The estate agent is coming around in an hour to take photos of the house. Ann's going to have to find a particularly tough surfactant to clean up the slimetrail he leaves behind.

Estate agents - a necessary evil. Or are they? No, no, I'm not suggesting they're not evil - anyone who can write '...the property enjoys spacious vistas to the south' has clearly sold their soul so far down the Styx as to be irredeemable. I'm questioning whether they're necessary. Perhaps the new economy will kill them off? The WWW has allowed us to buy insurance direct from the provider, thereby sending brokers back to the sulphurous abyss whence them came. Will estate agents be next? When the New Heaven and the New Earth finally arrive maybe the shining city on the hill will be free of shining suits. Then we'll sing Non Nobis and Te Deum and offer praise to God, taking the abnegation of permatanned property imps as final proof of His Mercy and Love, so that the trumpets will sound as His Kingdom is at last established on the Face of the Earth.

('...a particularly fine Kingdom of Heaven enjoying spacious vistas to the south, being 100 million light years long by 150 million wide, detached and with its own gardens featuring well-stocked borders and a mature apple tree. The Kingdom represents an opportunity for the discerning buyer to modernise to the style of their choice, the fixtures and fittings having been sympathetically updated in the recent past to a pleasing standard...')

Some things, Elijah noted, will never change.