Neville shook himself free of Sergei’s hold, all red-faced and blustering (quite frankly he did look much better in the photograph), declaring hotly: ‘Tina wants me to be here – she encouraged me, I could read between the lines, all right! And who could blame her if she’d rather have me than a nancy-boy dancer?’

‘Now, just wait a minute—’ I began indignantly, but Sergei didn’t wait – he had such a very short fuse and it was a big mistake calling him a nancy-boy, because although I don’t think he knew the term, he got the gist. He punched Neville good and hard so that he went reeling back across the road.

Sergei leaped after him like a very bouncy tiger and poor Neville turned to flee, collided with a bollard, tripped over a mooring rope, and fell headlong into the harbour with a mighty splash.

Luckily the tide was in, even if the flotsam was looking very dubious.

Sergei dusted himself off and pulled down his cuffs. ‘There, that will be a lesson to him!’ He looked terribly pleased with himself, as men do in these situations, and seemed to have entirely forgotten all about the ozone being deadly. He didn’t even notice his rather battered knuckles, but said masterfully, ‘Come, Tina – we had better head for the ceremony.’

‘Shouldn’t we see if Neville’s drowned first?’ I suggested.

But when I peered over the edge, he hadn’t. Instead he was swimming round in circles like a mentally challenged water rat, and luckily just then one of the lifeboat men came along with a hooked thing on a stick and attempted to fish him out, so we left them to it and drove off.

Well, at least the fracas caused Sergei to be in a good mood throughout the proceedings, although the lobster judging, which took place while I was doing my well-attended library session, was apparently done long distance, since he flatly refused to touch any of them.

Then he went on to astonish everyone by choosing an overdeveloped brunette teenager as Lobster Princess over the petite blonde everyone expected to win, but they clearly didn’t know his tastes ran to the dark and busty. It certainly made her day when he put the crown of crossed lobster claws on her head with his own bruised hands and kissed her on both cheeks twice.

There was a slight commotion at the lunch when Sergei realized that I was seated some way below the salt and not next to him, and he insisted on a rearrangement. Although I would have been happier in a less prominent position, it did mean I got in all the photos, even if it was just in my supporting role of eye-candy, though what kind of candy I leave to your decision. Nut brittle?