We get back and it is late enough that the kids agree to go to bed without a story. What I really crave now is an opportunity to watch bullshit TV. With one swift flick of the remote control I am presented with something called Robot Wars. There’s a lot of jargon going on, which is exactly what is pleasing about this kind of programming. Aftershock buffeted by the strike. Crucial movement is the fight, clenching movement is the battle. Aftershock, sabretooth, terrorize team jellyfish. Grown men, shattered grown men working on designing a robot. Gemma from team jellyfish earnestly dressed in an aquamarine overall talks with passion, it has to be said, about the difficulties in repairing a small fragment of the team’s robot that has quite simply fallen apart. The presenter is wearing a jumpsuit, I guess that she’s meant to look robot-like. It’s absolutely absurd but I’m gripped. Is there going to be a jellyfish sting in the tail? This is unconventional behaviour in a robot. This is like a step up from an earlier addiction to all that wonderful, time-pressed pit action in Formula 1. Lego creatures with wheels.

I feel like going upstairs to prod Mikey and Joey awake and haul them downstairs and give them a taste of this. Perhaps they can create one of these robots and as a family we can make a shitload of money. Jenny sighs at the programme but I tell her to be quiet and to go back to her book.

I watch Robot Wars to the bitter end, armed with a couple of cans of Pražský. The cool beer slipping down my oesophagus makes me feel that bit mellower. I am getting into my zone. My money worries which have been getting me down lately don’t seem as pertinent as before. I haven’t told Jenny that I have extended our Credit Union loan – it’s in my name even though she did put a fair whack of her own personal savings into it, in order to bolster my fund in the early days. I didn’t want to appear completely broke to the powers that be. But I needed the extra so I could take out a loan to get the rest of the house deposit together. My wages haven’t gone up in ages and no matter how much moaning I do to Graham it doesn’t make any difference. He won’t give me a rise.

After a while the beer runs out and I decide to open up a bottle of wine that I’ve been saving for a special night. This is now a special night. I pour a small glass for Jenny which she accepts but I can kind of tell that she doesn’t really want it but is taking it for the sake of it.

That was brilliant, I say.