IF I really want to mess with my beloved's already frazzled head I ask him if he's locked the front door.

I know that he knows he has locked it, but I also know that he won't actually believe it until he has undone his seatbelt, opened the car door, scuttled up the drive and vigorously wiggled the door handle.

He hasn't, to my knowledge, ever actually left the door unlocked.

There was one infamous occasion at our old house when he not only left the door unlocked, but left the whole thing swinging open, allowing passers-by an unprecedented view of himself asleep on the sofa without any trousers on. But there was drink involved and it is not an episode that has been repeated since we moved (the neighbours got up a petition).

David Beckham is a serial lock checker too. He also insists on his trainers being set out in a certain pattern, he likes his cutlery at precise right angles to the table edge and he particularly enjoys the regimentation of pairs - if there is an uneven number of Pepsi cans in the fridge, he throws one away so each is part of a pair.

The England football captain, like Woody Allen, Harrison Ford, Gazza and Michelle Pfeiffer, suffers from OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder). Apparently Charles Dickens and Marcel Proust were also afflicted, although their precise symptoms have not been pinpointed (I imagine Proust liked his Madeleine biscuits lined up in a perfect heptagon).

While I wouldn't say my other half is in their league when it comes to OCD - I don't even think he's playing with the same shaped ball - I do think he has a strange blip in his brain when it comes to the front door. The same strange blip that means his best friend can't walk away from his car until he has checked every door, including the boot, at least twice; our daughter can't walk past an open door, be it a cupboard or a cat flap, without shutting it; and our son is driven to distraction if his boxes of Beano back issues get mixed up (he even has a list by his bed marked "box 1, box 2, box 3" with ticks by them so he can ensure he doesn't favour one box over another).

Even I, usually an island of sanity in an otherwise batty ocean, have to admit to a tiny blip. When I check on the kids before going to bed at night I always touch the wooden letters spelling out their names on their bedroom doors because I think it will help to keep them safe. How on earth my smudgy fingerprints are supposed to protect them from the mad axeman living in the loft (my other half swears it's a pigeon, but I'm not convinced) is beyond me, but it somehow makes me feel better.

Now I come to think of it, I actually have two blips. I always dish out food in a particular order too. The main component - fish, sausages, chop, whatever - goes on first, followed by the potatoes then the veg. As if that wasn't blippy enough, I also take the plates through in a set order: kids first (son's in left hand, daughter's in right), then guests if we have them, then my other half's (he usually eats so much his plate needs two hands) and finally my own.

I'm sure, if you're honest, there's a blip in your brain too. We all have them, it's just a matter of degree.

For some people OCD is a debilitating condition that leaves them virtual prisoners in their own homes, unable to deal with the disorderliness of life in the outside world. But for most of us, it's just about keeping a lid on the blips.