"My sister's gentle purring ensures I remain just awake"

East London, five o’clock in the morning. I’m in a taxi, heading from my son’s house towards my sister’s apartment and, I hope, complete oblivion.

After four hours of preposterous mental and physical exertion, to do with my son’s latest get-rich-quick-online venture, my son is “buzzing, heading down to a festival later, should be class”.

I, meanwhile, sit slumped in the back of the taxi like a freshly murdered corpse, wondering if, in half a century, I’ve ever longed for oblivion more.