Shipping to
United States
Illustrations by Mr Nick Hardcastle

The Babylonian pagans worshipped mothers. The Iroquois made them their moral and political leaders. All we're asking you to do is phone yours occasionally. As Mr T put it in "Treat Your Mother Right" from his instructional second album Be Somebody... Or Be Somebody's Fool!: "She's a queen/ Second to none/ Be right to your mother/ You only get one".

Films never to be watched with your mother include Harold and Maude, The Graduate and anything targeted specifically to people older than teenagers. And whatever you do, don't buy her Mr David Guterson's book Ed King - it won the bad sex award for reasons we won't go into here.

Do not write a novel about your mother while she is still alive. As Mr Philip Roth's dictum has it: "when a writer is born a family dies".

You should refer to her as mother, or mum (if you're American "mom" is just about acceptable). If you can read this and you're still calling her "mummy" seek help.

And what to wear while doing it...