I was once having lunch with a man that I had had a minor affair with. He was in London for a few days between postings in Iraq and Nigeria, and asked, as he always did about my personal life, and as always, I replied that I was single. He looked unperturbed and explained that women had much less need of a relationship because they had the emotional support of a network of female friends. Yes, I said wistfully, but men are good at carrying heavy things…

This rainy bank holiday has been a saga of carrying heavy things and spending ages up to my elbows in stereo wiring, and I am proud to report that my new CD/radio, speakers and record player are now blasting out sound and I DID IT MYSELF, waded straight into that masculine world of heavy things and wire. My old stereo was a Eurovision casualty, more proof that bad music kills. I had a dreadful stereo one year at university and unsurprisingly went into depression. Today I feel a sense of feminism I haven’t had since I was sixteen. It really is important to be able to do this stuff yourself.

And resulting from this afternoon’s wiring magic – has anyone listened to Primal Scream’s Screamadelica recently? I celebrated having a record player with my old double LP – the one with little messages from Bobby Gillespie scratched into the run off – and had forgotten how unbelievably good it sounds. I’d like to take this opportunity to say that I request ‘Don’t Fight It, Feel It’ to be played at my funeral, along with ‘Jump’ by Madonna and the penultimate song from the Air album that Annika and I were listening to in South Africa, she knows what I mean. Then the third movement from the Beethoven late quartet in A minor either as people are coming in or leaving. That’s all!