The interesting adults are always the school failures, the weird ones, the losers, the malcontents, this isn’t wishful thinking. It’s the rule.

I still secretly believe that afternoons are the time for the test card and you shouldn't watch television when the sun is out.

An American has invented a remote control that will turn off any telly within a 20ft radius. What a marvellous device! What a splendid invention! What a really helpful and improving way of devoting your time to building something that turns off culture. Next week, I'm instigating Burn a Book Week, to encourage even more conversation. I've come up with a fantastic little device which I'll call a box of matches.

Celebrity is a national drama whose characters' parts and plots are written by the tabloids, gossip columnists, websites and interactive buttons. The famous don't actually have to turn up to their own lives at all.

Making a programme that appears to condone a positive stereotype actually enforces all the negative ones as well. It says that they all have a valid point. To assert that Americans are naive, Germans humourless and the French arrogant is one thing: they're big enough to take it. But to say that there's a conspiracy of Jewish bankers, that gypsies are thieves, Pakistanis are dirty and refugees are muggers is something quite else.

A lobster bisque ought to be the crowning glory of the potager. And this one was excellent. Silky as a gigolo's compliment and fishy as a chancellor's promise.

I walk up a dune to a beach and look out to sea, but it's 100km away. The ships lie askew in their dry beds, at anchor for ever. Today is my son's birthday. Thousands of miles from here, his healthy lungs are blowing out candles. I should be there but I'm here with another boy, who puts his face close to mine and laughs. I smile back but realise he can't see it, because I'm wearing an antiseptic muzzles to protect me from his breath.