About 25 years ago, during a particularly bad acid trip, I had my soul stolen by Mister Migarette, an evil glowing man with a huge hat, like the mad hatter’s, who lived in the ash on the end of my cigarette. It put me off smoking for a while and I considered giving up. But then I realised, ‘If you’re not careful, you’re going to do a Syd Barrett. Only by keeping your routines as close as possible to pre-bad-trip normality can you ever hope to arrest your slide down the slippery slope to madness.’
And see! It worked totally! But that wasn’t the point of the anecdote. I mention it by way of comparison with the joy we must all no doubt be experiencing now that there’s another brilliant Dickens adaptation — Little Dorrit (BBC1, Sunday, Thursday) on TV. It makes you go: ‘Hurrah! My house may be worthless, I’m so worried about the cost of fuel I haven’t even dared turn on the Aga yet, and I’m about to lose my job.
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