IT is 5am. I have been up since 3.15am. My daughter is moaning in the bedroom. Her partner is making soothing noises. My wife is doing arcane things with eucalyptus oil and the midwife is filling in her tax return. This is becoming a habit. I am (or was until I fired up this computer) twiddling my thumbs. This is not a figure of speech. This is where you link the fingers of each hand together and wind your thumbs around one another, aimlessly, wondering whether to make another cup of tea and why you’re here. It was the same last time. I twiddled my thumbs until they wanted stuff…

I DON’T snore. My wife says I do. It’s a lie. The reason she wakes up tired, irritable and out of sorts every morning is because… well, she doesn’t sleep. But it’s got nothing to do with me. No worries… she’s going through women’s stuff. Hormonal changes. You know the kind of thing. I try to be understanding but it can get you down when they go on about it. I mean, we all have stuff to deal with. I go to work, I get abused, I deal with idiot drivers on the road, and banks that let all their staff go to lunch at lunchtime when lunchtime is when…

I FOUND my wife sitting on the rug. She had her leg over her neck and one hand somehow behind her back. I don’t know where the other one was. I didn’t like to ask. Rescue was my first thought, but then I remembered how you can do a lot of harm if you move the victim without knowing what internal damage there might be, so I reached for the phone. “What are you doing?” “I’m calling an ambulance. Don’t try to move. You’re going to be all right. Do you remember that holiday we went on last year…?” (It’s good to keep them talking. Don’t let them lose consciousness).…

I HAVE just received Mr Howard’s little booklet. The one that reassures you we are safe in the hands of skilled security forces and have absolutely nothing to fear from terrorists, bombs or chemical attack. And then tells you what to do when you meet one, it goes off, or your friends fall over for no apparent reason. DON’T PANIC! it says. It doesn’t actually say it in capitals or with an exclamation mark, but it does say it across 20 pages, a two-page personal letter from John and a fridge magnet, so the effect is the same. So naturally, I’m panicking. Especially as my friends fall over for no…

I STARTED a new diary on January 1. Well, you would, wouldn’t you? I have just looked at the entry for that date. It says: “Lunch with kids”. It’s written very neatly on the line that corresponds with 12.30pm. These small neatnesses are important. You can’t expect to be properly organised if you’re not careful about such things right down the scale. You can’t expect a successful outcome to anything if you only concentrate on the big things. Colin Powell has not, for instance, written in his diary, on a day in March: “Attack Iraq.” One assumes he has more detail than that: another entry somewhere saying: “load planes.” You…