I could still remember how having a two day old baby makes you feel faintly sorry for everyone else, stuck in their wan unmiraculous lives.

Home alone with a wakeful newborn, I could shower so quickly that the mirror didn't fog and the backs of my knees stayed dry. The one-minute hair conditioner was too slow for me.

Household hollowness comes around in irregular cycles, like meteor showers. But the true sign of a bad patch is that it never feels temporary or fixable. It has a shudder of the inevitable to it. The thought crosses your mind that when love goes it goes all at once, and forever.

Every time I caught a fish, I wondered how something so small could have such clear, pure strength. It kept reminding me of another sensation, from another realm. The fish on the line, I eventually realized, felt like the baby, kicking inside you. Or the shocking, life-hungry pull of the baby on the breast. Perhaps fishing is like quickening for men, a long and patient wait for a few electric moments when they feel connected to another life.

Like an animal, cancer sleeps, prowls, hibernates, turns surly or placid.

Simple intervention - the time spent with a patient - is a very powerful ingredient of the patient-doctor contract. The evidence is against the traditions such as surgery for back pain being true - the evidence says it doesn't work.

Well, delusions are a wonderful thing, and they keep you company, too.