PARENTHOOD is worry. And guilt. On a good day it can be both. For real luxury you can feel guilty about the worry. Or worry about the guilt. I’m going through a worry phase – one I’ve cleverly constructed out of my daughters’ (I have three) apparent happiness. I say ‘apparent’ because it could be a trap. Not for me, but for them. I mean, they seem happy but who’s to say it won’t collapse like a house of cards when you breathe on it. They are all in relationships. And these are not casual relationships. Oh that they were! You can walk away from casual relationships with a shrug…

I WAS waiting at the traffic lights yesterday. They were red. I was in my car. I mention this because under the circumstances I might have been in a home. I was certainly in trouble. I forgot what I was supposed to do next. It was a fleeting moment of wild panic in which I didn’t dare focus too hard in case I discovered I’d forgotten my name, too. Luckily, as they turned green, it all came back to me. Otherwise I might still be there, beaten senseless by a long line of deranged road ragers. But for a moment I felt the cold hand of the future, sinister and…

WE had a row. On Valentine’s Day. One of those very dangerous, potentially terminal, rows about deeply personal issues that underpin the very fabric of every marriage. She threw my washing up brush away. She said it was disgusting. I said it wasn’t as disgusting as the slimy square of disease-ridden rag she called a dishcloth. She said the brush had been a bacteria-laden culture looking for a chemical warfare laboratory to adopt. She said it was probably the reason everyone was always ill in our house (this means that two years ago one individual had a mild cold. That’s what women mean when they say ‘every’ and ‘always’). She…

THERE is label stuck on the back of the welsh dresser. It says ‘Lara’, which is my daughter’s name. There’s another one on the painting (of a sailing ship in the English Channel) that hangs in my study. It says ‘James’, which is my son’s name. And on the silver tray that’s been in my wife’s family for generations there’s a label that says, ‘Ellen’. Another daughter. I asked my wife what was going on. “They’re preparing,” she said. “For what?” “For the future,” she said. “When we’re dead.” These were children once. Fruit of my loins. They’ve turned into grave robbers! “Come now,” said my wife. You’re over-reacting.” “Over-reacting!…

I WANT a work ethic. Why can’t I just buy one and plug it in? How do people get them, anyway? Are they genetic? Environmental? Training? It’s not that I don’t work hard. I work very hard. But I want to be able to see the point. I want to be able to jump out of bed in the mornings eager to wash the car; skipping breakfast so I can get to the office. This is not a whim. All my life I’ve been aware that the people around me were eager to climb into suits and sit and desks saying things like: ‘market development functionality’ and ‘demographic notional context’.…