I WAS at the checkout in Tesco today when the lady on the till began chatting to the woman before me at the check out.

"Sunscreen?" she enquired with the rain slashing into the plate glass windows behind.

"Holiday," the customer said by way of explanation.

"Going anywhere nice?" asked the check out girl.

I was longing for the customer to say, "No, we fancied a change this year. My husband’s found us a corrugated shack on a sewage farm in Bulgaria right next to a gas works."

Of course she’s going somewhere nice. What else would she do with two weeks holiday? Women have a language of their own when it comes to chitchat.

I actually heard a lady in John Lewis say to a friend that she’d just returned from a round the world tour.

"Did you enjoy it?" her friend asked.

"It was very nice but I wouldn’t like to live there."

Amazingly, her friend said: "Yes, I know what you mean."

Mrs B once dug me in the ribs as we drove through town and said: "Look at that woman coming out of the post office."

"What about her?"

"Doesn’t she look like Michelle’s sister?"

"How should I know," I replied with honesty. "I didn’t know Michelle had a sister."

"She hasn’t."

"Well, how the hell can she look like a sister she doesn't have?"

At this point Mrs B lost her cool. "Stop being so difficult. You know perfectly well what I mean. If Michelle had a sister she’d look just like that woman coming out of the post office."

No man would ever use that logic. He’d say: "Doesn’t that girl look like Michelle?" Simple.

I remember being in the village shop when an elderly lady came in shivering.

"Isnt it chilly today," she said to a friend at the counter.

"Oh, it is," she replied. "But it’s mild with it."

And the daft old dear said: "Yes, it is mild."

Probably the most dangerous question on the planet is: "Do I look all right in this?"

There is absolutely no correct answer when a woman asks this. A quick ‘yes’ will generate an angry ‘you didn’t even look' response. A ‘no’ is tantamount to a death warrant and any man who says ‘Not bad’, is clearly mental.

I’ve tried hiding in the toilet until it’s time to leave the house but evasion is futile.

Better to slit your own throat shaving than risk the wrath of a woman.

The views on this page are Vic Barlow's and not necessarily those of the Express