You try to help...

I like to think of myself as a modern kind of husband, willing to share the burden of running a house evenly with Melissa. I don't mind cooking tea if I'm home first, I don't mind doing the shopping if Melissa happens to be working on a Saturday, I don't mind cleaning and I will, if I'm pushed, even do the ironing.

Most people I speak to seem to think this is a good thing. However, for Melissa things aren't quite that straightforward. When I do the ironing, I never put things away 'in the right place'; when I do the cooking, it's never what she fancies; and if I do the shopping, I don't buy enough yogurts.

My one trump card has always been the cleaning. It's always been the one area I was beyond reproach... until Sunday.

In an effort to get all the rubbish jobs out of the way on Sunday morning, I grabbed the cleaner and proceeded to give the bathroom a good going over. Having completed this not-particularly-pleasant-for-a-Sunday task, I proceeded to inform Melissa, thinking she would be pleased.

How wrong I was. She immediately walked into the bathroom and began scrutinising the towel radiator. When I asked her what she was doing, she replied that she was checking to see if I'd cleaned properly.

So now not even my cleaning is up to scratch. Perhaps I should take the advice of a good friend of mine who, when asked how he got away without doing any housework, explained: "I did it once, very, very badly, and have not been asked since. Whenever I offer to help, I'm always told to stick to doing what I do best - sitting in front of the TV." Nice work if you can get it.

Christmas

I love Christmas. It's not particularly fashionable to say so, but I can't help it. Every year I get excited even though, at the age of 32, I should be past being excited at the prospect of opening presents.

However, there's one element of the festive season I could happily live without - the music. Now don't get me wrong, there's nothing inherently wrong with Christmas music (The Pogues' Fairytale of New York is, without doubt, one of the best songs ever recorded). It's just that listening to the same 20 or so songs over and over again, every day for a month, is enough to drive to anyone to distraction.

Unfortunately for me, Melissa doesn't feel the same way. She loves Christmas (like me) but also loves the music (unlike me). This means that, for the next few weeks, there will be a battle in the Wright household between my music (at the moment this consists largely of Belle and Sebastian's extensive back catalogue) and Melissa's Christmas CDs. Somehow, I doubt it will be an even contest.

I've been sat-nagged

Sat-nagging. What's that, I hear you ask. Well, until last week, I didn't know what it was either but now I do. It's when the voice of a sat-nav system (in this case, bizarrely, the voice was that of John Cleese) nags you all the way to your destination.

Fortunately for me, I'm used to being nagged while I drive. Melissa has many qualities, but patience while I'm driving is not one of them. Our journeys together are punctuated by comments such as "Wow, we really did go round that corner" or, "What's the matter with you today? You're all over the road".

Anyway, back to the sat-nagging. A colleague kindly lent me his portable sat-nav to find my way to a building in the centre of Birmingham. It worked perfectly. However, being constantly reminded by Mr Cleese that I had to go straight on in 200 metres was a little distracting.

By the time I arrived home, I had the thing on mute. Even John Cleese isn't funny when you've heard him repeat the same joke about French people making us say metres instead of miles 500 times.