GRAHAM NORTON AGONY UNCLE

The author, comedian and presenter advises readers. Send your quandaries to graham@telegraph.co.uk

some fun, but now you find that it wasn’t consequence-free. Surprise! This is how all of life works – so remember it in future. Let’s not dwell on the pros and cons of your newfound notoriety. The fact of the matter is that you’d prefer nobody in the office to be discussing the size of your zip drive.

I’m afraid the short answer to your problem is patience. Time will move the office gossips on to their next victims and life will return to normal – almost. Trust me, for as long as you stay at this office, your Secret Santa gift will always have something to do with your manhood.

Maybe the next time you get the urge to unleash the beast, you will make an effort to look for romance a little further afield than the desk two down from the photocopier!

Dear Graham

started serving food in a ridiculous “artistic” style when friends come round – smears of sauce on slates, little mini casseroles, drinks in jam jars and all that.

We have perfectly good crockery that we eat off when it’s just us, but she says it’s “boring” for when we are entertaining. I don’t want her to think I am criticising her cooking, which is wonderful – but I cringe at this, and some of my friends have started taking the mickey out of it.

How can I get her to start using our normal stuff again?

Dear Roger

ROGER, VIA EMAIL We have all seen the social media posts that mock and shame this practice. Bread in a flat cap, breakfast on a shovel, and all manner of things daubed on stones, pebbles and lumps of slate. We roll our eyes and mutter something about “good old-fashioned plates” to register our smug disdain.

What strikes me, however, as I read your letter, is that this artistic quirk is giving your girlfriend pleasure. She enjoys making an effort for her guests. If you want a dinner party to be done your way you’d like it to be then I suggest you wash your hands and start chopping; if you want to eradicate jam jar cocktails, volunteer to be the barman.

As for the guests, to be frank, if someone invites you into their home and feeds you, you should be grateful, not sniggering behind their back. Think long and hard before you critique someone’s skills in the kitchen: the chances are they will be holding a knife.

My advice is to say nothing apart from “thank you,” and “that was delicious.” So long as she dries out your wellies after using them to serve up clam chowder, where’s the harm? Bon appétit! We recently discovered that my husband of many years has an inoperable brain tumour, and we’ve been told he has a few months left at most. His mood is stoical – he is trying to appreciate what we have while he can, and having watched his own parents fall apart mentally and physically, I think he may even be obscurely relieved.

My problem is that in his pursuit of serenity he is settling various emotional accounts. This has included confessing a series of affairs over three decades, none especially serious or protracted, none with women I felt any particular fondness for – people he met through work, generally.

I feel I am a rational person: although I am hurt by this, I always wondered if it might be the case – he has a strong sexual appetite, which to be candid I always felt ill-equipped to satisfy; he has been away a lot, and when here he has never been less than attentive and loving towards me.

What has come between us is not so much the revelation of infidelities for which he has calmly taken responsibility, as my response to it, which was something along the lines of the paragraph above, but which concluded, “I wish you’d effing well not told me!” He reacted very badly, suggesting I am in denial about his condition, never really loved him, and resorting to unattractive displays of self-pity, making barbed remarks about how I shall be free of him soon enough and so on.

The truth is I shall miss him desperately and I am terrified of the future. I feel that what he wants at this point is for to me be more angry about his extracurricular activities than I am. But whatever it is I feel, I do not feel I owe him some exaggerated outburst that will unlock who knows what other doors, merely in order for him to

Dear Mary

In the sad situation you and your husband find yourselves in, I feel there are no rights or wrongs.

All you can do now is stumble together towards the finish line, supporting each other as best you can. It will be hard, of course, but try to remember that your husband’s reactions are bound to be strange and multi-layered. He is experiencing everything through a filter of fear, anger and deep grief. He is mourning for himself and for his life with you.

Who knows what he hoped to achieve with his confession, but clearly it didn’t work out the way he planned. Talk to him. Use all the words you know. Time is precious and in the months after he has gone, you don’t want to be suddenly struck by the things you wish you had said. Try to draw a line under these infidelities so you can talk about other things, happier things. Explain that in different circumstances you would have screamed the house down, slammed doors, maybe even left him, but everything is altered now. His condition puts your lives into perspective. The triumphs, the joys, the mistakes, have all led the two of you to this point.

I’m sure many people who have lost loved ones will read your letter with a trace of envy. Perhaps they never even got a chance to say goodbye, whereas you can do so much more than that. One of the profound pleasures of any long-term relationship is the shared memories. A life lived with someone else, your highs and lows reflected back at you through their eyes.

This man may not have been a very good husband in some ways, but it is too late to change that now. The only truth that matters is that you love him and must say goodbye. I don’t know how you will do that, but you will find a way. It may be surprising or unexpected, but afterwards when all is still and the breath has gone, you will know that it was entirely right.