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Remember the retort especially reserved for nags? "Belt up! You're driving me into an early grave."

Guess what? According to research at New York University, it turns out to be accurate. Being constantly chivvied by parents, siblings, or colleagues is far more than a mere pain in the rear end. Having our shortcomings pointed out by one or more persistent "hasslers" ages us prematurely and lops precious years off our lives.

For each admonisher in our orbit, our biological age increases by an average of nine months over a lifetime. It's important to establish that spouses are not implicated here. Scientists believe the intimate benefits associated with conjugal bliss help obliterate the negative effects of what is colloquially known as "getting on your other half's case".

Is it just me, or is it true that none of us can take in this information without worrying that we ourselves might not merely be the harassed but also the dreaded harasser? Perhaps your conscience is clear. You never nitpick and niggle.

You don't consider it your mission to wake sleepyheads, point them in the direction of the kitchen mop, remind them to file their tax returns/wash behind their ears/MOT the car and lag the loft.

Perhaps you allow folk to unfurl gently at their own pace, without feeling the urge to stick a rocket in their pocket and yell: "Get your skates on. We haven't got all day!"

Perhaps you suffered so profoundly at the hands of an inveterate chivvier, you can't bring yourself to put the wind up other people? I only wish my conscience was as clear.

I confess to appointing myself Lord Chief Reminder/Prodder into Action to my nearest and dearest. I always hoped the larks, japes and jolliness made up for my military issue of instructions and guidance bulletins.

Hand on heart, I do it for their own good. I was convinced that without my timely reminders, they might end up uninsured, unvaccinated, unpaid - or worse - with a laundry load turned pink because they haven't thought to take the red socks out pre-wash.

Now, Dr Byungkyu Lee and his crack team have pointed out that far from selflessly streamlining my descendants' lives, I might well be chronically curtailing them, it's time for a rethink.

In my seventh decade, I'll have to recalibrate and subside into mute passivity. No more hectoring, pre-empting and doom-mongering. If they don't defrost the freezer, on their own heads be it.

Staff at Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum spotted the equivalent of Tipp-Ex on an ancient Egyptian scroll dated between 1290 and 1278BC. Thick white pigment was thickly smeared on papyrus to conceal an error.

Typists of my vintage will remember doing their level best to correct mistakes not merely in the top copy of the business correspondence they were transcribing from their own indecipherable shorthand but in the carbon copy beneath.

The process was agonisingly complicated, involving rolling both sheets of paper in and out of the typewriter and heroically struggling to align the machine precisely over the hump of congealing Tipp-Ex to obliterate any evidence of correction.

The task was fraught and painstakingly delicate. A piddling millimetre out and the new letters clashed with the old.

Students at my typing college circa 1982 were known to burst into tears as the clotting Tipp-Ex formed unsightly clumps and the exacting typing teacher demanded yet another do-over. Don't ask me why, but it's oddly comforting to know royal scribe Ramose was enduring similar trauma 3,000 years ago.

We all know the right celebrity paired with the right product is a match made in commercial heaven. Problems flare when the celebrity becomes so acutely toxic that companies fear an association with them would be detrimental, even if they are touting a probable bestseller.

Sarah Ferguson has done exactly as predicted. She hauled a tell-all book about the royals around America's most prominent publishers.

Although there's obviously an appetite for Fergie's insider revelations about her ex-husband, Jeffrey Epstein, the 30-bedroomed Royal Lodge and everything in between, there hasn't been a single bite.

A source revealed: "No one is remotely interested in being seen to be enabling her to cash in on the Epstein scandal that completely ruined her ex-husband."

What does a disgraced former Duchess do when she can't even flog a tawdry kiss and tell? Sit tight, and we'll find out.

For goodness' sake, Liz Hurley, give the rest of us a chance.

Liz showed up at an event in Delhi wearing a staggering black Versace gown, split almost to the crotch and embellished with a glittering beaded flower.

The story here is that she wore the same frock to the Met Gala in New York in 1999. Yes, that's right. She's recycled a 27-year-old dress, but that's not the point.

The key thing is that she looks even better in it in her 60s than she did in her 30s. Truly! Her cleavage is just as sumptuous, her arms just as toned, her hair just as resplendent, but her face is even more radiantly beautiful.

Don't ask me how she does it. I wish I had an inkling. All I know is any woman who can confidently wear an almost three-decade-old gown should, by rights, have the grace to show a little wear and tear around the edges.

What do you make of the Strictly dancer cull? Gorka Marquez, Luba Mushtuk, Michelle Tsiakkas and Nadiya Bychkova have been made to walk the plank to give the show a renaissance.

What are the bosses thinking? It takes several series for the audience to feel invested in new dancers. We don't know or care about newbies. Frankly, we often don't know or care about the so-called celebs either.

Being matched with a long-established and beloved dancer helps obscure influencers and low-profile soap actors survive. Scrap the dancers we adore - especially virile Gorka and exquisite Nadiya - and we are left voting for couples we can't be bothered to save.

Surely that's not a state of affairs anyone would wish on the nation's favourite show?

If you are desperate for an instant mood-lifter, do not overlook the magical potential of good old-fashioned wallpaper.

I have finally unearthed the Holy Grail - a wallpaperer with the attention to detail of Michelangelo. Now I have found this wonder of the world, I never want to let him go.

We started strong with a fan and peacock pattern in the hall. So wildly satisfying was the dramatic transformation, we moved swiftly to a vibrant pattern of postcards from the Med in the downstairs loo.

Now the living room shimmers with prowling cheetahs, and my bedroom - now a boudoir - is adorned with rococo heads of Marie Antoinette.

I know, I know. It's time to nip this guilty pleasure in the bud, but I've never met a wall that doesn't look better papered, and Peter the Paperer is a definite keeper. I might have to move house and start all over again.