Since we moved house we share a ‘den’. It’s where our computers are set up and we can both sit and surf the net, process pics or whatever else we like together.

I LOVE sharing my space in this way with David. We don’t always talk much and to be honest, sometimes I’m so far away with the fairies and so deaf that I don’t hear him when he speaks to me anyway.

Last night, we sitting alongside one another in what I like to describe as ‘companionable silence’ and he was playing music on his Mac. I can’t remember what the software is called, but it’s a thingy where you can listen to your CDs from MP3s on your Mac. He’s just come up behind me, seen what I’ve typed, rubbed my shoulders and somewhat patronisingly (albeit in a kind of sweet way, she says with her tongue firmly planted in her cheek) told me that everyone knows it’s called itunes so there you go that’s the name of the thingy that everyone in the world knows except me!

He was on some sort of random play and I was appalled to hear a song, which I’d never heard before, called ‘The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill’. It was obvious that it was the Beatles – even a cultural philistine like me recognises their ‘dulcet tones’ but boy was it an eye-opener. They’re widely regarded as the most influential pop band of all time yet I heard recently that their entire collection of recorded music is only something like ten hours of music all told. I dunno – it may be 100 hours but anyway, it’s a dead short amount of time and yet a good three minutes of it was wasted on that drivel. How does that happen? I must say, it made me feel quite good that I can claim to have never heard ‘the white album’ – give me Take That any day! Don’t get me wrong, I love much of their music, but that’s just about at the bottom of my list of things by them I’d like to listen to. I dare say I’ll get a good flaming for that but there you go – that’s me, nothing if not controversial.

I AM a cultural philistine – I’d rather watch the telly than go to the theatre, I’d rather go to a sweaty pub gig than go to the Royal Albert Hall, I’d rather go for a ruby murray in a flock wallpaper palace than go to the Oxo Tower, I’d rather wear Bon Marche than Armani, I’d rather go swill a few pints of beer in the Bell and Hare and sit in the stands at White Hart Lane than go to Henley Regatta or Ladies Day at Cheltenham. Most of all, I just don’t ‘get’ art (even though this gives David, an art school graduate, heart-failure). Why would anyone pay £1million for a Van Gogh or for a David Hockney? To be honest, I’m not even sure I’d pay a tenner to get into a gallery to look at one. I AM clearly and unreservedly a cultural philistine.

So, to prove my point – a pic of something I treasure….a plastic ‘freebie’ Roman Holliday mug with my gorgeous pal, Steve Lambert in his dough boy hat on the front, sat on my only nightie, made from fake leopard skin and, you’ll either be pleased or completely appalled, STILL never worn.

Oh and in case anyone’s interested, since I complained, the quality of the music from the Apple thingy has improved – tonight has been the divine Richard Hawley – voice like spun silk, Richard Ashcroft and Marvin Gaye – much more my ‘bag’.

Last year I was doing my best 'food fascist' impression!