I'm lying in bed in our Brighton cottage, looking out to sea. Far out is one lone fishing boat with its light fluttering and flickering like the last gasp of a candle or a dying Tinkerbell starved of belief. It's like looking out into a distant century. What is there to catch in the English Channel now beyond turds and tampons? Where are we now when some of us are programming autobot spam for a living and some are trawling nets by gaslight. Phishing and fishing...

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. But I'd argue for a two-night lag. To start there's the London to Brighton drive accompanied by Leonard Cohen rather than Beyoncé, Then there's the strutting around a sauna with all eyes on me instead of you. There's the supper of Carrots a la Creme and of course there's listening to R4 all night ON A SPEAKER rather than strangling myself on my headphone cable. But then comes that point in the night when I'm full of these loud, dr