The Kindness of Strangers

Awww. McFireman (bless him) offered to mend my shattered hopes and dreams. Well. Not really, but he did, amazingly, offer to pay for my shattered sitting room window to be fixed. I declined. I have never even met the cove. Anyway, my Aldi cling film is doing a grand job at the moment. I confess, the opulent, pre raphaelite beauty of the stained glass is somewhat tarnished by the tattered cling film. But, I must make do.

McFireman, you may recall, is a public sector fat cat. It is thanks to him that middle class mummies are losing their child benefit. He is retiring soon. I expect when that happens the Tory cuts will really start to bite, as we all will have to contribute to his colossal pension. When you picture McFireman as a pensioner you must not imagine a lonely, ramshackled husk of a man shopping for dented cans at Lidl or a miserly Fagin-esque figure in fingerless gloves, counting pennies in front of a one-bar electric fire. No. McFireman is celebrating his retirement by purchasing an Aston Martin and climbing Mount Everest.

McFireman does frequently mock me for my adoration of Nick Cave. He calls Cave 'skanky'. . . as if 'skanky' is a bad thing!!! I am but a simple Northern girl. I do not believe that men of the male gender should be too concerned about their appearance. I quite like dishevelled. I adore unkempt and unshaven. When it comes to a male beauty regime I think that all a real man should indulge in is a fortnightly wash with Fairy Liquid and a vigorous rub down with sandpaper. (For the more sophisticated or affluent male then I concede the sandpaper could possibly be upgraded to some sort of Black and Decker buffing device). Rochester even used marmite as a hair product. McFireman favors a more complex regime. His bathroom is apparently stacked with Jo Malone, Molton Brown and Origins potions and tinctures. I think I had the measure of him when I categorised him as a high maintenance 'Errol Flynn' type.

Rochester was always your typical charmingly rumpled, crumpled Walter Matthau bozo.

However, the swarthy rogue has recently transformed himself. He has a job selling pegs (gasp). He has a BMW (shudder). He has cufflinks and brycream (vomit). Today I discovered this picture of a more debonair Matthau. I wonder if this is what Rochester looks like on his peg round? Dear God!!!!