A woman at the rear of the room raised her hand. I was focused on the argument now and made a minor social error, which I quickly corrected. "The fat woman-overweight woman-at the back?"

To the world's most perfect woman. It was lucky my father was not present. Perfect is an absolute that cannot be modified, like unique or pregnant. My love for Rosie was so powerful that it had caused my brain to make a grammatical error.

Gene told me the next day that I got it wrong. But he was not in a taxi, after an evening of total sensory overload, with the most beautiful woman in the world. I believed I did well. I detected the trick question. I wanted Rosie to like me, and I remembered her passionate statement about men treating women as objects. She was testing to see if I saw her as an object or as a person. Obviously the correct answer was the latter. ‘I haven’t really noticed,’ I told the most beautiful woman in the world.

Fortunately, I am accustomed to creating amusement inadvertently.

I asked you here tonight because when you realise you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.

There are so many weird people that nobody takes any notice. We all just fit right in.

But why, why, why can't people just say what they mean?