LIVING with someone is great when you need a strong pair of hands to grapple with a jar of beetroot with a jammed lid (or indeed a jar of jam with a jammed lid).

But the novelty can wear thin when their teeth start to clack when they eat or they relentlessly leave the loo lid upright and the seat at a jaunty angle.

When you share a home with another person, it is the little things that wear your patience so thin you can see through it if you hold it up to the light. Infidelity is a serious offence in a committed relationship, but it is not as insanity-inducing as your partner breaking wind noisily under the duvet each and every night.

This is the philosophy behind a new television series called Five Things I Hate About You (BBC2, Wednesday 8pm), in which couples are asked to come up with five things their partner does that drive them round the twist.

These crimes against sanity are judged by an independent panel of experts, largely made up of a giggly and altogether too excitable bunch of their family and friends, and then one is crowned the most impossible to live with and forced to pay a forfeit.

Whether you love or loathe this kind of telly-by-numbers programming, it gets the old brain ticking over, doesn't it? Am I, you just can't stop yourself thinking, the most impossible to live with or is he?

Now I am not one to pour scorn on another in print, especially if there is any chance they know where I live, so I am not going to tell you five things I hate about my other half.

I will divulge, however, five things my partner probably hates about me...

u As soon as he walks in from work - literally as he steps through the door - I start talking. The poor devil hasn't even got time to yank off his bicycle clips and throw his empty sarnie box in the general direction of the sink, where he presumably thinks the washing up fairies do their magic before passing the pristine box to the bread-buttering elves. He doesn't even have a chance to get the last syllable of "hello" out before my trap starts flapping like a demented budgie at a cat convention.

I can't help it though. Most days the only conversations I have are with a four-year-old ("Stop that now!"), a seven-month-old ("Whose bootiful? Whose my boo-boo-bootiful girl?") and a window cleaner who, to be frank, has the conversational powers of someone aged anywhere between seven months and four years.

u I make a massive performance out of going to sleep. While he calmly climbs between the sheets, turns his light off and drifts easily into sleep within a matter of minutes, I shuffle about for at least ten minutes repositioning my pillows and experimenting with my feet under and over the duvet; I read a book for while, flick through a mag or scribble down a list of things to do the next day; I shuffle about a bit more, turning and re-turning my pillows until I find a cool spot; then I noisily knock over my clock, drink or pile of books as I reach for the light.

And I'm not even going to mention the snoring, sighing, talking and laughing the poor chap has to put up with when I shuffle myself to sleep one or two hours later.

u I know for a fact that my other half hates the way I watch complete drivel on the telly - such as Five Things I Hate About You - and then rant on about it in public. I know that because he ostentatiously leaves the room, usually accompanied by much huffing and puffing, if I even mention the words "wife" and "swap". And if I so much as utter the word "EastEnders" in his presence, he has been known to spontaneously combust on the spot.

u And finally, we come to my inability to count. Numbers leave me open-mouthed with incomprehension. Just look at this column if you don't believe me. My five things he hates about me have inexplicably become four. But that is probably more to do with my incredible laziness and complete inability to finish anything that I start. Hang on a minute, now there are six.

You're right, the man deserves a medal.

Updated: 09:35 Tuesday, November 18, 2003