"So what do you do?" It's the classic conversation opener, it's appropriate. It's not going to cause stilted silences like, "Who did you vote for in the election?" or "So, what's your favourite position?" So what do I do? Well, I work in a bar. I pour pints of Guinness for curmudgeonly regulars and I stack glasses in a dishwasher. On Mondays we polish the whisky bottles and wipe down the gantry. This is what I do in that this is how I trade my time for money, and that . . .

I blame the job. It was a boring job with long hours and little mental stimulation. I have to blame something. Otherwise how do I excuse my raging crush on a man who looked like a badger and wasn't particularly nice to me? It wasn't love at first sight. It wasn't love at all. A crush isn't love-it doesn't have anything to do with love. It wasn't a bolt out of the blue, it was a mounting fixation fuelled by boredom and romantic novels. The interminable number-checking . . .