I’m not sure if you can call what I do with an Ali Smith book reading. Obviously I can’t speak for her, but I always leave our trysts feeling enormously inspired and overwhelmingly intimidated. Perhaps there is a word for that. Perhaps there ought to be a word for that.

I just read Hotel World which had special resonance for me as I was working the night a girl, a chef, a colleague, a friend died in a hotel dumb waiter. She was 19 and it took the fire brigade over six hours to cut her and the other chef who was with her out of the shaft. Like Sara, Karen had crouched down and crammed herself in for high jinks and laughs.  I am not going to recite any obvious morals, but do read Ali Smith if you haven’t already.