When does an interest become an obsession? Are all obsessions necessarily bad? I guess these are questions that most people have to answer for themselves. Most aspects of life are relative; one person’s obsession may just be another person’s passing interest. My own personal obsessions mainly serve the purpose of temporary distractions from work and family life.

I know, I know, I’m conforming to type. I’m a white, middle-aged, middle-class, liberal-thinking bloke and I do the sort of things that white, middle-aged, middle-class, liberal-thinking blokes do. I collect stamps, I walk the Lake District fells, I watch football on telly and I drink bottled beer. That’s what I do for fun, my leisure time (me and half of all the other white, middle aged… blokes out there).

So nothing unusual here, I’m not breaking any moulds. It’s just that I often feel that I’m not the same as every other bloke of my type, and then it turns out that I am very much the same. This painful discovery happened again this week.