When I have finished writing my book of Brief, Brief Lives, I am going to embark on a long-cherished project. This is Mr Key’s Catalogue Of Everything In The Known Universe, Arranged According To An Abstruse Taxonomic System Partly, But Not Wholly, Related To The Standard Alphabet, Together With Fantastic And Occasionally Hysterical Supplementary Passages Of Piercingly Acute Flimflam, And Several Diagrams With Pointy Arrows, Wavy Lines, And Unseemly Smudges, The Whole Printed In Tiny Type And With A Magnifying Glass Included For Ease Of Perusal.

Though I have not yet written a word of the text, I have made several smudges, with soot on blotting paper, and while doing so have given much – well, no, not much – thought to the abstruse taxonomic system. At the moment I am minded to begin the book with geese, fireworks, and the Tet Offensive, though that may change as I delve deeper into everything in the known universe.

Prospective publishers are not beating a path to my door. I suspect they are intimidated, not so much by the sheer bulk of the book – it will be hefty!, hefty! – but by the fact that nobody is ever going to need to read anything else, ever, and book sales will slump accordingly.

But first I must crack on with the Lives...