4:36 and I’m more awake than I have ever been in my entire life. Like an advert for pro-plus.

This is partly due to the news that the landlady does want to sell the flat so we have to move out. This is a real, gold-plated, hand numbered, certified authentic, 100%, bugger and does not aid restful sleep. We don’t want to rent. We don’t want to buy (in London). Even if we did want to buy we couldn’t get it sorted in 2 months.

So, the usual course of action to encourage the sandman to visit (these days they’re all casual contractors and just don’t care about quality) is to listen to a tape. But when you flip a cassette 3 times you have to concede defeat. Determined to get back to sleep (something doomed to failure) I switched on the World Service. The programme was some sort of surreal international equivalent of Nation Wide (showing my age there I know). First item – a New Zealand woman whose farm flooded and was rescued by a cow. Next, Rio and someone who is really into science and salsa. She spends her time preforming dances that convey scientific facts. This was followed by the Indian man whose car got stuck in reverse and so he now drives backwards everywhere and plans to drive to Pakistan in order to promote peace. Hang on – this must be a dream…surely I’ve fallen asleep and the cheese has got to work on my consciousness. Nope
Interviewer: “but driving backwards must give you neck ache doesn’t it ?”
Nutjob: “I do have pains in the neck – frequent pains in the neck – and I have had severe vomiting in past,”

WTF ? As you can surely see, there is now no question of sleep for the rest of the night…or maybe ever again…