I was surprised when they asked me to write this. It’s been over a year since I got out of the satire game and I’ve got to tell you I am very glad that sorry chapter of my life has been writ, read, torn from its binding, balled up and hurled into the sea. It can bob about in my wake all it wants as I disappear gaily over the horizon. I’m outta there. Sayonara, hepcats!

These past twelve months have seen me chart a fresh course across life’s cruel sea, and I have learned at last what it is to cudgel the homunculus in my head insensible so that I may man the tiller as my true self. Martin Heidegger would tell you that finding your true self is not such a big deal: you just work out what you want to do and there you are, but then Martin never had to work for the ABC, did he? And even if he did, he would have probably been in promotions, so it doesn’t really count.