I kneel down to start weeding whilst Jason gets out the hedge trimmer. He looks pretty macho in wrap around shades, khaki singlet and combat shorts, whapping back the starter cord on the trimmer.

‘I was watching Final Destination 5 last night’ he shouts, even though I’m right there. ‘So watch out! I hope you didn’t escape from a plane crash or something?’

Which sounds like it’d be better for both of us if I hadn’t. But I know what he means. I’ve seen the first one. Good, clean, gory fun. A bid odd, though, when you think about it (which you’re obviously not meant to). This Final Destination Death figure is like some grumpy, nerdy guy who gets ticked off when people don’t go when they’re supposed to. So he spends an inordinate amount of time (I’m guessing he has plenty) fussing around with complicated, infernal Mousetrap on Acid style plots to get back at them. I imagine when he gets home he probably slips off his black cape to reveal a tatty t-shirt – The Ramones, maybe – or Scooby Doo in the arms of Shaggy – grabs a Diet Coke (ironic: he’s all bones), and throws himself down at his desktop to troll forums on Natural Burial and hack the CIA.

Jason’s trimmer makes a blubbing kind of coughing noise, throws out a great cloud of blue smoke, judders, stalls.
‘I’ve only had it five years,’ he says.
‘It’s sulking ‘cos you’re making it work the weekend’
‘Yeah? Well if I’m working the trimmer’s working’
‘I used to have an old motorbike like that. How much time did I waste leaping on the kickstart? I tried everything. Every little dodge. Black magic. Goats. Nothing. So I sold it and got a Yamaha instead. You could leave that bike under a hedge for a year and it’d still start first go.’
‘Yeah?’ says Jason, then takes a good hold of the starter cord and adopts a heroic posture. ‘Speaking of hedges…’