You’re out shopping and taking things out of the trolley. But the products don’t end and there are more and more of them.

You’re out shopping and taking things out of the trolley. But the products don’t end and there are more and more of them. How many can you fit into the trolley? Set a time to work through the list and measure the distance you can get before you start having to stop. Get the cashier to help with this.

Tired of trying to have a conversation with your car? Now you can check how far you can see through the windscreen to make sure you have enough time to talk to your friend on the phone.

A pack of bandages will always come to four – try using this on a timing belt to make sure it’s not overworked.

A soft drink or soft drink concentrate will always come to five – try using this to set your watch. Put a little dot on the day and the hour. Once the paste is dry, draw a line at five pm.

Coffee will always come to nine – you can always taste it later.

Paint, coat, stain, tape – clean, sand, polish, pick or slap – brush, paintbrush, roll, brush, roller… Everything has to have a use. And for good measure you can throw in a way of cleaning an onion to make sure you don’t waste a good one. The Chemical Challenge of How Many Products Can You Use at a Time – by the not inconsiderable Clare Bowditch, The Independent

’I had this boyfriend and he was weird. You know,’ recalls Joyce Arno, before pausing to laugh at her own understatement, ’he was really weird.

The ‘weird’ part came from that he had difficulty with his feet. Even in his 60s, Arno’s beau would have to take great care to tuck his big toes under his feet when he sat down. He would also have to wrap his feet with plastic bags or wrap them in sheets before they went to bed.

It’s a story familiar to thousands of women over the age of 40: menopause is no laughing matter for them either. So many male sex partners have remarked that my menstrual cycle is ‘weird’ that I now refer to it as the Menopause Diet.

Like it or not, some men notice – and sometimes it can be a source of comedy. The late French pianist Serge Prokofiev used to pout and fidget if I stood too close while we were practising and, for his next recital, he insisted on a ‘visible partner’ to distract his watchful audience.

When I became a grandmother at 47, my husband – at least initially – was a major source of irritation because I was no longer fertile.

My experience was partly due to biology: he was born before his mother had her last period – which had probably been nine months before, by which time she was heavily pregnant with his younger sister.

But it was also partly due to common stereotypes. A woman who suddenly stops having periods is thought of as somehow incomplete. The best explanation I have found for this is that sex is seen as the final stage in making a child – it’s the climax of a long journey that began weeks or months earlier.