I HAVE A RECURRING DREAM in which I am called upon to hit someone but can’t. I am threatened with violence in the dream, or my honour is insulted, but when I go to clench my fist, the clench is weak and the fist is soft, it doesn’t quite close, it is like the fist you would make with a Champagne flute in the palm of your hand.
And then when I go to throw the punch, my arm moves through the air very slowly and with great effort, as if travelling through treacle, and even as I throw this slow, painful, fistless punch, I know I have measured the distance wrong and it will land short. And I will be laughed at.
And then I wake up, in my…