Can anyone keep a secret?

Only last week, our youngest spoilt a birthday surprise for his uncle.

We'd been to buy a Homer Simpson cake - his uncle's 41 but a child at heart - along with a giant box of his favourite chocolates.

The plan was secretly to light the candles in the kitchen at tea-time, then parade the Homer cake into the lounge, to make an old man very happy, just when he thought we'd all forgotten.

It had only reached lunchtime when our youngest ran up to his uncle to breathlessly announce: "We've bought you a Homer Simpson birthday cake and a big box of chocolates and, and, and, we're going to light lots of candles, and sing happy birthday."

You can forgive them when they're only three years old. But you'd think a High Street bank could manage to keep a secret...

My long-suffering wife had been dropping more than a few hints about how she'd really like an expensive piece of jewellery (as mums do) and I'd finally got the message.

I popped into my local branch of the Abbey National and explained that I wanted to open a savings account but that it was important that my wife didn't know anything about it.

"I'm planning a special surprise for her," I confided.

"An ISA's what you need," I was told, "an Independent Savings Account."

I could save as much or as little as I wanted at a decent rate of interest and a block would be placed on any correspondence going to my home. Progress could be checked via my 'hole in the wall' card and my wife, who regularly opens my mail, definitely couldn't find out.

That'll do nicely, I thought, and made an immediate deposit of a tenner towards the diamond necklace, ring, brooch or tiara her ladyship might choose once the surprise was finally revealed.

Well, that was the plan.

A week later, my wife opened a letter, addressed to me, thanking me for opening an ISA account and extolling the benefits.

Someone with a more suspecting mind might well have wondered if I was up to no good. In fact, she probably does.

The apology from the bank was profuse but the surprise is in ruins.

ISA stands for something else in our house now - Isn't Secret Anymore.

THE THINGS THEY SAY

A Darlington mum called Hilary writes with the following little gem...

She was endeavouring to carry some washing down the stairs with one-year-old Libby sitting in the basket.

Tom, aged seven, decided to sit on the stairs to put his socks on.

"Tom, don't sit there - I'll trip over the top of you and Libby and I will fall to the bottom," said Hilary.

"Don't worry," he replied in a very serious voice, "we'll just call Claims Direct. I've seen an advert on the telly and we'll get some money if you fall."

Ten minutes later, Tom appeared in the kitchen. "I've been thinking," he said, "if there was a Claims Direct for kids, we could be millionaires."

Our Max, aged three, appeared in the kitchen: "Dad, can I have something to mop up with?" he asked.

"Why, what have you done?" I inquired with a sigh I've sighed a million times before. "It's a secret but it's on the lounge carpet," he answered.

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