MANY years ago I left a Christmas Eve party in London and and found that my car had been broken into and all the presents I had bought for my family and friends had been stolen.

This was so long ago that it was pre-mobile phones. I went back inside to call the police.

Do you remember the days when you called the police to summon their assistance after a robbery, rather than just pop in to the station the next day to report it so that you could claim on your insurance?

Anyway, I was quite animated about my loss and an actress who was present said to me "Never mind, you still have your arms and your legs."

This was undoubtedly true, but at that moment it did not endear her to me and, being one to bear a grudge, whenever I have seen her on television I have remembered the desire to throttle her I experienced at the time.

In the last week, my car has imploded, after a series of mechanical mishaps, and is currently awaiting a new head gasket, amongst other things similarly expensive.

It is, of course, just outside the dealer's warranty period.

I also learned today that the four weeks well-paid employment in America, attending a series of conventions that led me to turn down other less well paid work, has disappeared into a black hole beyond even the reach of the Tardis.

Experience should have told me that whenever someone offers you more money than even you think you are worth - there is a strong possibility that they don't know what they are doing.

But even though there were warning signals, hope remained in the deluded Pandora's box of my brain. Fool that I am.

So there I am, bemoaning my lot and warning my two daughters who are about to embark on three year university courses that their standard of living might have to take a significant drop, when I receive an email from a friend telling me about a white family in Zimbabwe with twin boys of 10 who had no chance of salvaging anything when 100 riot police came in unannounced with AK47's and bulldozers and demolished their house because it was too close to the airport.' They now have nothing.

That gave me pause to think.

At least I do have my arms and my legs.