Claudia Winkleman: Take It From Me

'A synthetic mate would never flirt with your cousin after the port and cheese fanfare at Christmas'

A swan called Peter in a zoo in Germany has fallen in love with a swan-shaped plastic boat. He stares at it, circles it and coos at it. The zookeeper is rather worried as the bird is so smitten that he refuses to fly south for the winter because he won't leave its side.

He explains: "We daren't split them up so we've moved Peter and his boat friend to the pond near the elephant enclosure. It's a lake that's more protected against the elements, so he'll be safer when it gets cold."

How depressing, I thought. A swan meets a mate and stays with it for life. There's no Heather and Paul, no Chris and Ingrid on the duck pond. Swans nestle, make eggs, wrap their long necks round each other and promise that they'll never stray.

I was worried for poor Peter, the rare black swan.

"Isn't it miserable, that he'll never know true love?" I whispered to my husband as he stared, mouth agape, at another episode of Top Gear on UKTV Gold. As he wolfed down some nachos, sipped (and spilt) beer on the bed, scratched his inner thigh and grunted, "Yes love", I felt a little sad for the bird who would never experience a real relationship.

I couldn't get it out of my head and over the weekend I thought of little else. As I loaded the dishwasher, checked my son's head for lice and parboiled miniature potatoes to go in the roasting dish, I did think it was a shame that this little swan was somehow missing out.

"Just imagine," I explained to my girlfriend Lucy, "all his friends have got real swan wives and he's just in love with a pretend one."

"Don't worry about it," she said, as she was finishing her daughters' homework while maniacally lighting sparklers to keep her son amused. "Seriously, there could be worse things than falling for a plastic lover."

Hmmm. She may have a point.

A plastic husband wouldn't have such a staunch opinion about where a photo of his "Uncle Swan" was placed in the living room. A synthetic mate would never flirt with your cousin after the port and cheese fanfare at Christmas. A fake partner would just stare back, albeit in quite a creepy way, when you decided to turn the light on and re-read an old copy of Us magazine in bed at 2am.

There'd be no rows about activity versus beach holidays; he'd dutifully follow you to the top of Kilimanjaro or just to Center Parcs. As for arguments over children's names, there wouldn't be any. If you carried on the unreal marriage, I suppose some small shavings that didn't answer back (or, indeed, get head lice) would suffice for "offspring".

The other beauty of a faux beau is that there'd be no surprises. You'd never waddle home to the nest to find him cuddling up to a younger, prettier swan who happens to be good at filing. He'd never spend all your money on Stella Artois and anything that comes with a remote control. You'd be in charge of all household finances and could spend them happily on miso soup and nail varnish.

A plastic mate wouldn't shout: "I don't need to see your mother EVERY weekend!" upstairs next to the baby monitor and then have to claim desperately to your parents that he was practising for a "work away-day anger-management roleplay" scheme. (This has happened - and yes, now we chance it as a baby monitor-free household.) Let's also talk about taste. A pretend live-in lover will never book restaurants that you hate, rent films you can't stand (seriously, find me a girl who thinks that Alien vs Predator is a good movie) and leave books about Land-Rovers next to the bed.

In my experience, plastic things don't nag. They don't call you Imelda when you've come home from a sneaky high-street raid. They don't insist on you putting Tetris down over an anniversary supper and they never mind if you don't wax, or even wash. An artificial husband would like ALL your friends, especially the odd ones you've collected from school who come round and nick DVDs and anything that's still edible in the fridge. You don't have to ask an artificial husband how their day was and then stand there for 10 minutes, head cocked to one side, praying that your life is going to end as they talk you through the minutiae of (insert company's name here) ground-breaking deal.

A great thing about a plastic lover is that he would continue to marvel at how wonderful you are. He's heard all your stories about winning a robotics championship and how you thought you'd get a puppy when you were four, and he doesn't mind that your skin has started to wrinkle and that you occasionally need to wear a bra in bed. He would think he's won the lottery every single day and would always smile at you if you were feeling low.

The best thing about a plastic husband is that he will never complain about being featured in a newspaper column. And that's priceless.

c.winkleman@independent.co.uk