One horrible afternoon in Chicago when I forgot my words in The Marriage of Figaro, in a role I’d sung hundreds of times.

When I was a teenager, I laughed at a joke I didn’t understand. Whoever told the joke turned to me and said, “What are you laughing at?” Of course I didn’t know and he obviously knew I didn’t know. It was excruciating.

At school, I got my head stuck in a balustrade on the stairs at lunchtime. I had pupils laughing at me, parents laughing at me, teachers laughing at me and eventually, at the end of the day, the fire brigade laughing at me.

Walking with Eric Clapton’s tour manager Mick to meet Eric backstage, and when I met Eric I said, “Hi Mick.” I wanted to die.

I love you but I hate your lifestyle.

To kids I bullied in school. I have apologised and I will continue to. To repay those things karmically, I will watch my kids’ hearts like a hawk for signs of hardening or any distortions of empathy that they might develop.

A lifelong sleepover.

Sacrifice the self and you will gain it. Serve the self and you will lose it.

I’m the happiest right now. I can see that I’m in a kind of sweet spot: my parents are alive, my kids are little, my wife is hot and my body doesn’t hurt.

I cried last week after talking about marriage equality with my daughters. My oldest let slip that she believed that if the supreme court overturned Obergefell, she wouldn’t have parents any more. I felt angry with my country and ashamed that I didn’t consider the possibility that she might think that.