If price rises average out at two per cent, most people are likely to see no rise or a bigger rise depending on the kind of house they own. Two per cent is, in any case, such a tiny increase (pounds 1,200 on a pounds 60,000 house) that it falls well within normal negotiating margins.
For most in the property world, 1995 was a year of great disappointment. And I wouldn’t end up bonding with my worst enemy, because there is no one else to talk to But of course it’s New Year and I haven’t. Candidates in the annual house price guessing game have this year produced such similar results that they might be accused of conferring. House prices in 1996 will rise by two per cent, is the experts’ view.

So the one thing most owner-occupiers can be sure of is that the value of their house will not rise by two per cent next year. Those nights spent barefoot on sheet-ice looking for cabs because my shoes hurt and I can no longer balance on them have finally taken their toll I’m not going to do it any more. Of course, if I had a boyfriend I could make him drive me everywhere, or at least send him out to find me a cab And I’d have someone to snog. Well, how was I to know he was the duke of something or other? He looked like a Spanish car salesman to me, what with the moustache and everything.But most of all, I won’t start 1996 with chilblains.

Firstly, I will wash up everything within three days of eating from it. I got this down to a week in 1995 and now I’m going for the big one. Also, I swear I won’t fill any foreign dignitaries in on the plot developments of Coronation Street without finding out who they are first. We were sick as dogs the following afternoon and no one would speak to us.