Scenes of St Sebastian are two-a-penny in art history… and if that sounds flippant, let me explain. He’s a popular subject for a few stand-out reasons: since he’s often shown shot-through with arrows (according to the manner of his martyrdom) his nakedness allows artists to let loose on anatomical know-how, slipping in sinews and skin textures and all sorts (especially so as the scientific bent of the Renaissance set in). There’s also the ancient angle: Sebastian was a Christian killed at the time of Emperor Diocletian (he died around 288), so often there’ll be a smattering of columns and some rubble of old ruins, attesting to an artist’s instruction in the arts of ancient Greece and Rome.

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During the year I lived in Milan, I learned a few things about Mediterranean mealtimes. Breakfast is bolted on the go, but lunches are long and dinners drawn-out. Even in an overbooked day at the office, colleagues collect up bags and blackberries at midday and march out for a repast done right. And right means your primo, secondo and perhaps a light little something for dessert (scoops of tiramisu or a creme caramel). The point is there’s ritual and regular order to things around Italian eating, and what I was most struck by when I first got there was seeing that a cigarette slots into the sequence right after the sweet, with the short shot of espresso taken to expedite the afternoon’s work.

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If your house is anything like ours right now, it’ll be clattering with colored candies and shiny sweets, hordes of the things left over from Halloween. I was fretful about letting down any little knockers at our door (let’s face it, no child is happy with a healthy granola bar or vit-boosting piece of fruit proffered due to dwindled sweet stash), so I loaded up on loads of terrible treats. And I do mean terrible. Candied colors like you wouldn’t believe, too-shiny sugar shells, coatings of questionable chocolate… it’s all just a general move to tiny (and adult) tooth abuse. Which means making sweets vanish once the scaring is done is all the more urgent today.

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If you thought you were home and dry after harassment by ghouls, gremlins and hobgoblins on Halloween, then think again. Because November 2 is by tradition the Day of All Souls, on which (it has been believed), the unhappy souls of the dead return to their former homes. In the past, people were so superstitious about unsolicited, unsavoury visits to their houses on All Souls, they’d keep the kitchen warm and leave food on the table to appease passing spirits and specters.

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Umbrellas. Never liked them. If they aren’t poking you in the eye with fearsome spokes, they’re buckling under pressure or flipping inside out. If they’re not sagging between seams and proving penetrable, they’re shaking soggy wetness all over your tights and tootsies when you deflate. Too big, too small, too thick, too thin. For me it’s inevitable I take umbrage with an umbrella. Which is why I empathized entirely with Barack Obama when he got in a spot of brolly bother in August while visiting just-built homes in New Orleans, Louisiana. Down came the rain and up popped the presidential parapluie.

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The name Jerome always jettisons me back a couple of years, to a London classroom and a cheeky but charming student of mine who kept lessons lively and tempers lightly frayed. Jerome was delighted once when asked to research a painting at the National Gallery: he came back beaming, brandishing a brilliant little piece on a picture of his sainted name-sake. He had hundreds to choose from, to be fair: Jerome is just one of those insanely popular saints: always old, always bearded and usually in a state of consternation, study or undress.

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Horoscopes: on the good days, love them! on bad days, leave them! I fall fickle on either side of the fence on this one: sometimes things seem insanely in-line with what I’ve read in a mag, a rag or a newspaper, while at others the life happenings and the horoscope are completely out of kilter. But there is one astrological aspect I’ve never been able to contest, and that’s my total, utter Libra-ness. This is my sign, and how. Indecisive? I think that’s a Yes! Especially since moving to the States where there are 200 choices of breakfast cereal in one shopping aisle. Gullible? Sure: banoffee and key lime pies are full fruit servings for me. On the up side there are diplomatic and sociable streaks and some have it that as a Libran I am charm personified. I believe them (easily influenceable is another tell-tale trait).

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