In the light of the Labour Party report into why they lost the election – commendably limited to two words one of which was Ed – and the interminable wait for the Chilcott enquiry, which I suspect could be summed up even more briefly by the single word ‘Liar’ I have rooted out from the archives the entirely independent remarks of Judge Kingston after his investigation into scurrilous rumours concerning one of ITN’s loveliest lady Floor Managers, Lady Kingston.

“Despite the photographic evidence, sadly mislaid by the Crown Prosecution Service, Lady Kingston denies doing News At Ten dressed as a fairy, claiming that she would not have begun to compete with those able to claim the description ‘fairy’ on duty that night. In evidence she claimed to have been to ‘a posh drinks party during the supper break (4.30pm – 9.30pm) which explains the dress and I cannot recall on oath where the wings came from. Or the wand with which I may have cued the newscaster’.

Lady Kingston strongly rebuts the suggestion that she did News At Ten from Blackpool during the Party Conference season dressed as a policeman.  It is her clear recollection that she was only wearing a helmet.  Sadly no pictures exist to support her story.

Also firmly denied is the accusation that she set fire to one or more chairs in a local wine bar.  She accepts that her companions, in an ill-advised act of gallantry may have done so following her remarks about the coldness of the weather and the parsimonious natures of the hostelry’s heating arrangements but as she explained to the Enquiry, no-one can expect a girl to recall the names of everyone she got drunk with in the (52) weeks before Christmas.

Also occurring during the festive season was the case of the invoice from a mini cab company for waiting time outside Kingston Towers, allegedly whilst two other members of staff attempted to post a cat and a Christmas cake through the letter box during the early hours of the morning. The enquiry concludes that the driver who claims to have witnessed the scene may well have been intoxicated.

Lady Kingston gives little credence to the claim by a member of middle management that he saw her and another lady Floor Manager attempting to enter the building via a brick wall at 4.pm.  She thinks that this easily made mistake may be the result of poor lighting conditions around the entrance and demands that this be referred to the Union’s Health and Safety Committee as it displays a lamentable lack of care by management towards tired and emotional employees.

We come now to the slanderous claims concerning Lady Kingston’s expenses claims. She freely admits to tearing a £50 note into pieces when a junior member of management had the sheer affrontery to say that he had been ‘charitable’ in signing her claim form.  Her aim was to give him a clear illustration that petty cash fiddling was, in every sense, beneath her.  Evidence from his secretary suggests that his afternoon was usefully employed glueing the fragments together.

And finally, as they say after all the best bulletins, it is true that someone (whose name she will not reveal unless asked)  refused to work with her because she made him feel ‘stupid’.  It is a tribute to the loyalty so frequently displayed within this organisation that the other Floor Managers refused to work with the complainant until he admitted that they ALL made him feel stupid.

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A small, dedicated, efficient – and most importantly – invisible workforce.  Such was the stuff, I imagine, of ITN’s managements’ dreams. And without even having to go on a paint-balling, team building, human resources course, I think I can claim to have reached this happy state with my own devoted band of domestic assistants.

Whereas  ITN wanted to own you, body and soul, I ask for little. At home staff turn up, do their allotted tasks, preferably in my absence and submit a monthly invoice.  Perfection.  On reflection this may well have been the plan at ITN but my terms and conditions do not require people to work the sort of unsocial hours that would make a Junior Doctor faint, deal with unpleasant politicians – is there any other kind? – or submit expenses claims.

We might have made it look like the work of a moment but have you ever tried to account for hundreds of used banknotes thrust into your hands – money intended to sustain you and the crew through a wet and windy week in Blackpool – and again, is there any other kind? – with has INEXPLICABLY vanished by the time you got to Euston?  Those expenses sheets were not the work of a moment, dear reader, and possibly were the only truly creative writing that any of us did.

But to return home, isn’t there always, even in Paradise, a snake in the grass, an ancient mariner, a Banquo’s ghost, casting their gloomy shadow?

