Paradise with Barry

I've really got to stop buying the Observer. For the £2 I waste on this rag every Sunday I could instead invest my funds in any of the following selection:

- 2 Toblerones from Poundland
- 6 Wings and chips
- 70% of a 10 pack of B+H Silvers
- A Gregg's Chicken and Mango Sandwich
- A King's of Leon ringtone (SEX ON FIRE)

The main supplement seems to consist of nothing but wafty features on green issues and numerous pictures of tearful third world matriarchs. This week the the main piece focused on celebrities and "their very personal al fresco spaces" (gardens). Below is a picture of Barry from Eastenders having a relaxing Sunday ruined by an inflatable dolphin:


Check out the OTT description of Barry's garden/Secret Kingdom:

"Walk through the garage door and you enter Shaun's Secret Kingdom, where honeybees feast from abundant blooms, apple and quince trees ready their branches for fruit and hens cluck around in dappled sunlight...

..."Peonies, magnolias and camellias", shouts his wife, Mel, from behind a fence. It's capable Mel who really gets her hands dirty around here, and Shaun who jumps in the pool with children Sophie, 11, and Joseph, 8."

Observer knobhead Cath Rapley is really going to town with the descriptive language here. Anyone who has ever been to Sevenoaks will tell you that it's not that interesting, yet Cath Rapley is going on like Barry and his obnoxious wife Mel have cultivated a contemporary Eden. Thankfully Barry isn't nude, and an inflatable porpoise has usurped the gobby serpent as tormentor-in-chief.

Another source of beef is sultry agony aunt Mariella Frostrup, and her continued refusal to respond to my repeated pleas for help. I have sent her dozens of letters regarding my 'night terrors', yet not one of them has made it on to the problem page. Every week it's yet another thirtysomething whining about how they're not sure whether they are in the right relationship. What about my night terrors Mariella!?