Billy sat down over two Stellas and a packet of dry roasted nuts and told us a story last night. He recounted that his parents have been married for about thirty years (a fact that seems unlikely, given that his mum is just 43) and that his father, a curmudgeonly niggard of a man by all accounts, has been getting on her nerves for about thirty years (which is much more likely, having heard stories of Billy's dad). After four or five years of uneasy detente Billy's mum recently tripped on a curled piece of loose carpet between their bedroom and the landing and she almost fell down the stairs at their home on the outskirts of some impossibly drab suburb of Basingstoke..