How has life changed for us all?

Personally, my life has changed even more than it did when Princess Diana died. In fact, I can’t remember anything before 9/11; I’ve even started counting my age all over again (wish me a happy first birthday).

Immediately after the 11th, I began to comb my hair a different way. I’ve altered my viewing habits, my fridge freezer, my clocks and my floral arrangements. I’ve changed my calorie intake and my underwear; I still change my underwear whenever I hear loud noises, such as overhead jetliners. I’ve developed an aversion to brie (but I’m still ambivalent about raspberries). I sing in the shower and perform short plays on the bus.

I’ve even considered taking a different newspaper.

When I leave my house, government agents silently appear at my side and steer me back indoors, “to protect my essential liberties”. I am able to recognise President Bush for the world-bestriding statesman that he is, rather than the pretzel-choking moron I thought he was; he is truly, to throw his own words back at him in an identical sense, a “man of peace”.

I fight tyranny and oppression wherever I find it, through the medium of online forums. I turn left instead of right, buy regular not large and have stopped biting my toenails. I no longer view dentists as mortal enemies, but greet them as my brothers.

I surf where once I only shuffled.

I changed my friends, my fish, my mind and my wife (twice). I lived as a hermit and spent time diving for pearls in Kuala Lumpur. I avoid tall women in short skirts and seek out dowdy librarians in provincial towns.

Quite frankly, I can’t conceive that my life could change any more radically, unless I am spontaneously turned into a mollusc. Or a journalist.