It did not strike me dead, which was Lord Finchley’s fate, but the antique table I was standing on collapsed, though happily I was uninjured myself. I visited one of the stately antique shops of Islington – as another poet writes, how beautiful they stand! – and told the man what had happened and asked how much it would cost to have the table repaired.”Insurance job is it, squire?” he asked.When I told him No, he said he was not interested. With some difficulty, I eventually had the table repaired somewhere else.The market in repairing bodies rather than tables does not operate in quite the same way Here it is completely dominated by the insurance companies. We have all heard of the extortionate charges that are imposed as a consequence: to sticking plaster £49.30p, to cotton wool £26.20p.A friend of mine who was covered by insurance went into a private London hospital for a minor operation which required a night’s stay Having unpacked her bag, she asked how much the room cost. A functionary performed a rapid calculation and came up with: £423.10p.”But I could stay at the Ritz for less than that,” she said, repacking her bag and setting off home.I hope Mr Brown exhibits a similar resolution when faced by demands to involve reluctant British citizens in the medical insurance racket.

Whether this will do his own prospects any good is another matter
More from Alan Watkins. My friend Copstick (she abandoned the prefix “Kate” years ago) once presented Playschool. Later she played a character in the children’s drama Rentaghost. So, in the way of these things, she now spends her time tracking down naked, mud-wrestling German fr?eins and Swedish porn stars as a producer for Eurotrash.

For the terminally cultured among you, Eurotrash is a TV programme, which sets out to prove that le vice anglais is as nothing compared to the perversions of the Continentals. With its tongue firmly in its buttock-cheeks, the programme profiles men who get their kicks by dressing as fluffy animals and girls who make their living selling their own energetically soiled underwear.
Bearing all this in mind, I was thrilled when Copstick asked if I would like to attend the Eurotrash awards for erotic excellence. My happiness was complete when she asked me to present the lifetime achievement award This fulfilled many fantasies. First, the desire to shimmy down red-carpeted stairs in my Sunday best, clutching an envelope and, er, a large, golden phallus (well, it’s not the Oscars), before saying, “And the winner is. .” Then there was my crush on the programme’s presenter, Antoine de Caunes – the only Frenchman who really does speak English in the manner of the cast of ‘Allo, ‘Allo. Finally there was the enthralling prospect of my fellow guests: a dazzling assortment of naked people, hairy people, masked people, well-hung people and silicone-enhanced people.