Coming back from a concert in Holland I thought, not for the first time, how strange it is that there’s only one little spot on the earth that is ‘my house’, and to which I have to make my way back from wherever I’ve been. In this case, first with a taxi ride, then a plane journey, then a train journey, then a tube journey, and finally a walk down a long road which takes me to the one place where, ‘when you have to go there, they have to take you in’.

In the course of these multi-stage journeys, making my way back to one little house in one little street in a big city, I often wish that my house would appear magically in front of me at the moment when I realise I’m tired and need to rest. I could, of course, stay in a hotel, but that’s no substitute for being at home. Nevertheless it sometimes feels strange that ‘going home’ is such an intricate procedure, and that there is no point in knocking on any other pleasant-looking door along the way and calling, ‘I’m back!’