I suppose that television has lately become one of the highlights of my working week. Even when I decide to throw caution to the wind and spend a bit of money - shock horror – midweek, there is rarely someone available or agreeable to do so on the same night. “No I'm saving everything at the moment,’’ a friend will tell me, only to ring two nights later begging me to go on a ‘mad one'. By then I have probably done something silly like gone shopping to cheer myself up on a rainy Tuesday and am clamping my own wallet on lockdown till the guilt subsides.

So the telly is that one thing that offers escapism from the boredom of ‘cutting back’ and of course it’s not all bad when ‘sitting in’ means cosying up your new house mate - that is live-in boyfriend of six months, cohabiting happily together. Delighted with our hi def flat screen, we agreed we didn't need a second set and left my TV at my parents’. Also, because the bedroom didn’t exactly have enough space for any more of 'my stuff'’.

The first few weeks were spent kindly offering each other the remote while the other sat, quietly in domestic bliss. We had always known we wouldn't see eye-to-eye on our programme choices but in the early days we were hopeful that a compromise would work out. Things came to a head recently over two words - Champions League. Every single night it seems! Thursday onwards doesn't count. Apart from the odd date with Pat Kenny I don't switch on the box much at weekends anyway so he can enjoy football frenzy without any objection. It’s mid-week that I need it! The recession has of course made it worse - with not as much money to visit the pub he watches more games from the comfort of our home.

Where was the guy who used to miss the football to endure endless chick-flicks just to spend time with me?

I don't mind sharing our telly time, honestly, fair is fair, it's just that football takes up the whole night, THREE hours of it, rudely interrupting the soaps! “Well relax, it's all over now for the summer,’’ he pointed out the other night while throwing the remote at me. Yes he agrees that soaps are only 30 minutes long, but argues that Coronation St. has never once taken a break in more than 30 years ! I suppose he has a point.