My aching digit has truly got me under its thumb

LET me think; when was the last time I felt like this? When I was run over by an express train? Or when I was savaged by a herd of lions that had not fed for three weeks? Or it could possibly have been when I was attacked by a swarm of killer bees as I was preparing a sandwich dripping with honey.

- Peter Mortimer

John Lennon and Yoko Ono may have been able to lie in bed all day in 1969 – but Peter’s conscience won’t let him follow suit

To what can I compare myself? Possibly a wrung-out dishcloth. Upstairs I can hear my housemate, the musician Ryan Siddall (aka Bugman) practising on his drums and what I take to be a mandolin (not on both simultaneously of course).

I would add here that Bugman, who knows that right now, I am somewhat less than one hundred per cent, did offer to keep quiet, but I urged him to continue. Rehearsing your own new live music has charms not only to soothe my savage breast but also to remind me what being alive and creative means - especially at those moments when your wretched columnist feels he (myself, not Bugman) will never be truly alive nor creative again.

What is wrong with you, I hear myself ask, to which I reply that I have no idea.