Well, so, I received a text message from my pal Rich the other day, in which he said "I miss mine". Naturally, I assumed that what he was missing was his boat Easy Street, a lovely Bayfield 25.

So I texted him back (what a perfectly horrible word- "text", when used as a verb): "Seriously! I miss mine too. What am I supposed to do on weekends now anyway?"

Meaning, of course, that I too regretted the inexorable march of seasons which has obliged me to put up my sail-boat for the year, and that I can no longer go sailing.

Then I noticed that Rich had sent me a previous text message, evidently some sort of vulgar and fairly unhilarious joke about transsexuals who, no longer having any testicles of their own to play with, are fond of playing with those belonging to other people: a joke to which the message "I miss mine"- the message I replied to (inadvertantly inappropriately, it turns out)- was apparently the punchline.