It's amazing, isn't it? You separate your washing into neat colour-coordinated piles so that you don't give that lovely white 'I've got an important meeting with the boss tomorrow and I want to look relaxed yet determined' shirt a daring pale red undertone, you count the socks into pairs and make sure there's no singletons lurking on the floor....and yet, every so often it turns out that there's a bit of a gooseberry on the clothes horse, a sock that hasn't got a partner, or only one half of that expensive two-part executive Y-front set...

...what HAPPENS in there? Is there a smalls monster hiding in the darkest corners of our Hotpoints and Whirlpools? A voracious sock devourer just biding his time in the powder drawer?

Or is it just my crap washing skills?