Mine comes in the form of Lawnmower Man and any reference to a horror film is entirely deliberate.  It must be admitted that my garden hirings have not been an unqualified success. There was an entirely blameless, and not unattractive Irishman who my husband suspected was burying illicit arms in the compost heap and then a wild-eyed Care In the Community youth who constantly pruned his own body   A single handed/ fingered walking Tarantine movie, at least he reduced fertiliser outlay to fish and bone.

Enter Lawnmover Man whose sole aim in life does not centre upon my need for grass containment but on his desire to ambush me in the shrubbery and subject me to the peat-dark outpourings of his troubled soul, episodes that would leave even the most devoted fan of Dostoyevsky gagging for a little comic relief.  He would not normally have got past the security lights had he not confused me with an actress with a similar name and behaved in such a grovelling, star-struck manner that vanity triumphed over common sense.  (And not for the first time, you remind me).

Getting rid of him was not simple. Not one to take the subtle hint – ‘You’re fired’ – my creative juices were taken up for months devising ways to reduce the size of the lawn and the need for him.  Whole gardening series could have been filmed as I contemplated the merits of paving, decking, cobbling and concreting.  More ‘construction’ than ‘constructive’ dismissal but it’s the thought that counts.

But now it is done. The last blade of grass is history.  Where once was an emerald sward now, thanks to the services of a miniature digger, there is a shiny sheet of water large enough to have waves and self-governing Islands.  And best of all, Lawnmower Man has been replaced by Pond Man, a sunny natured, raven haired Italian who is teaching me to tango on the lakeside.  An entirely better kettle of koi.

Thank God that’s over, I say, and certainly not for the first time. I refer, somewhat belatedly, to the Festive Season, that time of year from August when you can’t open a newspaper without reading how to drop a dress size in ten days, presumably so you will confidently drop a dress in ten minutes at the office Christmas party.  Plus the endless sanctimonious whining about the commercialisation of Christmas – as if the visitors to  Baby Jesus all turned up empty handed, did they?

I will admit to loving the run-up to Christmas and my house is decked with enough lights to outshine a hotel in Las Vegas as soon as the clocks go back but by the time the Big Day itself arrives, I’ve had enough.

A particularly stupid mistake one year was to give my teenage son a large sum of cash so he could choose his own presents.  Ho, Ho, Ho shrieked Santa when there was nothing to wrap on Christmas Eve and an emergency dash to the shops was needed on a day when I venture most women already have more than enough to do.

Yet again having to down two mince pies, a carrot and the half pint of sherry left by the chimney (My boys are sticklers for tradition) suddenly remembered at three o’clock on Christmas morning finally tips me over the edge. Faced at that point with the prospect of two days of close confinement with my family, visions of ‘The Great Escape’ starts looping round in my head and I have started planning a tunnel whose purpose is most definitely NOT to have anyone home for Christmas.

Add to the mix that there is only January to look forward to with its awful weather and the fact that everyone else is in the West Indies (Incidentally horribly vulgar nowadays – we are never going again) and the shops are full of dreadful tat, mostly returned unwanted gifts and brought-in sale rubbish. The final nail in the coffin of the Will to Live is, of course, the New Year Resolution, all of which will by now be but a faint memory having been abandoned faster than a baby girl in China.

So, dear reader, a few life affirming, positive and achievable thoughts to see you through to February.

Firstly, resolve to carry on drinking.  Dry January?  Are you mad?  Ditto smoking.  Remember that nicotine patches are almost certainly made by war-mongering  multi-national drug companies and should be shunned.  Fall shamelessly asleep at yoga or Pilates – isn’t it supposed to make you relax?  Snore. Resolve, given the opportunity, to drive slowly in front of caravans and boast as freely about your knowledge of daytime TV as you did last year about your kale consumption.  And possibly aim for my own personal favourite – achieve a life-long ambition to make a periodontist cry.

Happy 2016 people.