Having a television in the bedroom is, research has shown, a real passion killer.

Couples who have a TV in their bedrooms make love only half as often as those who keep it a telly-free zone, a study by a leading Italian psychologist has revealed.

Of more than 500 couples questioned, those with no television in the bedroom had sex twice a week, compared with four times a month for those with a set. And for the over-50s, the effect was more marked, with the average of seven times a month falling to 1.5 times.

It's not surprising. Without television we would all do a lot more - chatting over meals, taking up hobbies, walking on the hills on summer nights. But as for sex - well, I personally can think of a million and one other distractions that relegate the deed to once every ten years. We have no TV in our bedroom, but we employ various other unconventional methods of birth control, and I'm sure they feature in the lives of many couples:

The cat/cats

This is definitely top of the list. Nine nights out of ten, our cat Gordon accompanies us to bed, and being the Pavarotti of the cat world (in terms of girth not vocals) it is like having a boulder plonk itself down on the duvet. He lies between us where it's warm. When we had two cats it was worse - one slept between our chests, the other at the knees. A better method of contraception I have yet to find.

Books

More often than not, I have a book on the go which, like many people, I keep beside the bed. I find it relaxing to read before settling down for the night. "How long are you going to be?" my husband will ask. To which I reply "only ten minutes." He occasionally flicks through books on vegetable growing while I read, but invariably he turns over and dozes off. When I put down my book he is usually in a deep sleep.

Copies of railway magazines

Understandably, my husband hates being called a train buff. But he does own a lot of books on the subject. "All bought for me by other people," he snaps when I point this out. As I said previously, I am the person who generally reads in bed, but when there's a magazine handy he will pick it up. Being shown photographs of LMS locomotives shunting in and out of goods yards in Crewe does not arouse passions, I can tell you.

Children

Last, but by no means least. Youngsters bounding into your bedroom at all hours, diving on to the bed, or sneaking in between the sheets and insisting on staying. When ours were under five it used to happen at night, now it is early on a morning. The worst of it is that this early alarm call does not take place during the week. On the days when the children have to get up for school we have to drag them out of bed. But come the weekend, they dart into our room as soon as they wake up (and that's long before our body clocks start ticking into life).

All these methods of abstinence are tried and tested. Once they start to fail, I will hurriedly install a plasma screen telly.

Updated: 12:14 Tuesday, January 24, 2006