When Serious Journalists are trying to be a bit lighthearted and things, they often ask whether the interviewee has a sort of secret talent. And then Charles Saatchi or whoever will go, actually yes, I know all the words to all the songs in Grease, thanks very much. And then everyone goes aaaaah, look, he is a human being after all. And then you wonder if they have cultivated these things. Because it's often the more obviously sinister plotting and scheming ones that have the most adorable secret talents. Like if I were David Cameron's PR person, I would advise him to say that his secret talent was being able to trick a cat into putting smartie tubes on all its legs and making it walk like a robot. Cos it's a bit sort of weird, but also a bit funny, and then you'd imagine him doing it, and then you'd think that he couldn't be really so bad. And it would all be a lie.

The thing that made me think of this is that my secret "talent" (ie not a talent in the traditional sense) is the "ability" (ie not an ability in the traditional sense) to stage an argument with someone entirely within the confines of my own head. I had one just now. It went just exactly, exactly like this:

My mum (tentatively): So, ah, I noticed that you haven't really been writing too much on the blog lately
Me (irritably): What do you mean?
My mum (attempting to be Airy. Failing): Oh you know, just that you haven't been writing as much as you used to.
Me (sitting up REAL STRAIGHT now and kind of plucking edgily at the neck of my fucking lambswool jersey which is now suddenly just the itchiest thing I could ever have imagined): What do you MEAN as much as I USED TO? Do you think I've just STOPPED WRITING? Mmm? Hmm?
My mum (very tired): Oh Pippy, don't get ratty.
Me: I'm not! I'm not ratty! I'm just so BUSY. Okay? I'm just SO FUCKING BUSY.

And So On. Really. I know that, were this argument ever to take place, that this is exactly how it would go. I'm hoping that by imagining it in such unnecessarily vivid detail, I will have sort of cut it off at the pass. I doubt it though.