A story from oh comely issue eleven. I was a lousy office temp, the despair of my agency. I'd blundered my way through several positions, leaving a trail of botched account books and frozen switchboards in my wake. As a result, they sent me to the worst places on file. I'd just spent a week answering the phone in an office that smelled like ham, and the week before that having my bottom patted by a . . .

"So what do you do?" It's the classic conversation opener, it's appropriate. It's not going to cause stilted silences like, "Who did you vote for in the election?" or "So, what's your favourite position?" So what do I do? Well, I work in a bar. I pour pints of Guinness for curmudgeonly regulars and I stack glasses in a dishwasher. On Mondays we polish the whisky bottles and wipe down the gantry. This is what I do in that this is how I trade my time for money, and that . . .