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.

The eradication of poverty would be nice, but at the moment, a double macchiato.

It would improve the quality of all of our lives if we just got rid of all unessential vehicles in New York City.

Being able to cram the quality of eight hours’ sleep into four.

Most days, I wanted to be Albrecht in the classical ballet Giselle, dancing until I dropped dead.

As a good friend.

Just. Hanging. On.

My first holy communion, where my trousers were too big for me and fell down, a circumstance which earned me both the instant contempt of the girls and the heightened interest of the priests. That’s just how it was in 1975.

The internet. Such potential for good and for levelling up the world, but such a quagmire in reality.

Somebody once told me I was the spitting image of David Cameron.