I find it weird the way the lady keeps calling the baby 'Baby'. Like that's its name. She hasn't mentioned my name yet. Maybe she just calls me 'Man'.

And then it's over, and we take our printouts and leave.

Upstairs, as my wife stares at the photos, smiling, we pass a small child who's playing with a doll, in among a mass of stuffed animals.

I lean down.

'Nobody puts Baby in the fauna,' I say, and I chuckle and look around, to see if anyone's noticed how clever I've been, but no one has, and now the child is looking at me like he hates me. Children don't appreciate wordplay. And some of the new ones just don't get 80s film references, either.

Outside, I finish my large coffee and throw the cup in a bin, and my wife casually remarks, 'Oh, by the way, the lady in there, she said you don't need to come to all the scans. Not if you don't want to. If you're, you know, busy.'

Which is weird, because I'd been there the whole time, and I don't remember anyone saying that at any point whatsoever.

I suppose this is what you'd call a mother's intuition.

'I fancy a muffin,' I say.

CANCELLATIONS

It is 4.38 on a freezing Sunday morning and I am tired and drunk. Colin and I have been sitting in my front room, glassy-eyed and barely speaking, for the past forty-five minutes, waiting for his cab. A cab that has told us - twice - that it's just 'a couple of minutes away'.

Each time I believed the controller. Each time I said 'Thanks!' and hung up. But he has let us down. He has lied to us. The controller is taking us for fools.

I pick up the phone once again and dial.

'Cab service?'

'Um, hi. It's me again. You're picking my friend up, and ...'

'Yeah, he's two minutes away, mate ...'

'But is he really?' I say, bravely. 'Because you've said that a couple of times, and ...'

'Swear to God.'

And he hangs up on me.

I put the phone down. And I look out of the window. And I watch absolutely nothing occur for two minutes. And I realise that this always happens to me. And that this always happens to my friends. And that life shouldn't be like this. People should make good on their promises. People should provide a decent service. And other people should demand they should. We should rise up!

And I am filled with a sudden and unexpected rage. I pace to the phone, pick it up and dial the number. I know how to find happiness.

'Cab service?'

'That's what you call it!' I say, my voice indignant and my finger in the air. 'What I call it is another matter!' I am rising up!

'Did you want a cab, mate?'