That I can’t control it.

Keep working, improving your step.

Before I was diagnosed with esophageal cancer a year and a half ago, I rather jauntily told the readers of my memoirs that when faced with extinction I wanted to be fully conscious and awake, in order to “do” death in the active and not the passive sense. And I do, still, try to nurture that little flame of curiosity and defiance: willing to play out the string to the end and wishing to be spared nothing that properly belongs to a life span. However, one thing that grave illness does is to make you examine familiar principles and seemingly reliable sayings. And there’s one that I find I am not saying with quite the same conviction as I once used to: In particular, I have slightly stopped issuing the announcement that “Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”

Nothing’s guaranteed and things change in an instant, and to get used to that and stay in the moment.

My younger self for being hard on myself.

Forgetting the words to my own songs on stage. I’m a very good mumbler of my own songs. You’d be surprised how few people notice – if you smile and do it confidently, they’re none the wiser.

Finally nailing being on time.

I’ve enjoyed every single job, including working at my dad’s chicken shop selling potato gems (fried potato circles) to the surfer dudes.

As an Italian, tinned spaghetti. As a child, I was once served it at someone’s house. It was quite frightening.

Not having the ability to say sorry when they’re wrong.