She's collating them, you see, to use as policies when she is made prime minister.

We all wait, poised and ready, for that inevitable day when Gordon Brown realises the future prosperity of our nation lies in the hands of a 40-something mother-of-three proof-reader from Streatham with a moth phobia and a stellar recipe for flapjack, then announces her as his successor.

Then my mum will go on to fix the country, one apostrophe at a time.

Today's decree went something like this: Mother marches into my room wearing a look of enlightenment.

It is the look you find on the face of a person realising the door they've been pushing for four minutes says 'Pull' in big shiny letters.

"When I am prime minister," she says, "I will make it law for everybody to wear only their dressing gowns for the week between Christmas and new year.

"Just pyjamas and dressing gowns! I won't have to do any washing and then everything will be right with the world."

I congratulate her on the epiphany.

We shall be a collective nation of Arthur Dents, ready at any moment to tackle any disasters involving intergalactic invasion or the Radio Times crossword, unhampered by the obstructive presence of buttons, zips, Velcro or cumbersome underwear.

In dressing gowns, we will all be equals, and for that one week Britain will live in peace and harmony, feasting on shared bounty from the communal Quality Street tin that we call life.

Except then I have to point out the obvious (small) snag: "What happens, oh wise one, when we need to leave the house?

"For stockpiling batteries, say, or hitting each other with handbags in the M&S sale?"

Prime Mum is not defeated.

"I'll sanction it – everyone is free to roam the streets in their dressing gowns without being mocked or sectioned.

"We'll wear reinforced slippers. It will be the norm."


Five minutes later, she is back. "In fact," she declares, "on New Year's Eve, everybody will burn their dressing gown in a big ceremony.

"We'll call it …'The Burning of the Dressing Gowns'.

"Then, the next day, everybody gets presented with a new one, so we all start the new year in a state of dressing gown purity, ready for another 365 days of faithful service accumulating crumbs and old tissues and minor burns and splodges of Müller Crunch Corner. I'll start now by burning your father's."

Once the alarm has been silenced and the black smoke has stopped billowing under my door, she returns once again.

Epiphany the second.

"I'm extending it to include leftovers!

"Citizens may not put on proper clothes between December 26-31, and nor are they allowed to consume anything that wasn't bought expressly for Christmas.

"Turkey must comprise at least two thirds of every meal, with cheese, trifle and miniature Heroes making up the rest.

"This is the law, and punishment for anyone who fails to adhere will be seven years living in the beard of Roy Wood from Wizzard."

In support, then, for Mrs Bravo's eventual rise to power and reformation of the country's yuletide habits, I'm off to discover if turkey and brandy butter is the taste sensation I've always suspected it might be.

And to break it to her, very gently, that I don't actually own a dressing gown.