Things My Girlfriend And I Have Argued About - the book.
Based on, in the sense that it is virtually nothing to do with, the newspaper column incrementally reprinting the arguments already seen on his original site, Things The Book is MR MILLINGTON's first novel, a triumph of his ability to type while roadworks go on outside.
Listen to these carefully screened testimonials.
"Riotously funny romance ... a brilliant, thoroughly urbane hoot" - The Big Issue, official magazine of tramps.
"The plot escalates with all the shameless hyperbole needed to fuel a really good row ... this is a very funny book" - The Observer.
"There is little to say about coupledom that is not wittily and often movingly explored here. Sharply written, brilliantly observed, and absolutely hilarious" - The Daily Mail, whose Sunday edition stole the original Things site and pretended they had written it themselves.
"Not, like many website-to-book translations, a straight lift of the site with some new material added" - Robot Fist.
"Has anyone seen MR MILLINGTON? He is months overdue with his latest feature for The Weekly. What did you say? I see. Fetch my assassins" - MR NASH.
Now read this extract taken from page 28, line 29 to page 31, line 15 of the "trade paperback."
Ursula is not like me. I believe effort is a finite resource, something to be used only when no other option is available. For me, half-heartedness is a full quarter too hearted. She, on the other hand, heaves herself into everything she does with the unreserved exertion of a sprinter lunging for the tape. My plans for the house stretched to buying a sofa and sitting on it, whereas Ursula's seemed to involve building on an extra wing.
First of all there was the garden. I hadn't even bothered to look out of the windows at the rear of the house to examine the garden when Sexton had originally shown me round. I'm not a garden person. When we'd gone to view the house together and, at Ursula's command, I did glance outside it was clear that bringing it under control would be best achieved not by a mower but by several months of strategic bombing.
"OK," I said, knowing that the job couldn't be avoided, "I'll machete everything down then I'll lay some astroturf."
"Don't be stupid."
"I'm not. It doesn't cost much more than normal turf."
"I want proper grass."
"Astroturf is better than proper grass, it's designed specifically to be better than proper grass. It has only one reason for existence, and that's to beat grass at its own game."
"You just want something you don't have to mow."
"And that makes me what? An Evil Genius?"
"How unlike you to add the word 'genius' there. What it makes you is idle. But we knew that anyway, and I am still not having a garden with plastic grass, it's not natural."
"Who wants natural? That" - I made a theatrical sweep of my arm garden-wards - "That's natural. And, frankly, I fear what creatures may lie within its dark interior. Anyway, what's wrong with not wanting to have to keep mowing the lawn? I didn't make a thing about buying a washing machine. I didn't say, 'You just want to get out of beating our clothes against a rock, you lazy tart,' did I?"
"Don't call me a tart."
"I wasn't calling you a tart. I was saying how I, unarguably, hadn't called you a tart, if anything."
"We're having proper grass."
As a compromise, we had proper grass.
The inside of the house was more of a long haul. There was, for example, a bed and a refrigerator to buy, which I'd expected. I didn't know, however, that when you get a house you also need to buy monstrous amounts of pointless rubbish. Toilet roll holders, lampshades, a trio of candlesticks of cleverly diminishing height and Mondrian-themed coasters. There's a thin line that divides the man you were from the person shuffling around Ikea with a stupid, big yellow bag and dead eyes.
Eventually, though, we reached the stage where we were treading water more or less comfortably. I had my games console set up, Ursula had her phone, we'd meet at the microwave and exchange information over the gentle, domestic hum of a warming lasagne. Even with the car insurance (given the area, it approached four figures to insure our VW Polo), we weren't too badly off money-wise because our mortgage was so low. When it rained heavily the water did come in under the kitchen door, but we could afford sturdy shoes and thus our spirits remained unbroken.
We strolled along like this for some months. Then, one Saturday afternoon as I was sitting on the sofa circling programmes in the TV guide, Ursula came into the room. She stopped, standing directly in front of me, as she does sometimes when she wants to say something from a position where she can block my escape. I carried on studying the guide for some time before glancing up at her (there are rules, after all). When I did so she spoke with spirit-level evenness.
"I'm pregnant."
"Phew, thank God. I was beginning to think all of that sex was for nothing."
She clicked her teeth. 'That's good. That's really good. Because all the times I've played this moment out, practising it in my mind, that's always been precisely the reaction I hoped for most dearly."
"OK, come in again and try it. I'll faint or something. I'm really pleased, I mean, obviously, I'm most, most pleased. We were trying, though - well, I was certainly trying extremely hard, and I remember you being there - so, it's not like it's just come out of nowhere."
"Excuse me and my run-of-the-mill conception."
There was a slight pause. I think I coughed like people do before the show starts in theatres.
"Well?" she asked. "Are you going to hug me any time soon, or what?"
"No problem." And I hugged her.
Hugged her as the music swelled, I thought. She obviously filed the moment away, however, because three years later she announced the approach of Second Born by coming into the room and saying, "I'm pregnant. And it's not yours." You've got to admire a woman who can spend three years preparing to make a point, haven't you?
