Last night I dreamed… no, it wasn’t Manderley again. I dreamed that I was on the phone to a call centre somewhere, on hold—for about five hours, I think, though you never quite know with dreams. At the end of it I woke up feeling calm and benign.

My unconscious, if not the waking part of my mind, must enjoy wasting hours connected to hyperspace, listening to bland music. That makes some sort of sense. My relationship with time is becoming ever more perverse. I don’t think I’m alone. Have you noticed how the older you get, and the less time you have, the more you relish activities that take up gallons of it?

One’s interest in cooking tracks this phenomenon. Most of us take little or no interest in cooking as children or teenagers. Food is something to be sliced, slathered and gobbled. As young adults, the same applies: