'HELL' can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. For some, it is other people's children.
A sub-category of this particular hell is other people talking about their children.
The mere mention of the word can conjure up cartoonish images of gleeful little devils armed with tridents bouncing around while unquenchable flames lick around hell's prisoners.
A more theological definition might be that hell is the absence of God.
Dante reckoned there were as many as nine levels, or circles, of hell. He details these in the Inferno, which is the first section of his epic poem Divine Comedy: limbo, lust, gluttony, greed, wrath, heresy, violence, fraud and treachery.
Many readers do not even get as far as the heresy and violence before concluding that Dante himself and all his works should also be consigned to hell.
Theresa May, the beleaguered British prime minister, is deep into what the more melodramatic elements of the media have dubbed her own 'hell week' - and that's without including a reception she hosted for journalists at Downing Street yesterday.
Rather, it is Brexit, in all its wretched dimensions, that is the source of her troubles.
The negotiations between the EU and the UK can be relied upon to throw up a fresh hell every few days.
Mrs May's version of hell this week centred on whether her apparently doomed Chequers plan can be resuscitated to stagger into next week. There, another circle of hell lies in wait on Wednesday when she is due to meet EU leaders in Brussels.
Never mind the nine circles of hell - Brexit has already visited all of them and is wearing the T-shirt while it descends to levels even Dante cannot have dreamed possible.
Could he have foreseen the DUP finding itself in a position of central influence at Westminster in the most critical period in the UK's history since the Second World War?
Things took a savoury twist this week.
The DUP's Diane 'wife of the mighty' Dodds, who readers may remember is an MEP, served up the opinion that if the UK government agreed with the EU's interpretation of the border backstop, then lasagnes would face the ignominy of having to be checked as they entered Northern Ireland from Britain.
Though it may offer a rare glimpse of domestic life chez 'the mighty' Dodds, it should be emphasised that no irony was intended when Mrs Dodds lamented the possible demise of a dish that is as Italian or - whisper it, European - as you could wish for. The DUP might do beef lasagne, but it doesn't do irony.
Proposals to avoid a hard border inevitably end up with the realisation that there will have to be regulatory checks on goods moving between Britain and Northern Ireland.
Though it may offer a rare glimpse of domestic life chez 'the mighty' Dodds, no irony was intended when Mrs Dodds lamented the possible demise of a quintessentially European dish. The DUP might do beef lasagne, but it doesn't do irony
The DUP regards this as tantamount to putting a border in the sea - quite close to where it wants to build the impossible bridge to Scotland, as it happens - and therefore an existential threat to its view of the Union.
Mrs Dodds was speaking following a meeting on Tuesday with the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier. With customary disregard for detail, the DUP calls him Michelle.
During her impassioned denunciation of the EU's position, the MEP referred to "my information".
Although it was unclear if Mrs Dodds had a sheaf of Post-it notes in front of her while she made her remarks, this did set alarm bells ringing in my head.
We are given to understand that Mrs Dodds is the current beneficiary of the special advice and information of the special sort served up by Andrew Crawford, an erstwhile DUP special adviser at the equally erstwhile Stormont.
Dr Crawford, you may remember, is inextricably linked to the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme, a special shambles even by Stormont's especially shambolic standards.
On the basis of his evidence to the RHI inquiry, the reasonable man or woman will have likely formed the view that Dr Crawford is a balloon. The DUP, meanwhile, values his advice on Brexit.
At Westminster, the DUP has warned Mrs May that if it doesn't like the legal text of the backstop agreement, it will vote against the government's upcoming budget.
That would be hellish for the prime minister, with the potential to trigger a chain of events ending with a vote of no confidence and a general election.
How does 'First they came for your flags, then they came for your lasagnes' sound as an election slogan?
