You are in Prague. You are stood upon Charles Bridge with your pregnant wife and child. The air is crisp and the sky a deep cornflower blue. Around you, swathes of people traffic past you, through you. A Trad-Jazz band busk an old song with a muted trumpet. Your wife turns to you and speaks: “This sounds like a bad recording”. And you think; this is too like a dream.

You begin to convince yourself that this must be a dream, because… look at you. Just look at yourself with your scraggy hair, three-day growth, and ill-fitting clothes. How can you have all this? A beautiful family, in a far-away mystical land. This is too much happiness: yes, this must be a dream. You close your eyes, and open them again. Yes. Yes it was a dream, and now you are lying there drenched in cheap vodka and piss.