But this was all leading to my dessert, which had to have a name of its own, so I called it Chocolate Bête Noire, because if any of them survived it they’d be after my blood fro trying to kill them off with chocolate.

In the chill of a Yorkshire winter in what was then the West Riding of that large northern English county, where Cathy called for Heathcliff in whipping winds on grim moors, the pretty girl with wide-set cornflower blue eyes would have to hold her hand out to be stuck repeatedly with the back of a hairbrush when the orphanage carers – for want, perhaps, of another word – would deem some wrong to have been done.

A banger is a clapped-out, stutter-start old car that knows the next stop is the breakers. A banger is an old rocker, a wizened Keith Richards who can’t see his fans any more but can still find his guitar chords. A banger is a heady cocktail of vodka, Galliano and orange juice, with a maraschino garnish to fool you into believing that a Harvey Wallbanger doesn’t pack a kick.

In the newsroom there is a tradition, as in many workplaces, of the birthday boy or girl bringing in cake. And when my birthday comes around and I plonk down a couple of shop-bought melkterts and carrot cakes, they always ask, “Did you make those?” And I have to slink away with an “um, no, sorry” and make a vow to myself to do so next year.

Now everything is the new everything else, and there’s no end in sight, and that’s the problem with an out-of-control cliché. It’s off and running, which of course is itself a cliché, but then again “no end in sight” is one too, as is “of course”, so we’re all doomed.

I’ve learnt to trust the butcher. Look, the guy has a big, long knife. He knows how to sharpen it, and how to use it. He still has both his hands and all his fingers, which is evidence of his skill and accuracy with the blade. Ergo, never trust a butcher who is missing a finger. Or a hand.

Raindrops on roses, cream-coloured ponies, crisp apple strudel, schnitzel with noodles. Who drew up that bucket list? What was Julie Andrews on? Were those really snowflakes that were staying on her nose and eyelashes or some other white substance?

If I had R10 for every time a well-meaning friend has remarked, “I see Tony’s feeding the army again”, my bank manager wouldn’t be the dribbling wreck she has become. She might even be able to afford a lotion to salve her scalp in an effort to get the patches of hair to grow back that she has pulled out in nervous fits.

When my Karoo friend Elaine Hurford posted a Facebook status about how watermelon pips were the Next Big Thing in food, darlings, alarm bells went off everywhere, in my head, in the lounge, in the washing machine (actually, that might have been the end of the cycle), in the garden, in the street outside.

I was thinking of a piece of kingklip having the character and guts of a hunk of prime beef, not brooking any chirp from the hoi polloi, the kind of kingkip cutlet that walks into a room and everyone falls silent, waiting for the next move.