Should you have been unlucky enough to catch me on BBC Radio 5 Live a little before midnight on Tuesday, discussing Tory wobbles (a handful of the usual goons, sourlips and kamikaze merchants have spotted a chance to come out of their boxes and attack David Cameron, but they’ll be back inside before too long) you’d have heard something more interesting than my opinions: a curious ping as, in a moment of vehemence, I lost the cap from my right incisor, which flew off and ricocheted from the microphone to the desk. I carried on regardless but it represented a singular defeat for my lodger, Tom, and me. Only that morning we had stuck the cap back on in a feat of ground-breaking DIY home surgery.

Neither of us dentists, we reckoned we could do it from first principles. Stuffing some toilet paper beneath my gum I lay on my back in a sunbeam, pointing a hairdryer into my mouth, while Tom directed an Anglepoise lamp and mixed the resin-based glue. It seemed to work, and got me through a Mexican meal that night. All was well. Until 5 Live.

Tail between my legs, I crept into the dental surgery yesterday morning. Miss Pinder, who has seen it all before, was most understanding. Now I can resume what Alastair Campbell calls my perma-smirk. Interestingly, I got exactly the same fee for my 15 minutes on the radio as Miss Pinder charged for my 15 minutes in her chair, so dentists have achieved parity with commentators. But I don’t mind betting that Cameron will still be in place when my tooth-cap has long flown – and that’s a reflection, Tim Hames, on more than the state of my teeth.

When not acting as my unpaid dental assistant, Tom the lodger does things like scriptwriting and professional curtain-raising and compering of galas and functions. Last week he was working the crowd at the London South Bank University Village Fête. The Mayor of Southwark helped to kick the event off, followed by Tom, who revealed to an incredulous audience that His Worship was widely known as Spiderman – “not because he has superhuman powers, but because he finds it difficult to get out of the bath”. Apparently the mayor took this with great good nature.

In any new Cabinet there’s competition to sit to either side of, or opposite, the Prime Minister, the better to be seen and heard. The Justice Secretary has apparently achieved a prime site: seated to the PM’s immediate left. Except that Jack Straw is deaf in his right ear, and Gordon Brown blind in his left eye.

The Law Commission proposals this week for extending, to unmarried partners, some rights (on separation) that married partners enjoy, will meet huffing and puffing both from the moral Right and from libertarians. They should look first the detail.

Libertarians note: the implied contract between two people applies only after at least two years, or where an involuntary third party – children – are involved. Even then, unmarried partners would remain free to avoid the new ties: it’s just that they will have to sign a formal declaration to that effect, opting out rather than in.

Lots of my unmarried-couple friends insist that both freely chose to stay unhitched, but I’ve often sensed that there’s really one who’s keener on liberty than the other. People drift into relationships. Women become mothers and men fathers, and the moment to broach the subject of legal duties never really comes. It looks unloving.

But under these plans the obligations (should they separate) will spring up automatically. It will be for those keen to renounce them to broach the subject and show their partners the dotted line on which to sign. Thus, inertia will cease to be the friend (as at present) of the party seeking to avoid ties. Isn’t that as it should be?

Traditionalists should reflect that these proposals could actually prove a recruiting sergeant for matrimony. Many avoid marriage to avoid the legal chains that come with it. Under these proposals they may find they’ve take the legal leap anyway. So why forgo the champagne?

I met my sister, Belinda, at the airport. We spotted each other just as both our mobile telephones rang. Each answering our phone, we approached each other smiling wordlessly, the talk being into our mobiles. Reaching each other we stopped a few yards apart and carried on talking.

Wrapping up both our conversations within about a minute, we switched off our phones and put them away. Then we rushed into each other’s arms. Spirits of the age.

Times Recommends

• Fragility always gets my sympathy vote
• Double it and you get the real jobless total
• Has al-Megrahi paid his council tax?