In Japan, according to Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance* there are three acceptable answers to questions of the form yes or no? Seems a little strange to us, being a very logical bunch (no - that's just me then - the Mr. Spock of 2013 Manchester).

Given a question of the form "Do you like cheese, yes or no?" We would normally answer yes or no. But what of the question "Would you prefer a kick up the arse or a punch in the balls?" Here we have problems, I don't want either, just by answering the question we have made things worse for ourselves. I don't want to answer that question - the question itself is stupid.

Some questions you just don't want to answer - either way you lose. But some questions are even worse, some questions have absolutely no answer - they are framed in such a way as to make answering impossible. Everyone is occasionally confronted with questions like these, I must do it myself as much as anyone else. Today, Toni confronted me with such a question. I won't go into the background of how the question arose, these things turn up in every relationship, I'll only comment on the impossible logic.

You never agree with anything I say, do you?

Bang! That's the hardest question to answer ever. For a while my mind went into some stasis - trapped in some Epimenides type paradox - if I say this then this, but this means this and the first things is wrong. I can't win.

How do I answer - If I answer 'yes', then I agreeing and saying I never agree with anything that Toni says, but I have just agreed with her thus making my original answer incorrect. If I answer 'no' then logically I am off the hook but answering 'no' sounds like I am disagreeing and thus reinforcing the idea I never agree with anything Toni says.

So by such a question, I am screwed, either logically or emotionally. I can't win. Which brings me back to our clever Japanese chums and the other answer, Mu. There is another answer to a yes/no question which is mu and basically it means, that question is stupid. Given a question of the form "Who would you rather sleep with, a reanimated zombie version of the queen mother who is infected with scabies or Madonna?" you can answer, Mu, neither of these options is good for me and I will 'unask' the question.

So to Toni, after giving a long lecture on why the question itself deserved such a reply, I replied Mu. Everyone loves a long lecture don't they?

And as such, although I tried to duck the question as posed in the first place, I think I managed to answer it in a logically consistent manner. I just don't know what the answer was.

*One of the seminal books of the 1970's a possibly responsible for much of my madness.