IAIN AYRE IT'S A 20 MINUTE JOB
One of life’s great pleasures is the abuse of one’s most treasured friends. I’m not talking about bullying, but cheery, clever, entertaining and secretly sympathetic cruelty-free cruelty. Genuine banter, without any destructive undercurrent, purely for the fun of mental swordplay.
Once a torture weapon has been developed, it can become funnier with each repeated stab. For example, a friend of mine lives partly in LA and partly in Washington State. He’s an expat British screenwriter, and for fun he spanners on old British cars comprising an Austin Ten, an Austin Seven and
