Tim (GP2) to Chris (GP1): “Those are my shorts you’re wearing! ”

“All my things are in my suitcase. Mum told me to wash everything so I did.”

(So why, if he’d washed and packed everything, was I hanging his washing on the line this morning, I wonder.)

“I was going to wear them today! What am I supposed to wear?”

“Well, they were on the radiator not doing anything.”

“I put them on the radiator to dry. So’s I could wear them.”

“I needed some shorts.”

End of conversation.

It was the blatant complacency that got me. Big Brother was entirely in the right for the simple reason that he wanted a pair of shorts and those ones happened to be to hand.

I should be grateful, I suppose. In the old days this would have deteriorated into violence.