You Are Feeling Very Sleepy

I have a skill that until very recently has not been used for near to four decades. I was (obviously) very, very young when I first learned to do it and, to tell you the truth, I only took it up because I had no access to drugs at the time. I didn't know then that a life fairly well-lived is far more satisfying than getting stoned.

The skill I'm speaking of is self-hypnosis and I picked it up at a time when I was interested in meditation, and sniffing salt-water up one nostril and back down the other and taking cold baths and other weird stuff that people do before they get any sex or drugs. Or was that just me?

It all came back to me when I was lying in bed one night worrying about biscuits or, to be more specific, my lack of self-control around biscuits and particularly the office biscuits and it came to me. I know, I says to myself, I'll hypnotise myself not to like biscuits, for after all they're only sawdust and sugar and lard. But then, I thought, what about home-made biscuits? So I decided I'd only forego manufactured biscuits.

I did the self-hynotising deed. It was easy. It's more than a month now and not a Kitkat, not a jaffa cake, not a chocolate digestive, not even a Club has passed my lips. Sometimes I look at the office biscuits but I just say to myself, I don't eat biscuits and I don't even like biscuits. But one weekend I made some home-made biscuits and ate a mound of those.

And that worried me for I was starting to stuff myself again - larger helpings, second helpings, too much bread. So about a week ago I decided to hypnotise myself not to overeat. I would eat anything I wanted but I would not overeat. That seems to be working too.

Of course I wouldn't advise anyone to enter into this lark without thinking very seriously about what to take action on. Too much self-hypnosis might overload the brain. But I couldn't resist another little go and this time it was something that would benefit Bert as well. I decided that I would hynotise myself not to mind Bert's clarinet playing. Not to enjoy it, just to tolerate it. You can imagine how pleased he was to hear that I wouldn't anymore be moaning at him, or asking him to shut all the doors , or trying to distract him or hinting about him building a little shed somewhere outside.

He's actually playing as I sit here. And he's playing 'Food, Glorious Food' and although it sounds pretty damnable I don't mind a bit because he's happy and so am I. And it's not making me the slightest bit hungry.