Dear Jim,

I think you’re giving Sydney a hard time. I remember having a great time when I flew up there six years ago. It was the last time I ever went on holiday alone. I remember I didn’t have a clue where I was going to stay the first night. I had this vague plan that I’d hook up with someone and wouldn’t need to book a hotel. So at 4 a.m. there I was, my eyes bloodshot and a look of desperation in my eye. I remember entering a bar, finding the drunkest man in the place and telling him to take me home. He was a mess but he lived just round the corner. He was so drunk he couldn’t even undress properly and the last thing he said to me before passing out was, ‘You won’t steal anything, will ya?’ He had a collection of expensive looking vases in the lounge on a very low table and I remember thinking that he should find a more sensible place to put them where he wasn’t going to knock them over.