It's always good to have a threesome on a Saturday night...


If Lisa looks a little dazed and confused, it's because I'd just elbowed her in the back of the head. Which is probably why she agreed to have her photo taken. Concussion is a wonderful thing.

Anyhoo, yesterday my old chum Marie came down from sunny Croydon to visit me for the day. She's the one on the left who looks like she's been rubbing her thighs with sandpaper. The last time she visited Brighton, she brought me jam. The time before that she brought me marmalade. This time she brought me to book for parking on double yellow lines outside the station. But having abandoned my car in traffic, I successfully spotted a bespectacled figure in a blue-green coat looking longingly at the taxi rank, and made my way across the concourse at speed before she opted for public transport. She accused me of running in a gay manner, I told her I was just blending into the crowd, and we headed back to my car before it was towed away.

Arriving at my flat, I gave Marie the full guided tour, and she declared that it's not as small as she expected. She'd obviously believed me when I said I was living in a cardboard box. So having assured her that my bookcases probably wouldn't fall on her, we settled down on the sofa to discuss weighty issues such as Marie's recent Ebay transactions. Apparently she's just sold a bucket of fish and put the money towards a pair of ruby slippers. And she has the nerve to criticise my charity shop purchases.

All of this was too much for Lisa, who walked out after half an hour and headed to Hove for the afternoon. I didn't have the heart to tell her that the French Market was only Thirsday to Fruday. But with more room on the sofa, Marie was able to bond successfully with my dear little Chloe. Despite being allergic to cats, and spending the past four years making comments like this, the small hairy one with with the scowly face and grumpy expression soon decided that she liked Chloe.

Here she is inserting a finger during some kind of rectal examination. I told you they were close.

Feline bonding done, I escorted Marie out of my flat and took her down to the seafront, which she was surprised to find is less than five minutes walk from my flat. She had no idea. I really should mention it more often. We walked down to the end of the pier, became concerned about the rotten nature of some of the planks, and promptly walked back before we fell to our deaths in the icy water below. Marie's on a low carb diet, so I bought her a Cornish Pastie and chips, and we sat on the seafront for half an hour discussing the possibility of me retraining as a plumber.

Back at my flat we rendezvoused with Lisa, and Marie offered to take a look at my CV and tell me where I'm going wrong. As luck would have it, I'd only just been turned down for a job on Friday afternoon, so I showed her the very CV I'd used to battle my way to failure. She told me to reduce the size of my address, and move the name of my school slightly to the left. Apparently that should make all the difference.

So buoyed by my imminent success in the job market, we embarked on a game of Verbositi. I can't reveal who won for legal reasons, but having been challenged to create a seven-word sentence about the person on her right, using the letters PJDDGWL, Marie came up with "Phil just does dishes, glowing with love", which is so true it's not even funny. Mind you, she also came up with the words 'ginnel' and 'puttering', before claiming that you can buy chocolate-covered hula hoops, so she's not beyond talking rubbish.

All of this was fine of course, but for me the highlight of the day was probably the phone call we received in the middle of X Factor from the man on the right. I suspect he was calling to invite me to some kind of party to celebrate the upcoming two-year anniversary of his last blog post, but I'm not sure because he rang off the moment I said I'd mention him on my blog.

Anyhoo, having fed Marie peanut butter on toast and filled her full of gingernuts, we said our goodbyes and I drove her back to the station. In return for her day at the seaside, Marie's kindly invited Lisa and I to visit her new house sometime. I'd say she's just being polite, but the woman lives in Croydon, so frankly the polite thing would have been not to invite us.