The 5 types of friends you recognise when you move house

You have two camps in removals: the camp that moves itself and the camp that lets itself move. I belong to the first club. The moving van with electric tailgate and twenty cubic metres to be filled is ready at eight o'clock on Saturday morning and our friends arrive around 9.30. We are now 15 years on since the first move in our group of friends, but you get to know your friends almost better than you wish. I'll take you through them briefly on genre.

1. The tea lover

A cup of tea to start with, a cup of tea after the first run, a biscuit to go with it, a sandwich at the pump on the way, with a bit of bad luck he/she is still smoking and then there will have to be a pee break. However enjoyable the tea break may be, it won't break any speed records.

2. The klutz

The bottom of the box falls out once by default, he/she bangs your new wardrobe door against a freshly painted doorpost and as soon as this mover moves around a box marked fragile you start to hyperventilate slightly. You can't catch the klutz on spatial acumen either, which means the reverse might just shatter when the klutz slams it and grandma's cupboard just didn't fit after all.

3. The sociable

It sings, it makes rows on stairs much cozier, it throws pillows at heads and it provides hard workers with some goodies to drink with the left hand while the right passes another box. You need one of these in your moving posse by default.

4. The pushover

Category no-dicks-but-bullshit and see how fast we can get everything on the bus. You can recognise this battle by its muscle mass and work ethic. First to get up after the break and also first to offer a hand when a move is planned. You can't have enough of these.

5. The stand in the way

Is there by default, even if you don't want it, because someone has to get in the way.

And then I just want to urge everyone to put your embarrassing objects at the bottom of boxes first. The story of that one friend of May's who rolled a vibrator into a duvet last-minute (she worked at Viva and they were well stocked with vibrators for subscriptions) still often goes around the newsroom here. Because when, as a generous gesture, the friends briefly made the bed, the vibo flew merrily through the bedroom.