It’s all in the communicating. I called into my favourite clothes shop – McMahons in Portadown. To be honest, it’s not so much my favourite. More like the only shop in which I can be persuaded to buy clothes. The suits always fit. So we called in on Friday. John the boss was downstairs and Clifford upstairs surrounded by suits. We extended the range of choice to about six. They all fitted perfectly. Except that I didn’t fit the trousers any more. But of course there was no talk of weight or middle-aged spread or loss of muscle tone or the ‘f’ word .. Clifford just murmured something about ‘easing’. As if somehow it was something to do with the trousers. And it was done. What a useful concept, I thought. Anything inconvenient or uncongenial – sermons, inadequate stipend, tiresome people – I’ll just ‘ease’ them a little and that will be that.