THE other night I dreamed I was famous.There I was in Hollywood surrounded by a battery of press photographers and a cheering crowd of adoring fans. "Shall I do it now?" I asked teasingly.

"Go for it, Davy baby!" yelled the mob.

I got down on all fours on the pavement and plunged my palms into the wet cement.

"There you go!" I shouted. "My handprints are now preserved for posterity along with those other stars who are nearly as famous as I am - Charlton Heston, Marilyn Monroe and Rin Tin Tin."

The crowd went ballistic with joy. Then I woke up.

I was standing at the open fridge, my outstretched hands pressed into two bowls of individual trifle.

I felt a bit of a fool, and then a bigger one when my wife walked into the kitchen.

She'd been alerted by our dog Brian who had barked her awake under the firm impression that his master was having a nervous breakdown.

"Get back to bed!" my wife hissed at me. "I'd never have married you if I'd suspected you were a sleepwalker."

"But I don't sleepwalk," I insisted.

"Then what's all this about?" she demanded, indicating the mess in the fridge. "Have you finally gone insane?"

There was a slurpy, gluppy sound as I pulled my hands from the bowls of trifle.

"I remember now," I said, drying my digits on a tea towel. "I was wide awake in bed and decided to come downstairs for a snack. But I must have nodded off while standing in front of the fridge, pondering what to nibble on. These things happen," I added lamely.

"I still think you need to be sectioned," my wife muttered and she stormed off.

"What's she in such a bad mood for?" I grumbled to my dog.

Brian snorted at me in disgust, climbed back into his basket and pulled his blanket over his head.

"And why are you in such a filthy temper, too?" I asked my dog. "You're supposed to be devoted to me."

I put the kettle on and sat down at the kitchen table to have a think.

Why is everybody against me? I asked myself. Am I such a bad person?

"No," replied my wife who had come back into the kitchen to wipe up the globs of trifle. "You're not evil but you must admit you get on everyone's nerves."

"That's a horrible thing to say," I said.

"The truth needs to be told," she said. "Life's too short to keep our feelings to ourselves."

"You'll miss me when I'm gone," I grumbled.

"Why, where are you going?"

"Heaven," I replied. "I'll probably die before you do because I'm older by a year and three months."

"That doesn't necessarily follow," my wife argued. "But then again..." she added, picking up the breadknife.

I fled into the living room and thought some more. Was it indeed true that I was unloved?

My parents must have adored me back in the old days or why else did they have me?

So what if they did change the locks the day I went on the school trip to Southport? And, okay, what if they did encourage me to get my own flat when I was 13? What did all that prove?

I felt a sob coming on so I stuck my thumb in my mouth for some instant security.

Ugh! My thumb had a savoury taste. Why was that? I'd only had my hands in trifle. It was all very mysterious. And then realisation dawned.

I marched into the bedroom and jumped up and down on the duvet until my wife woke up with a scream.

"I'm on to your little game!" I shrieked. "The only time you make Oxo-flavoured trifle is when it's our Brian's birthday. You're throwing him a party, aren't you? And you've not invited me!"

"You're being paranoid," my wife said.

"But it's true, isn't it?" I snarled.

"Yes," she admitted. "But you're still a loonpot."

"Is it any wonder?" I cried, jumping off the bed. "I'm unloved, unwanted and a pain in the - excuse my language - bottom."

"Congratulations," my wife sighed. "You've just written yourself the perfect CV."

And then the phone rang.

"Answer it will you," my wife said.

"No, you answer it!" I retorted. "After all, it won't be for me. I'm unloved, remember. Nobody will want to talk to me."

"Have you finished being hysterical?" asked my wife.

I thought for a moment. "No!" I shouted. "I hope the person at the other end of the phone is Vlad The Impaler wanting to make an appointment to see you.

"Better still, I hope it's Rentokil to say they've tracked your mother back to her lair and they're putting poison down this instant."

My wife glared at me - so I answered the phone.

I covered the mouthpiece. "Are we interested in double glazing?" I asked my wife.

"How dare those people ring up at two o'clock in the morning!" she snapped.

"Er...it's not a salesman," I said. "It's our neighbours saying we're making too much noise."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.