That night – one of the last nights of my ordinary life – I mentioned Danny’s intentions to my parents over the dinner table.

‘Good on him,’ my dad said around a mouthful of vegetarian stew. ‘We haven’t had a hypnotist before.’

NOTE – ‘vegetarian stew’

Apparently ‘vegetarian’ was still a dietary choice in Straker’s day, rather than a social responsibility. See Chadwick’s informative history: Whatdidn’t they eat? Flesh as food.

Of course we hadn’t, I thought. Who, apart from someone as mad as Danny, would suddenly decide they were going to become one?

‘It should make a nice change,’ he continued, looking at something on his fork with suspicion. A lump of beef-style Quorn stared back at him. ‘It’s going to be great this year.’

Yeah, great, I thought.

I could already pencil in a few of the high spots.

Mr Bodean and his trombone.

Those creepy Kintner twins and their version of ‘Old Shep’ that I’m sure was used in Guantanamo Bay to get Al Qaeda terrorists to talk.

Mr Peterson, the village postman, and his annual ventriloquism act with a hideous homemade dummy called Mr Peebles.

A whole bunch of hyperactive kids doing bad impersonations of Britney or Kylie or – shudder – Coldplay.

NOTE – ‘Coldplay’

O’Brien makes a persuasive case for a ‘Coldplay’ referring to a kind of dramatic or musical presentation characterised by being utterly bereft of any signs of genuine emotion.