1. Don’t bother trying to find the right woman. She doesn’t exist. As soon as you think you’ve found the right woman, she’ll turn out to be wrong. You can try to find enough that’s right about the wrong woman for it still to be fun. But that’s all.

2. There probably isn’t a God.

3. If, though, for some reason God does actually exist (although there’s really very little to support this conclusion), then maybe there’s also a possibility of finding the right woman.

4. The right woman is a woman with guts. She’s the one whose feet you hear crunching the gravel before she’s even turned the corner. One who can take an apple and coax a pigeon down from the gutter. She’s a woman in a yellow skirt who has her wits about her, a laugh that’s much too loud, red fingernails, but unpainted toes. She carries a knife in her handbag, a salt shaker and a tiny collapsible bronze ashtray; she needs the ashtray, because she’s a woman who smokes filterless cigarettes. She’s a woman of principle, which she sets aside if need be. One who pounds the steering wheel with her fist until the varnish splinters off her fingernails. A woman who doesn’t tell you; one who isn’t ashamed. Who cries at the cinema, but never, never, never watches her figure. Who likes unpeeled potatoes and secretly believes in the Mother of God; one who looks after your affairs and is even happier looking after her own. The right woman is one who knows what love is, and who, if she finds one day that she’s forgotten, makes it short and sweet.

5. These are just ideas. Forget it.

6. Forget what they tell you about drinking, too, by the way. It can be nice. It can take you out of yourself. And it can calm you down when you need it. Alcohol isn’t a devil. The devil is the fat fly that buzzes around your room on a summer night and won’t let you sleep. Alcohol is just a chemical compound; besides, it’s not impossible that you’re able to control it. But if you find yourself sitting at the bar and the panelling comes alive and there are little creatures darting about under the bar stools, order another. It won’t make any difference.

7. Is the house still standing? You should paint it. When I last painted it, you weren’t even two years old. It was summer, and hot, and I burned my bum easing backwards over the roof. You were in the garden, and I could see you picking the heads off the rosebush one by one. I wonder why you were down there on your own, on that hot day that smelled of wood paint and grass. Anyway: if you don’t want the house to rot, you should paint it. But remember to sand the wood first. You need eighty-­­grit sandpaper. At least. After that, primer. Linseed oil is very good, too. Then start. Two or three coats of paint. And don’t let anyone persuade you to use a roller. Brushes are better.