asked.

'Town planners.'

'Ah. That I agree.'

'Don't they understand that a city is alive, a living, breathing entity, not some museum piece to be pickled in aspic.'

As it turned out, getting planning permission was a breeze because Lizzie had been able to show that when the house had been built in 1814 it had actually had a front garden. In fact, by a happy chance it was the paving over of this garden in the sixties in order to create the parking area that was now revealed as illegal. No planning permission had been granted.

Jimmy's luck held yet again. It turned out to be his civic duty to install a four-car garage under his home. The Historic Buildings Trust (of which Lizzie was a benefactor) had fervently taken up Jimmy and Monica's case and the council, mindful of their legal obligations towards a Grade 2-listed street, were positively anxious for the Corbys to proceed with the massive renovation. Indeed, at one point there was even talk of a council grant to part fund the work since it was perceived as being in the best cultural interests of the community. Jimmy and Monica were sent the paperwork and invited to apply but graciously declined the offer.

'Sure, it's silly to walk away from a co-funding initiative,' Jim said at the time, 'but have you seen the length of the form? You know what? Life's too short.'

The job was a colossal undertaking since the entire five-storey building had to be underpinned while the garage was excavated under the front garden and partly beneath the house itself. Understandably this had not endeared Jimmy and Monica to their new neighbours but, as David had said when he heard about the scheme at the next curry night, fuck the neighbours.

'I'm an architect, mate,' David said. 'Neighbours object to all building plans except their own. Believe me, the same bloke telling you your Kango hammer woke his baby is secretly plotting to add an extra floor plus patio that will directly overlook your sun deck.'

During the work many a historical artefact including a number of Roman coins had been unearthed. These Monica sent straight to the British Museum.

'I suppose they might have been worth quite a bit,' she said, 'if we'd tried to sell them, but you know what? Life's too short.'

Eventually the work was completed, with 80 per cent of the parking space reclaimed as a splendid front garden (or local cat toilet as Jimmy and Monica soon discovered) and just 20 per cent reserved for the ramp which led up directly on to the pavement. This ramp was very steep but nothing that four-by-fours couldn't handle, so Jimmy got rid of Monica's Mini and bought her a brand-new Toyota Land Cruiser.

'Makes me laugh when Greenies claim there's no purpose for serious off-road vehicles in town,' Jimmy joked. 'They should see the angle on my exit ramp.'

What fun they all had as a family on the first few occasions they used it.

'Weeeeeeeeeeh,' Toby cried and they all agreed.

They held an opening party for the garden which a number of Kate Moss's circle attended (although not Kate herself) and during which cases of superb vintage wine were presented to mollify disgruntled neighbours. Everybody pronounced the garden a triumph and it was photographed for a number of magazines as an example of what could be achieved in London if people actually buckled down and made the effort. 'One Notting Hill home restored to its early-nineteenth-century glory,' the property section of the Standard read. And although it seemed unlikely that the 1814 garden had been based around Japanese plants and stones (real Japanese stones, specially imported), it was generally agreed that the overall effect was incredibly soothing.

'No matter how terrible a day it's been,' Monica told her guests as she perched on the sixteenth-century Italian marble bird table, 'this place calms me. It never fails.'

Unfortunately it was not very long before the garden lost its calming effect, and not just because of the cat shit.

'People drop their litter in it,' Monica moaned. 'Can you believe it? Fast-food wrappers and the like. I feel awful seeing poor Juanita having to clean it up. It really isn't fair on her, but people never think of that, do they? Do you know what annoys me most? The little bags of dog shit. People go to the trouble of picking up their dog's muck in a bag, but then they seem to think that's public duty enough and leave it on my bird table.'

Off road, on road Down in the sub-basement the pauper and his son got out of the lift and into the last remaining car. At least the car still felt good. It was a state-of-the-art 2008 top-of-the-topmostrange Range Rover with all the trimmings. Electric everything, a sound system that could have played Wembley Stadium, massive DVD screens in all the headrests, tinted glass and soft leather upholstery.

