Oh yes.

Over on b3ta.com, they run a question of the week. A couple of weeks ago it was wondering what the worst thing was that people had done to their siblings. The resulting avalanche of horror stories made me sort of glad that Small Person is, and will remain, an only child. The only normal thing about my family was the intense loathing my stepsister and I felt for each other. There was the usual low-grade bickering that ran incessantly, and apart from sharing the cupboard under the stairs to escape the au-pair, we were locked in hostility. When we played hide and seek she would invariably hide in my toybox. I would then sit on the lid until the screams became faint through lack of oxygen, letting her out in time to pretend I hadn't done anything when a parent came to investigate. She retaliated by making me stand on a stool to turn on my bedroom light, then pushing me off it. Hard. On one occasion I persuaded her to let me cut her hair (she's eighteen months older than me and should have known better - she was twelve at the time). She has very thick, very curly hair, which I cut (with scissors not clippers) into a giant curly mohawk. My mother went absolutely postal, and sis had to wear a banana clip in her hair for about three months. One summer day, playing over the Rec, David SomebodyorOther weed in an empty coke can and left it on the bench under the oak tree. We then announced a race, with the winner getting to drink the coke (it was a very hot day). Cue my sister legging it frantically across the field, while five other kids ran elaborately slowly behind her. She only managed one mouthful, but it was worth it for the look on her face. Car journeys to see grandmothers elevated tensions to the point of all-out war should a foot, elbow or possession stray across the hotly-contested no-mans-land of the back seat armrest. Four hour journeys were punctuated with cries of "Mum! Mum! She's got her FOOT on my side", until slaps were administered to legs and all sweet privileges withdrawn. When staying with my brother and sisters (I thought they were my cousins but that's a story for another time), my stepsister and I had to share a double bed. This necessitated the intervention of a rolled up blanket (that I think was called Harry - am sure Fifi Sis will correct me if I'm wrong) which was placed down the middle of the bed to avoid either of us being kicked to death in the night. All in all, your average sibling relationship. We occasionally colluded - endless games of Monopoly, turning her bedroom into an assault course, looking at Simon Brown's willy round the back of the pub (we were six and eight, so that's alright then). But generally, we were lucky to even tolerate each other. So, based on this evidence, and the fifteen gore-streaked pages of posts over on b3ta.com, I really do think that a solitary childhood with imaginary friends and nobody to ever play board games with is probably the least damaging solution.

In other news, it was pointed out last night by the singer of the pub-rock covers band Dr Rox that the Other Half and I do, officially, rock. We knew that of course, but our shambling drunken singalong to their version of Maiden's Two Minutes to Midnight sealed the deal.

Will we never learn?