To move like I did in my early 20s. I’ve had knee and hip surgery, and my toe joint fused since.

My chief consolation in this year of living dyingly has been the presence of friends. I can’t eat or drink for pleasure anymore, so when they offer to come it’s only for the blessed chance to talk. Some of these comrades can easily fill a hall with paying customers avid to hear them: they are talkers with whom it’s a privilege just to keep up. Now at least I can do the listening for free. Can they come and see me? Yes, but only in a way. So now every day I go to a waiting room, and watch the awful news from Japan on cable TV (often closed-captioned, just to torture myself) and wait impatiently for a high dose of protons to be fired into my body at two-thirds the speed of light. What do I hope for? If not a cure, then a remission. And what do I want back? In the most beautiful apposition of two of the simplest words in our language: the freedom of speech.

More head space.

This isn’t a complaint, but obscurity would be nice. You can’t have a bad day in public because everyone’s got phones.

A motorbike crash. I broke my shoulder and ribs and was so scared I didn’t ride for two years.

My mum, because she raised five children. I am raising two and it’s hard work.

Different nowadays. It feels nourishing.

Not that much of a twat.

Worry about being self-employed. Nowadays, I don’t lose sleep over my divorce – I did for about a year.

Not being Bond.