Their current car was supposed to see them out too, but on the basis that they're still here, they're now thinking about changing it. They missed out in the SSIA bonanza through an unshakeable belief that they wouldn't be around to reap the benefits. They're not even that old: they're just, I suppose, careful.

You won't be too surprised to learn, then, that they've no intentions of signing up for a grant to convert their bungalow to renewable energy.

But those of us with a shade more optimism need to acknowledge that fossil fuels won't see us out. Oh, you and me maybe (I'm my parents' daughter, after all) . . . but the bigger Us will still need to keep warm long after the sun has set on the oil supply.

This a hobby horse of mine now, and every time I light up on it (usually to family and friends, and frequently while drunk), I'm amazed at how blase my audience is about it. Maybe it's the drunk thing, because I seriously struggle to believe that I could be the only person on Earth . . . well, me and Eamonn Ryan . . .who's worried about this.

The stock answer I'm thrown, whenever I wobble on my soap box, is that any individual's energy consumption is such a minuscule drop in the reservoir that I might as well leave the immersion on all day and have done with it.

Sometimes, when I see the banks of hundreds of unwatched television screens all left on for 18 hours at a time down in the gym, I can appreciate this argument. But every ocean is made up of billions of drops and unless I can regulate my own, I can't preach at everyone else with a clear (if a little confused) conscience.

The other stock counter-argument to my apparently tedious environmental stance is that I am simply mean. While I wouldn't deny this per se . . . and the oil delivery man certainly seemed to concur when I triumphantly told him that I'd made the last tank last for 10 months . . . I would still argue that putting on a jumper is a better long-term solution to feeling a bit chilly than pumping a depleted fuel source through a network of radiators.

I wear at least three jumpers for most of the year and, although I spend most of my waking hours traipsing round after the Husband turning off the rads he's just put on, I couldn't be happier.

For the rest of the time, I wear practically nothing, and it is to these balmy days that my indignation is now aimed. Apparently, we need a patio heater. All the leaflets shoved through our door this month tell us that it's so, and most are offering fantastic reductions right now if we don't delay.

And to think of all those summer nights I wasted by simply putting on a jumper when I got too cold or . . . imagine!
. . . going in.

To sum up: no longer content with heating the inside of our world to an extent that we have compromised the whole planet, we now need to heat up the outside as well. Jesus. Patio heaters. Put on a jumper or move somewhere warmer.

Or our precious resources won't even see my unfortunate parents out.

World Cup really stinks I'm delighted to see that David Beckham has turned his hand to perfumery. You might have thought that with a World Cup coming up, as well as all his sorting out to do, he'd have precious little time for a hobby, but suddenly there are ads all over my television for the smell of him.

It's called Instinct, which strikes me as a good name for a perfume as it contains the word 'stink' in it. I assume he's set up a sort of home laboratory in his garage to tinker with his odours and make his distinctive (see what I did there? ) stink, and good luck to him.

I have the distinction (! ) of being the only woman alive who likes David Beckham less than I like his wife, though neither of those love columns would make much impact on a graph. Still, I'm sure he smells lovely and he may yet be England's secret weapon in Germany. In the meantime, we're to be bombarded in the weeks ahead with all manner of commercial representations from the likes of Wayne Rooney and the amusingly portly Eric Cantona, inviting us to contribute even more money to their swollen coffers (or, in the case of Rooney, to his bookmakers).

I never imagined I'd see the day when I'd be nostalgic for Kevin Moran selling shower gel, but there you go. Quinner flogging timeshare just isn't the same.

Stuff this nonsense about supporting Poland: I suggest we adopt a sour-grapes stance for the entire World Cup and agree in advance that it's to be remembered as the worst tournament ever. Call it instinct. If you must.