I'm used to finding all sorts of litter when I come home but this is a bit out of the usual. Admittedly it's New Year. I'd just come from an excellent party given by Claire and Russell where we had fêted the season unrestrainedly and loosed rockets of terrifying beauty from Portobello beach into the upper regions of our lovely planet.

This was potentially a pain in the neck - ambulances, police, whatever. I checked his breathing - regular and as normal as you'd expect from someone asleep. I tried valiantly to wake him without success. I decided he was in a drunken stupor rather than on the point of death and left nature to take her course.