Aren’t mornings difficult? Mine are getting more and more horrid. I wake up, have a few pleasant seconds, and then the terrors set in. My skin goes clammy and prickly all over, I feel sick, or I break into a boiling sweat. Rather like the menopause, but worse, because the menopause comes to an end, but this never does, because there’s always something to be scared stiff about, I find. Did you think you stop worrying about your children when they’re grownups? No you don’t. Well I don’t. I can’t. I can think up all sorts of calamity, involving the daughter, the dog, friends, me, the country and the world. Anything really. You name any horror or disaster, personal or international, I’ve been there already, first thing in the mornings.
I find the best thing to do is switch on the radio – a distraction. Well it used to be, but now it confirms my fears. It’s not just straightforward lions led by donkeys anymore. I can’t tell what’s leading what, or into what, but at least the Today programme is enraging. Then I can rise up in a fury, which is better than lying down curled up with the shakes. And the dog helps, it’s always cheery, because it knows nothing of the Middle East, Joanna Lumley’s silly garden bridge, benefit cuts, physical illness, Alzheimer’s, earthquakes, food banks, the brutish environment, greed, the takeover of the machines and having to do everything online.
“You’re flogging a dead horse, hating everything modern,” says Fielding, who recently cowered beneath the soaring Shard. “My lot are losing,” he realised, “and there’s nothing we can do about it.” Oh yes I can. I can put up a little fight here and there, complain, demonstrate, cling to my cheque book, sign a million petitions, dig up the concrete in my front garden, pay people, not machines, make a pond, boycott this and that: Tesco, Westfield, meat, fur coats, Sky TV.
Or I can do some work, play some music, watch gripping telly, block the crap out briefly, perk up, think I’m doing all right, go to bed. And then wake up again …
