TOM! What are you doing here?” I stopped gazing at the empty space in the centre of the table, to throw myself into my fiancé’s arms. “You’re not supposed to be here until tonight,” I told him. “I dec

SARAH DITUM

“Between you and me …”

CHEAP JOKE You know a series has run ...

SINCE my mum died, it seems the family have been together more than ever. There were well over 140 mourners at the funeral, then we had the Australians here last weekend and today it’s my nephew’s wed

ONE OF THE MOST GRIMLY FUNNY POEMS OF the past century is Philip Larkin’s “This Be the Verse,” with its opening salvo about how our parents invariably mess us up. Larkin used a saltier word for “mess,