What sometimes puts me off writing an entry in this diary is the worry I might not stop. But I think my readers would prefer more regular, concise musings than infrequent torrents of text. I should get into a routine – an hour or so a day.

The temptation is to write about one thing in particular – the diary as a sequence of articles. What I want to do now, though, is just write regularly, and hope readers won’t mind that much of it might be unedited and dull: the chaff with the wheat. Entries now would comprise ideas, notes to self, records of what I’ve done – pretty useful when my own memory is so unreliable. Some expiry-dated recommendations (I’m always being asked to recommend things to do, read or see), some announcements to the world.

Regular entries would also help to convince people I’m alive. Not least myself.