Friend with Improbably Successful Career calls up to berate me for failing to tell her exactly how awful life with a newborn baby can be. As she sobs down the phone line about her nipples bleeding so much she needs a transfusion, I persuade Husband on a Short Fuse to assume bedtime duties and get ready to head for her flat in Notting Hill.

“Where’s the father of the baby?” asks Husband on a Short Fuse not unreasonably.

I explain to him that while the rest of us are in recession, he’s too busy working on new deals at his investment bank to spend more than a couple of evenings a week with his new baby.

“And of course he’s got four children of his own with his wife,” I point out. “We need to compensate for his absence.”

“I can’t believe he allowed this to happen,” he sighs.

“The condom burst the day Lehman’s crashed,” I explain. “Small holes can have big consequences.” As I try to draw comparisons between contraceptive crises and failure in the banking system, I drop in the fact that I might end up staying the night.

“But then I’ll have to do the school run on my own with three children,” he panics. “That’s almost worse than having a newborn baby.”

“Almost, but not quite,” I concede.

Friend with Improbably Successful Career is so pleased to see me that she immediately bursts into tears again. Her newborn baby lies contentedly asleep.

“The thing is not to panic,” I tell her. “However awful it seems right now, it won’t be this awful for ever.” I ask her to rattle through her main concerns.

“I haven’t slept more than two hours for almost ten days, my nipples are so cracked that the baby burps up pink milk, and my house is so untidy it almost looks like yours,” she explains between sobs. “And Gina Ford isn’t working on the baby.”

I put on a load of washing; instruct her to give the baby a bottle of milk in the evening until her nipples have healed; and then toss The Contented Little Baby Book out of the window. She stares at me open-mouthed.

“Next up, I’m going to call the father of the baby,” I tell her. She compliantly hands over his number to me. I phone him and explain that he either needs to spend more time with his new baby or provide some quantitative easing to get his girlfriend through this crisis. When he vacillates, I suggest that maybe talking to his wife would prove more constructive.

“Shall I get the maternity nurse that my wife had?” he asks nervously.

“Perfect,” I say.

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