I was sitting in the car park listening to a podcast about secular Buddhism. The car was parked in the hospital car park, and I was waiting.

...perhaps it's just that I was a child when swearing was first allowed on British television and I took to it like a pig to shit.

Thinking about what matters and what doesn't.

I don’t understand much at all. This isn't some kind of introduction to a kind of stand-up routine, or some falsely-modest attempt at self-deprecation. I just don't understand much.

Life is fast.

Growing up was a good thing. Getting older was good. You could wear different clothes, make some decisions of your own. You could, one day, smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol, get married and drive a car.

I have this serious sense that I am about to be exposed as in some way inadequate. I am 53 years old and still, from time to time, wake from a nightmare that tomorrow I have a test for a course I never attended.