A rare talent in the bedroom

Although I did once consume 18 slices of pizza in the newsroom for my lunch, that is an accomplishment which I have, somewhat wisely I feel, omitted from my CV.

Reaching the age of 41 feeling like you haven’t achieved anything truly remarkable in life is a sensation which I imagine afflicts a vast proportion of the population, which is why middle-aged men take up golf or trade in the people carrier for a sports car.

I know that I am being hard on myself - aren’t we all? - and Mrs Tapp would beg to differ with my view that I am bang average because she often tells me I have at least one pretty remarkable talent - snoring.

Show me an overweight middle-aged man who reckons his snoring doesn’t sound like a juggernaut crashing into the porch and I will show you somebody who has a Trump-like relationship with reality.

But I am told my nocturnal noise-making is on another level, a racket so cacophonous that it could wake an entire graveyard. I have lost count of the number of times I have been shaken awake before being dismissed to the spare bed or 
the snoring room, to give it its formal title.

Under duress, I have been to see the doctor about my rare talent and he was unequivocal about the solution - that it is all down to my weight.

He is right, you know.

Whenever I put my mind to it and shed more than a few pounds then Mrs Tapp tends to get a good night’s kip. The trouble is that I like pork pies and Mars Bars more than I cherish matrimonial harmony.

But now there is evidence to suggest it isn’t just rotund 40-somethings who snore like a pig with a head cold as a new survey suggests that women aged between 25 and 34 are noisier sleepers than men of the same age.

The findings by the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital are so contrary to public perception they made front page news in one quality newspaper.

In these days of sexual equality, it seems fitting that women are now on a par with men when it comes to annoying their partner.