There really is nothing funnier than scaring your loved one half to death…

There are many ways I go about it, and don’t worry, he gives as good as he gets but by God it’s the funnest game in the world.

I’m campaigning to get it recognised by the Olympics.

However, don’t try this at home – not unless you know your other half has a healthy ticker and/or you are willing to take the risk of going to prison.

The game is simple, with only one rule: you must frighten your beloved to death.

For example, waiting behind the door for an hour until he gets home from work and then pouncing out and shouting RARRR! so he drops everything he’s carrying.

Their reaction will determine how good the scare was – your only reward the satisfaction of seeing abject terror in the eyes of the person most precious to you in the world.

If it’s just a little ‘Hurrrh!’ and a small body jolt, you are doing well, good work, solid attempt.

If you can get him to do an almost wholesome-sounding high-pitched squeal and a hand clutched to the heart, you are on your way to the top, kiddo.

But the golden ticket is the full-throated cinema scream, the little uvula punch bag at the back of his throat vibrating like in a cartoon.

If you get that, you, my friend, are the winner.

We spend at least 87% of our relationship hiding and jumping out on each other.

(It’s so fun going out with me.)

My kitchen has two doors and loops round into the corridor so I can be creeping up on him while he is actually creeping up on me and round and round we go eternally until the other one says in faux exasperation, ‘I know you are trying to creep up on me’ all haughty like, as if you were not doing the exact same thing.

There are other ways too.

It’s fair game to stand behind a wardrobe or fridge door he has just opened, so when he shuts it, there you are.

Staring. Just staring.

It’s definitely in the rules to roll yourself up in a scrunched-up duvet and when he gets into bed and pulls it towards him, wondering where you’ve got to, leap out on him.

It’s also fair play to quietly open the shower cubicle a crack and squeeze your head through, so when he washes the soap out of his eyes, there you are.

Staring, just staring but with your head at an eerie angle.

There is actually a sub-clause rule – don’t jump out when someone is chopping veg, that may lead to missing fingers and an actual bloodbath.

See, I’m not all bad.