I pity other husbands, really I do. Hands up, you married men reading this, which of you has ever had an email from your wife at 12:26, subject lined Textiles emergency, in which your spouse has instructed you to go and buy peacock feathers as a matter of not a little urgency.

Not only is the notion of a textiles emergency inherently comedy – "Quick, we need more plaid!"; "Stop that, you schlemiel; you're warping your woof and woofing your warp!"; "You don't understand: if I don't get this knitted by noon tomorrow, we'll loose the Webster account!"; etc – but the fact that I was minutes later to be seen walking down Regent Street with a fistful of peacock feathers streaming out behind me in the wind added a satisfying note of whimsy to a story that already had plenty of potential to amuse.

Oh, the reason, if anyone's still reading, for the email was that one of her students had ordered some for one of her projects but they hadn't yet turned up. John Lewis charges £2.50 per feather. I have a sneaking suspicion that its 'Never knowingly undersold' policy is founded on the corporate equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting "La la la la, I'm not listening!" and that the one chap whose job it is to pricematch with other stores is based in Abergavenny's less salubrious suburbs, and is armed with one HB pencil, a pad of PostIts and a choleric pigeon.