It’s nearly the end of the year so it’s time for the one annual morsel of “positive alcohol news” that we seem to be allowed, like a bowl of Oliver Twist’s gruel.

And here it is. Couples who drink together, stay together, finds a new study by the University of Buffalo. Wayhay, trebles all round. I’d shout to tell my husband but he’s still sleeping off last night’s lager with a traffic cone on his head.

Isn’t this more cheery than the laughably doomy message delivered by a former government drugs tsar last May that the only “safe” amount of alcohol that the human body can process is one 250ml glass of wine … a year? A year! Why aren’t the people of France lying dead in the gutters, then? Why aren’t I, for that matter? (Touch wood. I was alive at the time of writing, though I’m sure some of you will ask, “How would we know the difference?”) If true, this would make Wetherspoons and the very well-frequented beers, wines and spirits aisles of British supermarkets absolute killing fields.

But I do confess to a sense of déjà vu. A previous study by the University of Michigan found that not only do couples who drink together stay together, they live longer too. As our American friends say, go figure. Another New Zealand study in 2012 found that when couples drank the same amount as each other and at the same frequency they enjoyed happier and stabler marriages. There’s another from 2001 with similar findings. It does make you wonder why they keep studying the same thing. Are they secretly hoping to get a different result? One that tells us we’re heading for the divorce courts if we have so much as a small chardonnay with our evening egg and chips?

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I should say, in the interests of balance, that it is the similar drinking patterns that seem to be key. So if you are both drinkers or both abstainers you are more likely to have a harmonious union. It’s when one of you does and the other doesn’t that problems arise. I’m envisaging Andy Capp’s sober wife, Flo, waiting behind the door with a rolling pin for him to stagger home from the pub.

It’s not hard to see why “drouple” (drinking couple) marriages work (let’s not dwell too long on the inconvenient fact of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor here, a couple who used to pop the champagne at 11am). It’s a sign that you enjoy each other’s company, that you are up for a laugh and, who knows, you might even be more in the mood for sex when the beer goggles airbrush away middle-aged potbellies. Plus, and this is genius, if you are always in the pub with your spouse when do they have the opportunity to have an affair?

Speaking very much as one half of a drinking couple (and we both like lager, so double points) I don’t want you to run away with the idea that we get bladdered every night. Far from it. I mean ideally I’d like to but we’re far too old. There are alcohol-free Peronis in my fridge and sometimes we even drink them. My husband did recently fall down the stairs, a terrifying episode that took us to A&E, but was alcohol the culprit? No. Nothing had been drunk. It was jalapeño peppers that caused a vasovagal syncope. I look forward to a government tsar saying it is only safe to eat them once a year.

Other drouple benefits? Well, there are no Andy Cappish recriminations about being out late. Plus you both look equally hideous the next morning. And if you did have a row, neither of you can remember what the hell it was about.

Oh, except for the time that we had a bickering session on the front doorstep at 1am and, mortifyingly, it was all captured on the Ring doorbell. There is, of course, an easy solution to this. Get rid of your Ring doorbell.

The rise of boudoir photography

Men, what do you want for Christmas? No, don’t tell me. Let me guess. Is it an arty photo of your own wife gussied up in a chafey basque, hoiking her cleavage while arched over the coffee table where you normally do your jigsaws?

No? You’d much rather have a voucher from Halfords? Then I suspect you’re not alone.

But beware, you might still get one in your stocking. Because “boudoir photography”, ie women paying for “tasteful”, “sensual”, semi-naked (and pricey) photoshoots of themselves with a professional photographer as an act of “empowerment” and “self-love”, is evidently big business. When it became a “thing” about eight years ago I thought it was a fad that would last five minutes. But no.

Sometimes women do it as an ego boost for themselves after divorce or surgery and fair enough. But sometimes they do it then give it as an anniversary or other gift for their spouse. Which seems … presumptuous. And more than a little vain.

Nothing could persuade me to pull on a pair of stockings, drape myself across a bed and say of the resulting photo “Ta-da — here’s your present”. My buttocks clench just thinking about it. Online I have read women admitting to seeing their husband’s faces fall with disappointment when they opened it. I bet they did! They were probably hoping for some socks and a deluxe winter car kit. Besides, they see it all every night when you’re putting on your nightie.

Just flip the scenario and imagine it the other way round. On Christmas morning you open your present to find a photo of your husband lying on a faux sheepskin rug in a pair of budgie smugglers and doing his serious “sexy face”. I mean, you’d rather have a new jumper any day.