Regular readers of the filth I throw up every week will almost certainly have my little ruses down by now. Bung my father into the tags and up go the hits, regular as clockwork. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel, and you can rest assured I shall be milking this remarkable stroke of luck until it dries up. Thanks for your understanding.

This being the case, let’s trawl back over the last seven days. I went to Wales with my youngest sibling Emma, if for no better reason than to muster some undeserved interest from your good selves, but actually to sort some shit out. Yes, we administered the estate in a manner appropriate to those thrust unwittingly into a position of responsibility. And yes, we said and did stuff that sounded good and proper to those not in the know. But the truth of the matter is that we, like so many others in a similar spot, winged it. Never more so than when, after an exhausting day of admin and delegation, we discovered a sealed bag from the hospital on the kitchen table which contained a well-worn wallet begging for attention. Yes, like in the Grudge. I looked at Emma. Emma looked at me. Open it, she seemed to go, although she probably actually said it and I pretended she didn’t for dramatic effect. So I opened it.

It contained a plethora of post-it notes and business cards, too disturbing to go into here (I shall be scarred for life, remember where you read it first). But amongst these was a small, quadrilateral blue pill which requires no further explanation, especially not to you lot. Needless to say, it was effectively useless to my sister and so, squaring up to my role as responsible eldest, I agreed to take it home for research purposes. It had been a long day and I wanted nothing more than a quick shower and an early night, so without a second thought I necked the confounded thing, washing it down with 75cls of a 2009 New Zealand Marlborough Pinot Noir, and waited for the dawn to rise. Dad may have been many things but a realist he was not, and this was to be my legacy.

I awoke in a state of shock. My bedclothes lay all around (and above) me, and as I peered inside the tent I had inadvertently made, I realised that my father had not entirely gone. That there was a message he was sending me from the beyond to take with me through the years I have left. That the blue pill I had nonchalantly swallowed was perhaps a bridge across the void, the Michelangelo touch that traverses this world and the next. And how he would have been proud of me, raising the game by writing all the bollocks I do, the very thing he loosely encouraged without ever really knowing where it would end up. But it ends up here. Dad, I hope you’re listening…