Clive's pruning has not gone down as well as we might have expected. Or hoped for.

The editor's beady eye could find little wrong with the newspapers we made last week and she seemed happy with the latest list of goodies we'd prepared to serve up to readers and visitors to hounslowchronicle.co.uk.

But... "What on earth has happened to Clive?" she screeched. "It's half the size of 10 days ago and looks anorexic."

Now it is true that Clive ended up a bit shrivelled in her absence. Was it over or under-watering? Lack of feed? We don't know, but there came a stage when the only answer was to hack off some of the possibly dead stuff to make the green bits look better. Perhaps we got carried away like some mad barber trying to repair a bad haircut by chopping even more off until you end up with tufts and bald patches.

Afterwards we kept turning Clive so that its best profile was on show – rather like when you've got a damaged ornament and place it at an angle to hide the chips and cracks.

All in all, we thought we'd got away with it. However, in glaring sunlight the extent of Clive's punky new look is there for all to witness.

What's more, we are now told that Clive is the type of plant you just never prune and that we might have left it wounded and in shock.

Well, that's just too bad. Spindly as it now is, Clive is still producing more fruit, if a little more feebly than in past weeks. There is no Royal Society for the Protection of Tomatoes, No Help the Tomato, nor Tomatoline. Victory is sweet and great in a sarnie.