On Monday evening I took a brief and long-planned break at a busy time to have dinner with friends in a good local French restaurant, Bruno’s Brasserie. The food was excellent. The company was lovely. The only flaw in an almost perfect evening was the nightmare that followed. In it, Michael Moore was firing a crossbow at me while I ran around an icy lake trying not to be hit. He shot me in the biceps and shoulder several times, causing that unpleasant, dull ache that dreams substitute for actual pain. Perhaps my upper arm was wedged awkwardly between me and the bed.

(A few weeks back I saw an overweight man walking down the Mill Road in Cambridge wearing a black T-shirt. The T-shirt said: “I ATE ALL THE PIES”.)