Take it all with a pinch of salt, my granddad used to tell me.

Uncle James used to hate mathematicians. He used to say: there are three kinds of mathematicians: those who can count and those who can't.

My gran used to say that when you sneezed, it meant that someone was thinking about you. She was very popular that winter before she died. I always wondered whether God ever sneezed.

My brother told me that when you looked at fat people long enough, they would explode. When I broke up with my well-endowed 6th Form girlfriend, I spent hours staring at her, something I had never done before. She didn't explode. But we got back together again and it lasted another two years.

My, mother once told me that if you bite your nails, they'll all gather in your appendix and make it burst. So 1 used to wake up in the middle of the night and spend hours with my fingers down my throat, trying to vomit any digital extremities I may have consumed. My mother later told me that it was OK as long as it was my own nails I swallowed.

My little brother once told me that all lollipop people were escaped convicts in disguise. The old grannie who worked -my street always scared me to death - I would have terrible nightmares where I would be chased around the playground wearing nothing but my underwear, the frenzied grannie hot on my tracks waving a giant strawberry and banana lollipop at me and shouting "Have you had your Weetabix?" Every time I saw her in the street I would run away screaming. She soon retired.

My father once told me he loved me.

I never did believe him.

RKB