It was an early winter’s day in Fallowfield, with a cold nip in the air and Old Master, having retired recently, was taking advantage of a gap in the morning chores to relax in his favourite armchair and pretend to read the newspaper. His flat cap had fallen to one side of his forehead.

Old Mistress came briskly back into the room.

“Ermm!” she intoned, “I thought stay-at-home husbands were supposed to take a greater share of the domestic assignments and there’s plenty of vacuuming to be done!”

Old Master started and retrieved his cap which had fallen to the floor.

“In the paper,” he explained, “there’s details of the technological advances made with vacuum cleaning robots which have come down considerably in price.”

“Oh yes!” replied Old Mistress, “but can they get cat hairs out of corners and climb the stairs?”