I don’t wear slippers (See here). Or pyjamas. Or a dressing gown. I can’t really explain why. Maybe it’s because they’re too posh or bohemian, and I like to look downwardly mobile to conceal I had a vaguely privileged upbringing. It starts with slippers, and before you know it, you’re smoking Gauloises through a cigarette holder below a pencil-thin moustache.

But then again, who’s going to see me wear them: Raffles, the gentleman thief? And if they did, they wouldn’t guess I was vaguely privileged looking around  my flat. No, my dislike of them must stop with me. “Oi, Hamilton!” I tell myself. “Your feet might be warm on these wooden floors, but you look like a twat!”  

The same is true of the Crazy Christmas Cabaret (see here for details). I don’t like it, but I’ve never tried it. I presume I’m going to hate it because I never laugh at the ‘amusing’ songs in otherwise funny TV sketch shows, because cabaret is too garish for my taste, and because I dread being asked onto the stage and having to tell one of our advertisers to piss off.

Maybe I’m concerned I’m not going to laugh enough. A trip to the cinema either results in me laughing the most (at a quintessentially British film like Rush, partly to underline how I’m one of the few present to get the joke) or the least (at a comedy aimed at a broad audience, where the Danes are prone to laughing a lot, which I find off-putting if I’m barely sniggering).  

But this is a problem. “Oi, Hamilton!” I need to tell myself. “The cockles of your heart could be warm if you only went with the flow and gave the Crazy Christmas Cabaret a chance. P.S, you still look like a twat.”

Elsewhere, I’m excited by the prospect of Michael Dobbs and Adam Price, the respective creators of the House of Cards and Borgen universes, sharing the stage at the Book Forum (see here). If all things go to plan, we hope to bring you the highlights in next week’s newspaper.

I guess that’s because I like a good book. Even without the use of a pipe and slippers.