As for the next feast, it will more than make up for last week's failure to launch. The plan is to cook for my dad's birthday dinner; we’ll be 14 people all together. I asked Dad to pick out the menu and he promptly puffed up his chest and boomed in sonorous voice: “Roast beef of old England. With all the trimmings.” So roast beef it is.

Mum is picking up a joint in Seattle today. I got rather stressed about this last night when she asked me to write her a shopping list. You see I like to be the one who picks out the meat. Breathing hotly, I painfully explained to her the importance of getting a good quality joint. It must have the bone in, I stressed. And lots of white marbling throughout. “Do they call it a joint in America,” she questioned. “Won’t they think I’m looking for weed?”

I glared at her coldly. “Not in Whole Foods, mother.”