Holding on for a hero as Adam Hadwin comes to my rescue

Sometimes I just wake up and think: I am one – a measly, unimportant, insignificant one – of almost eight billion people on Earth, all of whom will be dead in about 100 years, then there will be another eight billion people around – or probably more like nine billion by then – and then they will all be dead in 200 years, then in about 300 years there will be approximately ten billion people around, hardly any of whom will even have heard of Tiger Woods.

Do you sometimes wake up and think that, too? Demoralising, isn't it? Nothing that is happening really – and I mean really – matters, does it? I am finding it difficult to get excited about anything at the moment, but I am not ashamed of that. I think the people who should be ashamed are those who get overexcited – or, even worse, over-angry – about things. Nothing really matters, folks – stop getting angry. Why suffer anger? Anger is not satisfying, is it?

I have got an increasingly troubling old school friend who rants vitriol like a madman whenever I see him. His whole life has been built around hating “the Tories” and blaming them for literally everything that bothers him. He likes waving his fingers around and demanding “look me in the eye” as he spews incoherent venom about those he despises. And as he drunkenly tripped his way out of a pub when our paths last crossed, I fully expected him to implicate the man he testily refers to as “Johnson” for the stumble.