I am inventing a new card game for Christmas. It is called Lecture, Grumble and Rant. This is not the name of a solicitors’ practice, but it does reflect the nature of modern conversation. You will pick a card from the pack and have thirty seconds to lecture, grumble or rant without hesitation, repetition or deviation. There will be a trump card, called Bemused. This card will reflect those very rare conversationalists who are able to transcend the three main techniques. They will be called upon to illustrate a quiet, tangential comment on the three principal protagonists. What do you think? I may even offer it to Radio Four.

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I am by nature not a very bitter person, but I found myself touched by the spray from a wave of bitterness last week. I had seen a poster for something on a wall in the tube, the type of thing that I had tried to promote about ten years ago only to be told that it would interest no-one. As so often, I have found myself ahead of the curve. It engendered a wave of bitterness that engendered some irritability in my habitually sunny disposition. These days I mostly avoid bitterness. It is a young man’s luxury. After extended periods of not getting what you want you have to just live with it and find a way of thinking about yourself in an elevated way (which is vital) without the adherence of much of the rest of the population. You still need some bitterness, of course, as bile keeps you kicking, but this will be controlled bitterness.

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We have a spider on an elaborate web outside the kitchen window. There is the web and a leaf stuck onto one of its corners where the spider goes sometimes for protection or maybe to lock out the light, I’m not sure. He’s a big spider. I have seen him with other insects trapped in the web. He knows his spider business. We thought: should clean those windows and get rid of that web, but I am torn. It is such a wonderful architectural product; it seems like cultural vandalism. so we are putting off the day.

The other day an enormous spider appeared on the living room wall. I am not particularly scared of spiders but this one almost took my breath away. I thought, if I kill it with The Economist or The London Review of Books, it would leave such a splatter on the wall and also, again, my better instincts prevailed, why kill? I managed to put a glass over it and then a strong piece of card under the champagne coupe and so was able to take it outside and let it crawl free in the courtyard. I wonder, is it my spider from outside the kitchen window whom I haven’t spotted recently. Maybe the storm dislodged him and using his wiles he sought refuge indoors. Anyway, the spiders or spider are still at large and I shall try not to kill them or him.

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