Owing to a recent shortage of cattle and mothers, the best I can offer you at present is this arresting postal delicacy of the Cerne Abbas Giant (or should that be the Cerne’s Giant Abbas?). As computers do not yet possess the ability to read the back of postcards (shame on them) allow me to enlighten you as to the postcard’s printed description of its fine and strapping picture:

Cerne Abbas Giant

Cerne Abbas Giant

‘Cut into the chalk of a Dorset hillside over 2,000 years ago this proud giant dominates the landscape. Some women still believe that sleeping with the giant is a cure for infertility.’

Of course I don’t fall for that old onion as sleeping out on the hillside with this particular Giant you’re more likely to end up penetratingly cold rather than penetratingly pregnant. Either that or you’ll be nursing a cricked neck and a lug-hole full of sheep manure (there’s a lot of roaming sheep in them thar hills).

Anyway, I’ve no time for sleeping with giants or fertility testing – not when I’ve got a container ship full of Russian seamen to be catching. Yes, after spending 15 years writing off to shipping companies trying to hitch up with a whole lot of cargo, I think I might have finally scored. Next week I’m off to Dunkerque to board a Herculean Russian vessel to sail with my mount to New Zealand via the Panama Canal. First stop Tahiti. Goodness it’s a hard life!