Your Humble Servant: domestic inspection

To: Don Wise, chief executive

From: Paul Servant, assistant chief executive

Re: Domestic inspection

Dear Don,

Sorry if I have been a bit off form of late but home life has not been easy. Mrs Servant is currently applying to be an inspector for the Healthcare Commission and is practising her techniques on the domestic front. She is quite effective at it and the terror of arbitrary censure and pointless planning is taking its toll.

I now have to comply with 246 quality objectives and 37 development goals. This is all while trying to maintain a semblance of everyday life. I have spent so much time attending to her inspection regime that I forgot to pay the car tax and was lumbered with a£500 fine after it was impounded for five days.

The regime starts first thing in the morning with her monitoring my teeth brushing. I lost three points for not flossing adequately and had an improvement notice slapped on me when I left the toilet seat up. I have just completed a three-page toilet seat operations action plan and now have to call her in to monitor every time I flush.

Worse was yet to come. I was found to be weak on use of resources after leaving the hall light on and not buying own-brand olive oil rather than the Italian stuff. Coupled with the mediocre rating for my spaghetti carbonara, things have come to a head.

She has now sent in a turnaround mother-in-law at vast expense. We have to pay for her taxis, food, spending money, everything - for what in return? Hectoring, nannying and snide comments from someone with little skill in the homemaking area and who has gone through four husbands who didn’t hang around long, leaving a trail of destruction wherever she went.

The one area of decent performance, in the bedroom, has also now crashed, thanks to changes in Mrs Servant’s appearance.

Ever since we went to see the new Harry Potter film and she thought that the Dolores Umbridge character was the spitting image of a healthcare inspector, Mrs Servant has taken to wearing tweeds and prancing about like a virgin Victorian headmistress.