in a village you can't sack or fight with someone, as you'll find yourself stuck beside them in the hairdresser's next morning.

I have a theory that the secret of marital happiness is simple: drink in different pubs to your other half.

Go to lots of interviews, at least one a month even when you don't need a job, to keep in training for when you do.

I'm not wild about holidays. They always seem a ludicrously expensive way of proving there's no place like home.

Always be nice to everyone in the firm on the way up. You never know who you may meet on the way down.

it's a good idea to wait a few months before joining anything when you arrive at a village. A bookseller friend who retired to nearby Oxfordshire, and was worried he might be bored, got himself on to every village committee in the first six months, and spent the next ten years extricating himself.

If you feel compelled to give a New Year's Eve party, don't invite people to arrive too early or they'll go off the boil before midnight.