Every time I'm tempted to buy anything flat-packed or indeed anything that needs any kind of assembly I always say 'never again'. I mean, this is the person who couldn't get a mobile phone to go because she hadn't worked out how to put the SIM card in and had to ask a child. This is the person who never actually mastered how to construct the storage boxes when we moved the office from one place in Liskeard to another. Everyone else whipped their boxes into shape in a few moments, whereas I was left with flat bits of cardboard and a puzzled look on my face: Even when my colleagues demonstrated the simple art to me more than once. But then this is the person who never learned how to do the Rubic cube, so what do you expect. So, keep away from me you devil things. Don't let me buy you. Don't let me sit comfortably on a cold Sunday afternoon and order a computer desk which I know is flat-packed and which I know will be coming from some far-off shore where English is not a first language. Except I did. A previous computer desk, which is fine but not big enough, also came flat-packed and the language was German but by a stroke of luck my grandson was staying and, to my delight, not only understood the instructions (he's doing German at school) but got it together in an hour and set up the whole computer system without turning a hair. Easy peezy, he said when I came home and expressed my joy. He shrugged modestly, as only people who understand flange joints or whatever can. This time, there was no grandson and, when I managed to fight my way into the box, no instructions in any language. Somewhere along the line someone has invented an all-purpose set of instructions, all purpose that is if you are in a country which makes use of the alphabet as we know it. Bad luck if you are Greek, Russian, an Arab or from any other country which doesn't. This is a step in the right direction, a three-page guide with one page devoted to drawings of all the pieces with accompanying letters, and two pages of the progression of building the thing, with lines and arrows pointing where the bits were supposed to go right down to the last tiny screw. All the bits and pieces also had the appropriate letter stuck to them on little stickers. In theory it should have been perfect, except... and there's always an except... some of the little stickers had already fallen off, dropping like snowflakes to the bottom of the box, and the drawings seemed to have been done by a small child with a wonky black crayon. This led to a certain amount of confusion, especially trying to find the part which looked like a small cylinder with a screw poking out of it which turned out to be the little pot of glue and the four blobs with prickles were, it appeared, the castors. I also found that there were, apparently, several pieces marked 'L' until I realised that on some occasions the 'L' meant left and was not part L, which was a long metal bar. Oddly enough, there wasn't an 'R' for right, so I naturally screwed the bit that holds the sliding desk top on upside down on the side which was the right side, or was it the wrong side? By now I had begun to wish for instructions in Chinese, at least I could have e-mailed some embassy or other with a working knowledge of Cantonese for help in the translation. The main problem with this kind of assembly is that, although you think you have got it right, you aren't exactly sure, so you worry that having screwed part A to part G it might be wrong and not come apart again. As anyone knows, if you tighten four screws as far as they will go and then have to undo them, three will undo easily and the fourth will stubbornly refuse to move. And as for the glue, well, forget it. Once glued, never unglued and you have a desk with legs sticking upwards forever. After two weekends at it I casually mentioned to my son-in-law that it might be nice if he could supervise a bit, not exactly doing the work but just keeping an eye on me to make sure we agreed which part went where. He laughed that hollow sort of laugh that a man laughs when he knows a woman is trying not to admit she can't do a man's job, especially as she's the sort of woman whose always going on about the equality of the sexes. So that woman went off in a huff, carrying a screwdriver, a set of instructions and a new sense of determination to beat parts F, H and J and make sure the castors were on the bottom of the legs this time, not on the sides.

I spotted an article last week which had previous editors of one of the most popular girls' comics bemoaning the fact that in just a couple of decades it has changed from giving gently innocent advice to its young readers to giving fully fledged advice on sex to the children who read it. We're not, of course, supposed to call them children, youngsters or young people being more acceptable, but as far as I'm concerned they are still children. But how true this is. Trying to buy comics for girls is so difficult once they get past the age of Barbie and Ken because every one of them seems to be of the same ilk, ie pop stars, sex, make-up and more sex. Of course, I grew up with nothing more shocking than School Friend, a comic which presented a world of girls' boarding schools, chums, midnight dorm feasts and worries about who was going to be chosen for the lacrosse tournament. Most of us had never been in such an environment, although I did once go to a school where they played lacrosse although I never got the hang if it. None of the girls in School Friend ever did anything naughtier than playing practical jokes on the teachers. They certainly didn't write in and ask if it was alright to have a one night stand with the boy next door. Along with School Friend were the good old Dandy and Beano, still going strong and I bet any adult who ever comes across it still has an urge to read it and find out how Desperate Dan, Beryl the Peril and Dennis the Menace are getting on. I know I do, they're still in the same time warp they always were. There was also the Eagle, much more my cup of tea,which was a sort of forerunner of Dr Who and all things science fiction. If buying comics for girls and avoiding the round of sex with everything is difficult nowadays then it's worse for boys. Trying to find something suitable to take to my grandson the last time I went to stay I realised the choice seemed to be between the Dandy and Playboy, with nothing in between apart from computer mags. No doubt he might have welcomed Playboy but his mother might not have. If it cheers you up no end to read about other people's embarrassing moments, then read on... The other night I came out of the supermarket with two carrier bags and my handbag (which as ever, is heavy and full of essentials, ie rubbish). It was raining hard and I rushed towards my car, avoiding those drivers who seem to lose all sense of direction in supermarket car parks and aim for the nearest running person. As I got to the car I started to fumble in my handbag but my car keys had, as they always do, worked their way right to the bottom so I balanced my handbag and then thumped down the two carriers on the car bonnet to avoid putting them on the ground which was awash. As I delved deep, trying to unsnaggle the keyring from several other items, I noticed three things. Firstly, a man was standing to my left near my driver's door staring fixedly at me. 'Weirdo', I thought, all set to whack him one with the handbag in the unlikely event that he might make a move on me and glared in his direction. The second thing was that there seemed to be a strange woman sitting in my front passenger seat glaring pointedly at me. The third thing was that I realised that it wasn't my car. Same colour, wrong make, wrong place. Oops.