My mattress let me down last week. When I went to sleep it was inflated. When I woke up I was lying on the hard floor with the deflated mattress round me like a dry puddle.

I’m afraid I might have mentioned sleeping on an inflatable mattress before. It’s a bit like someone who lives on a narrow boat or has a cockapoo. You soon hear about it.

Heaven knows, enough people in the world sleep happily enough without a mattress, inflatable or not. Samuel in the Temple didn’t give his sleeping mat an extra puff before lying down again each time he was called by the Lord. But when my hips complained a couple of years ago, I bought them off pneumatically.