What a drag it is getting old. It's my mind that gives me such anxiety. My short-term memory is shot to bits. I usually wake with high anxiety, not even knowing what day it is. I dream so deeply that I am sometimes unable to distinguish my sleeping fantasies from reality. People living in the house burst into the room with totally false information or a terrifying Hindu goddess smiles unpleasantly on the bed-end waving her many arms.

And yet, perversely, I set out each day in full confidence, convinced that everything is totally under control. I recently related to my wife Diana - my wing commander, without whom I would be raving mad on Shepherd's Bush - some stupid mistake. She said, "But I told you that at supper last night." She is tolerant in general, but I do wish she could never say "I told you so" again.

I wrote last week of the disaster en route to Bridgwater. I had read, on my to-date ignored itinerary, that I must de-train at Taunton and embus to my destination. I mounted the bus in a quite not untypical state of euphoria. Unjustified. No coat, no car, and they were "refurbishing" the station, every door and window locked. I had never been colder or more depressed at being so cold. A kind of rage overtook me. I cursed the world as I wound my Captain Oates-like hands around a Marlboro Light. These almost demonic rages are one of my many mood changes as I approach 80. I spotted a telephone box and rang the hotel. Within 10 minutes a blonde jazz-loving executive was there. Instant euphoria.

The wingco had booked me in overnight, as she knew I would be exhausted and the lecture (with slides) was the following afternoon and I could catch the train. At the station at Taunton afterwards, a train pulled in and I asked the passengers if it was the London train. "Oh, yes," they all said, meaning it had come from London.

So I found a seat and fell asleep and woke in Penzance.