There's a telephone number. For a centre a hundred metres from my house. I try and find an excuse - any excuse - not to dial. But I can't. Because I want to feel lithe. And supple. Just like Colin!

I pause.

And then I pick up the phone.

TREAT

My wife returns home from work very tired and a little harassed. I realise this would be a good moment for me to make some kind of effort, like cooking for her, except not cooking, because it should be something that she'd enjoy.

'Come on!' I say, grabbing her hand. 'Let's get in the car!'

'Why?' she says, confused. Perhaps she thinks I am going to take her to a fancy restaurant, or whisk her away to a boutique hotel for the weekend. I realise I have to manage her expectations.

'We're going to Borders!' I say, delighted. She makes a face which people who do not know her very well would mistake for disappointment. But there is more.

'We're going to buy you that Sex and the City DVD!' I say, magnanimously. 'And then ... we're going to watch it!'

She smiles, and stifles a small yawn, and I feel like a good husband.

Twenty minutes later I am unwrapping the cellophane and slipping the DVD into the player. My wife arranges the wine, and I take a quick look at the back cover.

'A classic!' says Edith Bowman.

Undeterred, I press on.

'For too long,' reads the blurb, 'Carrie Bradshaw has been looking for love in all the wrong places ... but in all the right shoes!'

Well, at least that's something, I think. And then I spot the running time. And I blink. But it remains the same. Two and a half hours. Two and a half hours. I flip the cover round in disbelief. Four women walk towards the camera, smiling and carrying bags. As far as I can tell, I am going to be spending two and a half hours watching four women walking towards camera, smiling and carrying bags.

But then I snap out of it. This is not about me. This is about my poor, tired wife. I can do this. After all, just last week she sat through Jumper with me, but at least Jumper was an important film, about a genetic anomaly that allows a young man to teleport himself anywhere in the world, all the while playing a major part in an epic war that has been raging for thousands of years between fellow Jumpers and those who have sworn to kill them. She is lucky I am so cultured.

We settle on to the sofa and I pour myself a huge glass of wine. The film begins, and she yawns again, and gets comfortable.