One day when I was quite young but old enough to go to the barbers on my own I got my hands very dirty - probably messing with a car - and I remembered that I'd seen a tin of Swarfega in a display cabinet in the barber's that morning while waiting for my haircut. I was really quite keen to get clean but I do remember feeling a bit embarrassed about going into the barbers shop when I didn't need a haircut. I mean I only wanted the Swarfega not a haircut and some Swarfega. I definitely hadn't come in for something for the weekend.

I have no idea whether barbers still sell condoms but it does raise the issue of a tradition of 'tonight's the night' in the sense of even married people only ever having sex on a Friday or Saturday night.

So I set to thinking about the other piece hereabouts about the triplets- two gay and one straight.It has struck me - suddenly - maybe homosexuality is so rife amongst working class men born in the first half of the twentieth century because no matter what day of the week a woman ovulated she had to wait to the weekend to be fertilised. Maybe if they ovulated on a Monday by the next weekend the egg had gone a little queer.

So I guess the origin of 'packet of three' is Friday Night, Saturday Night, Sunday Morning. It's quite interesting this idea of sex being for the weekend - and remember we are talking about 'marrieds' . I suspect that men weren't more 'too tired' for sex on a Monday or Tuesday night. I suspect that because they married somebody who was available rather than somebody they fancied they would only have sex when drunk - perhaps our dear present Prime Minister follows this tradition - and the couldn't afford to get drunk when there was work next day. Drunk enough to stuff the missus but not too drunk to put the condom on properly...