I have a brand new ipod nano. Orange, as it were... My favourite colour.

Could I set it up, and load ANY music on it?

No.

Someone I know offered to help me, so I turned up at his house with a little tray of my home-made tiramisu. Fair deal?

Setting up iTunes and the little orange bugger looked very tricky to me, even as he was doing it. By comparison, making a pudding is pleasantly uncomplicated.

I marvelled at his bachelor's pad. Congruously, a large Christmas tree blinked pleasantly with all its blue lights from the otherwise bare corner of the sitting room.

Two sofas. No fridge. No sugar in the cupboard.

The female in me went into overdrive. I felt and resisted the strange urge to push him out of the house and re-organise his living space according to the order whispered by the only universe I know. My own.

Mind, no pink and fluffy cushions scattered all over, or purple frilly curtains hanging from the bare windows. I was blown over by the functional technology of this man's flat, and how everything seemed to work according to divine, sensible logic.

All it's missing is love.

And a bar of soap in the bathroom.