Q: Wait a minute. Didn’t you just buy a house in Northampton?

A: Yeah. We’re already moving. It’s a little more in the country. They want to have chickens and grow flowers and stuff. We got rid of TV, there’s no computers, no electronics. It’s old school. And the kids haven’t said peep about it.

Q: How old are the kids?

A: Three, five, six, eleven, and thirteen. It’s so loud. It’s crazy.

Q: You do loud and crazy.

A: Yeah, yeah. Everybody’s loud. Let me show you some pictures [on his iPhone].

Do you see what happened there? “No computers, no electronics. It’s old school”. But he still has an iPhone. Everyone has a smartphone now, but they’re so ubiquitous that no-one even thinks of them as being a “computer”. Warren Ellis was totally right. People don’t even think about or recognise the magic around them.

(Incidentally, Middlemojo.com is just wonderful. A blog about creative people approaching middle age. Why hasn’t this been done before?)