‘It’s Rolf Harris’, someone shrieked, sounding like a kitten struggling to conceal that its voice was breaking just as some bastard stood on its tail and dropped cabbage on its head.

‘The saltshaker is the wicket and the napkin is Grant Hackett’, my brain auto-piloted dozily. I casually pulled my head out from under the pillows of our London couch, trying to pretend that I had not been asleep for the past 15 minutes during my de-facto spouse’s 614th attempt to explain the rules of cricket.

‘Grant Hackett is a swimmer. You slept during my cricket lesson – AGAIN!’, he shouted.

I shamefully nodded.

‘But look! Rolf Harris’, de-facto repeated, pointing at the TV. ‘From Australia!’

A wooly-haired, tub-shaped man was nodding excitedly into the camera. Behind him was a nightmarish, half-finished canvas, a horrific watercolour painting in pastel tones. The man pointed at the canvas and repeated a word that sounded like ‘miaow’ to me.

I suddenly wasn’t so sure about my recent application for an Australian Offshore Permanent Subclass 100 De-Facto Spouse visa.

‘Does he have a speech impediment?’, I asked tactfully, staring at the lisping weasel in bewilderment.

‘No’, de-facto sighed, ‘he’s from Dubbelju – Ay’.

‘A high security prison?’, I guessed cleverly.

‘Western Australia!’ I watched in silence as the weasel-like man turned back towards the canvas and started attacking it with his brush.

‘Rolf Harris’, de-facto said again and again, shaking his head, smiling at the TV. He appeared to be repeating some sort of yogic mantra. I stared at the khaki-clothed Dubelju-Ay man, now baring his large teeth at the camera. I plucked up all my courage, protected myself with a pillow and popped the question.

‘Why is he on TV?’

De-facto dissolved into a thunderous mess of angry verbal diarrhoea. ‘Children’s… painter… kangaroo song… pet dingo… watercolour… musician’, he rambled.

‘He is an icon!’ he said, grandly. ‘Like Harold, from Neighbours’, he concluded his speech.

‘The one who died in the fire after his wife vanished in the plane crash and became obsessed with the Salvation Army?’ I asked. A pillow struck my head, taking out one of my eyes.

‘The one who opened the bikini shop and then had a spider-bite induced freak-out and abducted the diabetic baby?’ I tried again, bleeding heavily.

‘No!’ de-facto screamed. ‘Harold! The granddad! God, you drive me to despair’, he muttered. ‘How can you not get this? This is my culture!’

‘That’s what you said when you forced me to read The Fatal Shore’, I replied, operating on my cornea with a pair of rusty nail scissors. ‘And I haven’t been the same since. Mainly because I’m still in a coma’.

‘It’s an amazing book’, he shrieked, violated.

‘Sure thing’, I replied. ‘Welcome to the club of The People Who Pretend They Read The Whole Thing’. I sure will have to pretend hard at the immigration office next month’.

‘They’re much more likely to ask you about Harold there’, de-facto advised.

‘Thus spoke Zarathustra’, I replied.

‘Gesundheit!’, he smiled.

‘Oh my god’, I said. ‘Good to know you get MY culture’.

‘I sure do’, he said proudly. ‘Can I take you somewhere for a nice Krantsky with sauerkraut ?’

I locked myself in the bathroom and dialled the number of the immigration department.

‘Kylie, it’s me’, I whispered. ‘Listen, can I have that 600 quid back? Turns out I might stay in Europe after all’.

‘I’m busy’, Kylie said. ‘Rolf Harris is on TV. Rolf Harris! I’ll just stamp the paperwork for you. Rolf Harris! I’ll just pop your visa in the mail. Rolf Harris.’ She hung up. With shaking hands, I unlocked the bathroom door and stumbled back into the lounge.

‘My visa got approved!’, I gasped. ‘Just then. Kylie approved it’.

‘How?’, de-facto asked, open-mouthed. ‘Why?’

‘Rolf Harris’, I said, and fainted onto the couch.

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