It’s got really cold, wet and miserable in the last week. Welcome another long English winter. The long dark nights are drawing in, the scarves, gloves and hats have come out the bottom of wardrobes, and thermals nestle underneath our clothes. This is your life for the next five months, so you best make do.

There is nothing worse than a double glazing advertisement. However, there is nothing worse than not having double glazing. How am I supposed to function in a terraced house, with irregular heating hours and with single paneled windows in the middle of an English winter? I don’t have a death wish, but death does indeed seem on the cards.

A balding middle aged man harangues another during another insipid double glazing commercial, I can hardly stomach it. My shivering wreck of a body takes me to a place that seems entirely closed to me – that of actually ringing the advertisements flashing number. I had always thought I was particularly hard; able to withstand both extremes of temperatures, but my sulky resignation to irritating marketing ploys defies all my previous self respect. I ring the number, the man from the advertisement seems a lot calmer now, he’s lost some of his flustered excitement and seems to want to get down to the real nitty-gritty of selling me some extra window panes.

What am I thinking! Am I the only person in the whole country that has been sucked in by the most excruciatingly painful advertisement on TV? What more damage can a winter do to a man’s own self respect!