Is there anyone amongst you who is not familiar with Sod?s law? I doubt it. Some people call it SNAFU or Situation Normal All Fouled Up, but whichever name you call it by, you will recognise the way in which it operates. It is Sod?s law that dictates that the moment you go in for a bath, the telephone will ring. This is the critical call that you have been waiting for, having put off going in for a bath for the last couple of hours just in order to receive it. With hair lathered in shampoo and towel out of reach, there is no way in which you can answer it. But Sod?s law being what it is, had you hung around longer, waiting for the call, it would not have come.

Or take the day when you have finally got around to a much belated bout of spring-cleaning. In your new found zeal to clear up the store room, you have thrown out all the cartons, paper and string that have cluttered up the place for the last several months. With Sod?s law operating, you can be sure that the very next day, you will need a carton, string and paper to do up a large parcel for the post.

Sod?s law ensures that your husband brings home unexpected guests to dinner on just the day that you are having nothing but leftovers; that, though you get up every morning at the crack of dawn, you oversleep on the one day that you have an important meeting; that your children will go down with measles on the eve of a long-awaited holiday, that you lose your voice just when you have a speech to make, that ??.. But I don?t need to go on. I am sure all of you have had first hand experience of Sod?s law.

But sometimes Sod goes into over-active mode, such as in the case of a friend of mine. With a wedding in the family and a vast influx of house-guests, she was SNAFUed with a vengeance. On day one the refrigerator packed up, on day two the telephone went dead, on day three the geyser followed suit. The iron blew a fuse, the milk split while a passel of hungry guests waited for breakfast, and, worst of all, hours before the wedding, the lock of the almirah which contained everyone?s jewellery jammed. Suddenly the house was overrun with plumbers, electricians, locksmiths and carpenters. Needless to say, the day after the wedding the house was running on oiled wheels once again!

So the next time it pours when you go out without an umbrella but stays dry when you carry one, or when the gas man comes to deliver a cylinder on the only morning that there is no one at home, take heart ? it could be worse. And remember that since Sod?s law is as inevitable as income tax or power cuts, there is nothing for it but to have a good laugh.