Humpty Dumpty is usually non-punctual, honest, reliable, clean, has his own teeth, and is law-abiding. Evidence of the latter is particularly noticeable at pedestrian crossings. No matter what the weather is like, Humpty Dumpty would rather get soaked to the skin than cross an empty street when a red light is showing. Similarly, he always wears a seat belt, never drinks and drives, always has a television licence, usually hands in his tax-return a fortnight before the deadline, invariably has a plastic bag in his pocket when he walks his dog, and never has a bath after ten o’clock.

With reference to marriage, Humpty Dumpty is quite unlike most men. Anything a housewife can do, he can do better – from cooking to sewing on buttons. In fact, everything in the home (apart from breast-feeding) is shared.

Humpty Dumpty also likes to think he is well informed and spends hours finding out all he can about such things as nuclear power, the Third World, pollution, private equity, the sexual habits of the centipede, etc. while at the same time paying little attention to unimportant matters – such as the name of his neighbour or whether certain types of beer should be banned or not.

But perhaps the greatest thing about Humpty Dumpty is his sense of equality – of everyone being the same as everyone else. To help this, Humpty Dumpties have the same surnames earn the same amount of money after tax, have the same taste in furniture, dress alike, think alike, drive a jeep, and go to Majorca or Spain in the summer.

Humpty Dumpty also refuses to admit that he is prejudiced in any way. To him, all foreigners are just the same as Humpty Dumpties and, although he does not actually have any Serbian, Greek, Turkish, Polish, Italian, Finnish or Slovakian friends, he is certain there is very little difference between them and Humpty Dumpties – apart from their names, their customs, the way they grow vegetables in the spring, the fact that they carry knives, rob banks, live on social security, pinch their jobs, breed like rabbits, beat their wives, and speak Humpty Dumptian like someone with a gobstopper in his mouth.