A huge tank of a car. An assault vehicle of a car.

Ton upon ton of shiny black steel that Jimmy was sure could knock a Humvee off the road without wobbling the suspension. It still felt good to drive it. Even now, after everything, perhaps not least because the tank was fully paid for, an as-yet-unliquefied asset. Jimmy still had it up his sleeve as a source of ready cash (if he could flog it without MasterCard, Visa, Amex or the bank finding out).

Jimmy tried to relax into the beautiful pale-cream upholstery. Or at least the upholstery which had been beautiful, pale and creamy for as long as Jimmy had employed a handyman and occasional driver to clean it. Sadly, now that the only person likely to valet the luxurious interior of his car was Jimmy himself, the soft leather had become a murky blend of soggy biscuit, McDonald's fries, baby puke, mud and chocolate.

'Why is the car always so dirty these days?' Toby asked.

'It's a survival tactic that I read about in an SAS book,' Jimmy replied, 'in case we are ever stranded on a mountain or in a hostile country. We could last for weeks just by sucking the seats.'

Toby laughed and Jimmy felt better. He was very proud of the fact that, despite his troubles, most of the time he managed to stay positive in front of his children. Toby was a little boy and he had a right to start his day with a mind uncluttered by doubt and uncertainty. Unburdened by care. Even the dreadful news about Robbo had to take second place to that fact.

Jimmy flicked the remote, opened the automatic trap and powered the huge car up the ramp.

'Weeeeeehhhhh-hooo!' he said.

'Weeeeeehhhhh-hooo!' Toby echoed.

'Rock 'n' Roll!' they shouted together.

Jimmy glanced at Toby and felt a sudden surge of joy and even optimism. A joy quite separate from his cares and worries. Divorced from the misery of his bereavement and the pressure of his finances. A joy made out of love. He had three wonderful, healthy children. Tobes, Cressie and Lillie. They were his and he was theirs. In real terms, how wealthy could a man get?

'We're surrounded, Sergeant, and the men are starving,' Jimmy said, returning to his joke and putting on a British officer's voice. 'Put that baby seat in to soak and boil it up for a nourishing stale rusk soup. And get one of the chaps to go foraging for old crisps in the seat-belt-catch orifices.'

Toby chuckled, but he wasn't having it. 'That's stupid,' he said.

'Stupid!' Jimmy said in mock horror. 'I beg to differ, Sergeant! Adequately providing for the well-being of his men is a commander's first duty.'

'Yes,' Toby insisted, 'but if the SAS were going to all the hassle of smearing food on the seats then they would probably just put some in a proper picnic basket and stick it in the boot. I mean seriously, Dad, why smear it on the seats when you could keep it fresher in a Tupperware?'

'Logical,' Jimmy conceded, 'although slightly dull. And the SAS do pride themselves on a certain eccentric flair. Not like those US Navy Seals who try to pretend they're robots. You see, you get your logic from your mother. She's the one with the steel-trap brain. I supplied your charm, your good looks and your ability to pick your nose while pretending to yawn. OK. Got a pen and paper? Let's write about Granddad.'

But even Jimmy could not stay happy and positive while on a school run. It simply was not possible.

Sad to say, the first word Toby took down for his essay about Granddad was 'Dickhead!' That was what Jimmy shouted at a motorbike dispatch rider who cut him up and almost got himself killed in the process as Jimmy tried to pull out into Notting Hill Gate.

In the old days PC, Pre-Crunch, neither Jimmy nor Monica had had the slightest idea of the daily nightmare that Jodie was going through on the school run. Many were the days when Monica had blithely watched Jodie take Toby into the garage elevator, both looking fresh and well breakfasted, smartly turned out, hair brushed and ready for the day. Monica did not know as she punched up the cappuccino machine and considered her nightmare day ahead that a genuine nightmare awaited Jodie and indeed every driver who ventured on to the streets of London between the hours of seven and nine-thirty in the morning, as the usual heavy traffic of one of the world's busiest cities was supplemented by an extra half-million or so cars (often HUGE cars) each containing one mum or nanny) and one small child.

