I’ve been catching up on the Corduroy Mansions. There’s a lot going on, the pace has quickened, adventures are afoot and some of them leaving bigger footprints than others.

Barbara is heading to the country and lashings of clean air but she is having doubts. Does “you are so very welcome to our family” really ring true? And what is she doing in Scotland, she’s a Londoner after all.

I’m not so keen on the thought of Dee administering colonic cleansing to Martin – we already know she can’t be trusted from her past behaviour don’t we – but another proposition is about to come out of that discussion…and a better one at that.

And you dog lovers, please, look away now. I have found myself alarmed at the precarious position our superhero dog is now finding himself in…totally out of the kennel without a bone and subjected to passive smoking to boot, it’s a dog’s life isn’t it? How could M16 be so obvious, so foolish – will he survive this canine caper? It appears he may not.

But calm yourselves, we don’t know as of yet.

And yet another sub plot has gone to the dogs this week. It won’t come as any surprise to me, or you either, that Caroline and James are no longer. Not that they were of course…I mean, well they haven’t, they never, they couldn’t, um, oh, how do I put this delicately?

Elsewhere a new and novel drama of yeti proportions is beginning to unfold at the Ragg Porter Literary agency – Rupert Porter is heading out the door for a clandestine meeting outside Fortnum & Mason with Errol Greatorex and none other than, well a big hairy man to be honest. At this time of year, you may think this poor man has just lost his marbles and, with a desire to retreat back into the carefree days of childhood, just wants to plonk himself on the chubby knee of Santa in his grotto in Fortnums. Well this is what the receptionist Andrea must be thinking as he leaves her the details of his jaunt into the West End.

Rupert however is a little less trusting of the whole thing.

Read more here at The Telegraph.

James, he is not so much nutty as he confesses he is unable to get his to work.
Berthea believes she should be placing a sign above her door ‘May Contain Nuts’.
I’m not even going to get started on Oedipus or Terence.

But I have to say, I’m sure Berthea will do her nut once she manages to decipher the conversation she is eavesdropping on…and the rest of us will have to wait a while longer…

Poor, poor Caroline…

Hmmm, I knew Dee might be ‘one of those’ types. This week she has the barefaced cheek to lie to Caroline about her dinner with James but of course is found out as the star-crossed lovers unravel the mystery behind the last evening’s disaster.
Berthea Snark also reveals her duplicitous streak as we learn that she is writing an expose of a Liberal MP disguised as an unauthorised biography. That in itself would be fine, if only it weren’t for the fact that the MP in question, is actually her own son…

Well, I’m starting to become attached to a new soap – Corduroy Mansions – with it’s humour as dry as a white bourgogne it’s definitely a good read and while it has yet to reach the zenith of great vintage moments, I’m intrigued and tickled enough to keep reading on.

Is it because there’s a touch of the Reginald Perrin from the main character William? Or a slight sense of Dodie Smith’s Pongo in Freddie de la Hay, or even the hint of Spooks that Angelica brings? I can’t be quite sure, but this serialisation does pay homage to our great British aptitude and appetite for farce. I’m expecting a thinly disguised cameo from Terry Thomas at any moment. I kid you not. You just need to read this week’s chapters to feel a Fawlty Towers moment coming on – especially when Freddie de la Hay handily rearranges itself to become Headily Fed Dear. I’ll pot the plot for you without giving anything away; women makes careers from feeding men, men live and die by food, woman gets arrested for feeding pigeons, dog seeks food…

I know that’s a little mean spirited of me, so I’ll leave you with a few more morsels to chew over; Duck takes a dog and French hopes to find love – coded enough for you? Better read it for yourself then…

Oh, and who won the X Factor???

footnote: I was approached a few weeks ago and asked if I would be happy to be involved with the Telegraph Online Book Club – a no brainer for me, I’m an avid reader and this new fangled way of experiencing a book seemed quite interesting. That’s how I get these early chapters ahead of everyone else, and I’m not being paid either…

After a chance meeting in the street with a neighbour, the eccentric Berthea Snark, who is more reminiscent of a Titus Groan character than the psychologist Sloane she truly is, Caroline reveals that James is actually her boyfriend to this new stranger who by proxy analysis confirms that he has OCD.

Yet to learn of his condition, James arrives at Caroline’s flat and thinks he has been stood up, he inadvertently two-times his lover by spontaneously inviting Dee for dinner.

Most amusing is the reappearance of Angelica Brockelbank at William’s house and the introduction, by name only, of Freddie de la Hay.

It’s worth reading, Scout’s honour.

I received these latest chapters on Friday for my sneak preview of Corduroy Mansions.

In this tranche, we travel across town with Caroline, who discovers that her would be lover James bears all the hallmarks of OCD – so kissing is off the cards.

While they begin a journey into a the West End to pick up a specialist book, just a few feet away begins the quarterly meeting of the Ragg Porter Literary agency begins. We meet Barbara Ragg, nice but dim and the vile, spiteful couple Rupert and Gloria Porter.

Where is it heading?
What of the world of wine and MI6? ….I’ll just have to wait until next week. With 80 chapters in the book, I feel the pieces of the jigsaw are still being spread out, so we’re well before the stage of being able to compile the puzzle.