Being Trumped.....

My house phone is empathetic. Whenever my mother calls, the phone tries to warn me, with shrill, impatient bell tones.

Actually, it needn't bother. She always rings at exactly the same time every evening - twenty to ten. And exactly 19 minutes later, she hangs up, so that she can brush her hair before watching Tom Bradby read the news.

(I've told her before that he can't actually see her, but she has a theory that via the tv, Donald Trump and our Government are keeping tabs on 'people like her'.

'People like you?' I ask politely. 'Crabby pensioners, with arthritis and a bizarre fondness for Norman Wisdom?'

'People like me,' she snaps, 'who are connected to terrorists!'

'But you don't know any terrorists.' I tell her.

'What about that terrible woman your father lives with?' She replies triumphantly .

'She's banned my father from eating sugar, and calls herself an 'eco-warrior', mother. It's not exactly the same thing.')

Anyway, tonight, at two minutes to ten, she suddenly announced that she has 'a new partner', and that they're 'playing away next weekend!'

By the time I'd managed to fight back the nausea and formulate a question, she'd hung up and gone off to be spied on by Westminster and the Ten O'Clock News.

Maybe I should just phone Theresa May to find out what on earth my mother's up to.....