Now that both Jimmy and Monica appreciated the full horror of the school run, Jimmy couldn't help wondering why they didn't walk it. It was only a mile and a half and it would probably be quicker on foot. He had in fact suggested this idea to Monica but she had refused even to consider it.

'The streets just aren't safe,' she insisted. 'What if Toby ran out into the road? He could be knocked down.'

'By a parent driving a child in a four-by-four?' Jimmy asked.

'Yes actually,' Monica replied angrily. 'Some of those mums drive like they're invading bloody Poland. It's incredible. I saw a cyclist go down last week. Horrible.'

'So we protect Toby from being knocked over by a frazzled, furious parent in a Range Rover by being that frazzled parent in a Range Rover?'

'Look, I don't care,' Monica said, the light of battle in her eyes. 'All I know is that if Toby's inside the Discovery he is totally safe and if he's outside it he isn't. You can't argue with that equation, Jimmy! I'm sorry, but end of story. We may be poor but we're not going to let poverty kill our kids. He goes to school in a car. You don't compromise on safety. Ever.'

Monica, like every other parent in the same situation, presented this point of view with an almost evangelical zeal, her eyes ablaze with moral certitude, as if merely by conjuring up the word 'safety' she had trumped any and all other arguments.

'Monica!' Jimmy protested. 'That's the argument the police use when they close an entire motorway because somebody's having a piss on the hard shoulder. You have to quantify the risk!'

But Monica was not prepared to quantify the risk and so Jimmy joined the school run along with every other parent and nanny in London.

They screamed at taxi drivers. Taxi drivers and bus drivers screamed back. Tattooed and dreadlocked anarcho-cyclists banged bonnets. Leather-clad motorcycle dispatch riders chased leaping pedestrians through tiny gaps in the acreage of steaming, fuming metal. The very air throbbed with frustration and fury as Londoners young and old began their working day in the worst possible mood to do good business.

Jimmy did his best to stay positive as he joined the fray, attempting to edge his tank towards the school while simultaneously dictating an essay about his father to Toby, who was trying to write it down.

'My granddad has looked after people's money all his life,' Jimmy said, then added, 'Are you trying to get yourself killed, you stupid bastard!'

A cyclist swerved. Jimmy slammed on the brakes. The cyclist screamed, 'Cunt!' Jimmy shouted, 'Arsehole!' and Toby jerked forward, breaking the lead in his pencil.

'Dad!' Toby protested. 'Don't brake like that! I can't write my essay now.'

'I had to, Tobes. I would have knocked him down.'

'He called you a cunt!'

'Don't say cunt.'

'I didn't. He did.'

'Then you did.'

'Only because he did.'

'Look, we have to do this essay, Tobes. Granddad worksin a bank and he-'

'My pencil's broken!'

'There's pens all over the floor, mate. Grab one.'

'They're all broken and anyway it'll be a different colour. I can't write an essay in two different pens. Everybody will laugh and Mr Penfold will kill me. They're always laughing! I'm always getting killed. Because all my stuff's so crap!'

Jimmy glanced at his son, who was suddenly once more fighting back tears. Jimmy felt terrible guilt.

'Sorry, mate,' he said. 'Can we do it tonight? I promise. One day late won't matter, surely.'

Toby didn't answer. Instead, he angrily screwed up the paper he had been writing on and turned to stare out of the window. The school run had done its worst. The sunny mood had evaporated.

Toby was chewing his lip, clearly thinking of the embarrassments that lay ahead of him at school. It broke Jimmy's heart.

Toby reached into his school bag and pulled out his Nintendo.

