Those of you who know me will be all too aware that things often happen to me which are usually confined to sitcoms or farces.

And so, without going into enormous amounts of detail about it (I’ve done that several times already in the past twenty-four hours), I’ll just say that there was no surprise – and indeed there was a general air of sickening inevitability about it – to my Saturday night, when I was babysitting the young daughter of a friend.

It was, of course, only right that when I put a pizza in the oven, and nipped off to the bathroom for a quick slash, that the bathroom door lock completely and utterly seized, leaving me trapped on one side of the door, and my infant charge on the other side.

No, I’m not kidding.