One of you told me she hadn't heard of paying a penny in exchange for a sharp blade (as a gift) in order not to cut the friendship . Okay, do you know the superstition, shoes on a table, hat on a bed? Both are feared to bring bad luck. The musical "Blood Brothers" by Willie Russell ("Educating Rita"), is based on the 19th century novel, "The Corsican Brothers" (1844) by Alexandre Dumas, père , (1802-1870). I won't go into the story, only that a foreshadowing of the end occurs when shoes are put on a table.

I'm talking about lost expressions, and words that no longer have any meaning or relevance today, like all the poor, missing pennies no longer spent on thoughts. This isn't a superstition but an expression I have discovered that few people are familiar with: drugstore wrap. Do you know that one? I used it in my cookbooks when I called for fish en papillote to be encased in a drugstore wrap. You bring the paper generously above the fish, fold it on itself a couple of times and tuck it in at the ends. No leaks. Do you know a butcher's wrap? The meat is rolled over and over in the paper several times before being secured - with a string? Do they still have string? Again, no leaks.

All this is hard to write without illustrations or hands on. I remember a writing assignment: describe an accordion and how it works. And I added one: describe how to fold a contour sheet. When those sheets were first introduced, a little page of folding instructions came with each one. I remember reading of a wannabe writer who attended a creative writing class who got so good at describing and explaining how things worked that he got a permanent job doing that. It's not easy. Read the instructions on a Jello package and see if you could do better. My mother told me of a friend who bought a rival, cheaper version of Jello and who found a little gumdrop in the package and ate it while she stirred and later wondered why the dessert was tasteless. The instructions had failed to tell her how to use the flavour bud.

Well, now, this is a long way from our long-gone pennies, isn't it? But the message is, you have to understand what you're doing, or at least, what I'm doing.

They save them up every year. All the Christmas B-movies that have ever been made are piled onto TV screens (plus iPads, computers, smart phones, - anything that can be gazed at) for the entire month of December, that is, until December 24. Mostly they are rom-coms and mostly you never heard of them unless you saw them all last year. Tucked in amongst them are It's a Wonderful Life" (which I understand was not an instant classic); "Miracle on 34th Street" (the first one); "Meet Me In St. Louis" ("Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas"); and "White Christmas" (but not the first, original "Holiday Inn"). So far, no vampire elves or blood-sucking Santas.

I think it must be in every starlet's contract that she must do one Xmas rom-com during her apprentice years, but then I have seen a few who are post-apprentice, so maybe it's punishment, too. The plots are pretty predictable and I do feel sorry for the lesser starlets who have to play the mean sister or the nasty soon-to-be-ex fiancee and sometimes the nosy neighbour. The guys are sort of cute and inter-changeable but you can't tell, really, because they are given such horrible lines to say. You look in vain for a Topher Grace or a Josh Duhamel. I fear these boys have ended up being studio carpenters or drivers. Spome of them have very bad hair, so you see.

And yet they are in demand. So are the scripts. I subscribe to InkTip, an online market tip sheet for screen writers. All year round there are calls for Christmas stories, preferably family-based, no horror. I myself have written one, which I can't sell, so it's not that easy, despite appearances.

Years ago I was visiting friends in Bermuda, sitting at dinner when one of the other guests had a call from Los Angeles. He came back and reported to us that his ex-wife in LA was very ill and he was going to go and see her soon. No terrific rush, though, because her other ex-husbands were also going to go. Say no more! That' was the inspiration for my Christmas screenplay "Christmas with Gloria". I mean, the kind of woman who could command that kind of devotion in ex-husbands has to be very special. My heroine is not sick; she is just celebrating Christmas and her present and past loves show up to share it with her. She has to be totally charming. Her story takes place last Christmas and this one, or maybe this Christmas and next year.

nyway, it's a mature rom-com and the heroine, necessarily, is not terribly young, not with a few exes in her past. There's a hope for faded starlets yet, if anyone ever decides to produce it, and I live in hope, too. We all do.