If I’m honest, these days most of my reading is done on my train journey to and from London, which gives me around 50 minutes a day where I can lose myself in a book.

Disaster struck yesterday, however, when my MP3 player died on me (a long story to do with corrupt disks which I just don’t want to think about) and I realised how much I needed music while reading on public transport to stop me from being distracted by other travellers and their bizarre mobile phone conversations.

This is a shock for me as I was well known as a child for not let anything short of the end of the world disturb me while I had my head in a book – perhaps it’s just age………