‘It’s kind of a fur-coat-no-knickers-smile’

I HAVE lost a filling, and my dentist of 20 years has moved away.

So now I’m standing in a new dental surgery, chatting to a strange dentist, breathing like a box-bellows; it seems my fear of dentists has suddenly resurfaced after two decades, totally intact.

I wonder whether or not I’m going to deal with fear in my customary fashion, which is to say, by talking rubbish with no thought for sense, personal dignity or consequence at all.