Jimmy almost protested, but then didn't.

He had once been a dedicated gamer himself, but these days he hated that little box with a passion for the way it lured Toby away from real life. On the other hand, why shouldn't the boy escape? He had plenty to escape from.

Thanks to Jimmy.

Having it both ways In 2005 the people of Britain were encouraged to 'make poverty history' by attending a free concert in Hyde Park (or sitting at home and watching it on television). The concert was called Live 8, a reference to the G8 world economic summit going on in Scotland at the same time and also to mark the twentieth anniversary of the Live Aid concert held at Wembley Stadium.

The tickets to Live 8 were free and distributed by lottery but, in order to avoid any accusation that the concert had cost money that might have been better used to provide food for starving Africans, there was a so-called 'Golden Circle' where those who wished to could register their objection to poverty by buying premium corporate seats at the front and enjoying luxury catered hospitality.

Jimmy, now on the board at Mason Jervis, was absolutely insistent that the company should purchase such golden tickets for senior clients and management.

'Forget golf weekends, paintballing and boring bloody Glyndebourne,' Jimmy said excitedly. 'Who cares about opera when you can Rock 'n' Roll! Besides which, this corporate perk saves lives. How cool is that?'

As well as encouraging his employers to take a more morally responsible attitude towards their tax-deductible freebies, Jimmy announced that he intended to do his bit personally, taking a table of his own as a private individual in order to treat his friends.

'There's a real movement going on here,' he argued, 'a new consciousness. People are beginning to realize that the kind of global inequality which we have always taken for granted is not a fact of life. It can be challenged. It can be changed. I want to be able to tell my kids that I was a part of that change.'

'Bollocks,' said Rupert, 'you just want to get pissed and watch U2.'

'Well, there's that too,' Jimmy said with a grin.

The idea behind Live 8 was not to raise money directly in the way Live Aid had done twenty years earlier. This time it was consciousness that was to be raised. Particularly the consciousness of the world leaders at the G8 summit. The organizers, led by Bono and Geldof, wanted those leaders to understand that ordinary people did not like the idea of babies dying in poverty. Particularly when those infant mortalities were the result of the actions of iniquitous Western politicians. The people had had enough of third world poverty and Live 8 was going to give that discontent a voice. The innovative idea was that on the day, the people would be encouraged to register their outrage at the heartless politicians who represented them by sending a text or by logging on to a website insisting that poverty be made history.

Predictably, not all of Jimmy's gang embraced the idea with the same enthusiasm.

'As a matter of fact,' Rupert said with his usual sardonic smile after he had stretched comfortably in his seat and studied the champagne list with the doubtful air of a man who does not expect to be impressed, 'people regularly get the opportunity to make their opinions known and also to make them count.'

'Oh yes, clever clogs,' said Monica, already on the defensive, 'and how do you work that out?'

'They're called general elections,' Rupert replied.

'Oh . . .' said Monica, 'well, I mean apart from that.'

'What else could you want? Democracy is by definition an expression of the power of the people, and it can be achieved without the inconvenience of sitting on the ground for eight hours in a futile attempt to catch a glimpse of the top of Bono's head because a bunch of rich arses like us are sitting at the front obscuring the view.'

Jimmy and Monica exchanged glances. They had seriously considered not inviting Rupert, knowing he would be like this and try to spoil everything. But Amanda would have been so hurt if they'd been left out and so they felt they had no choice. Particularly since Rupert and Amanda's marriage seemed to be in particularly good shape at the moment. They had weathered the beautiful PA period and now looked pretty settled. They had even stopped sniping at each other in public, which was a deal-breaker as far as Jimmy was concerned.

But Rupert was still Rupert. The same smug, supercilious reactionary he had always been. It didn't matter whether he was in a student pub in Sussex or the Golden Circle at Live 8, he was out to wind people up and he never failed to do so.

Particularly Henry.