Muppet

Sally is such a muppet, the way she always misses the train.

Some muppet has parked a car at the bus stop.

You impudent muppet, diu lay! You may be able to hoodwink people over in the UK, but not those of us over here.

'Honestly, Ellie, I don't know why you bother.' 'Err, because I need to squeeze my size twelve self into a size eight wedding dress?' She rolls her eyes. 'You're such a muppet. Why didn't you just buy a bigger size? Dieting is pointless.'

There was a silence while Miranda tried to form a sentence that wouldn't antagonise her friend. Or was she a friend? Would a proper friend have set her up with such a – such a muppet?

The truth was I'd love to be in the school team but I wouldn't get picked anyway: most of the kids think I'm a real muppet, a gormo who's into bird-watching and if I tried to join in, they would just rib me, so I don't bother to show any interest.

Scrappy set off to run out through the dog flap, but Katie caught hold of him (as he was such a muppet he'd be in danger – as usual – of ending up under the wheels of whoever's Chelsea tractor was scrunching its way up the gravel driveway).

Anyway here was a message now, from 'Geordie', sent to Jack and cc-ed to the rest of his male colleagues. Subject line: 'You've been replaced with a real muppet.'