A long day's journey into night-night

'Do you know what I hate?' said the taxi driver whose services I was using purely because the week had reached a pitch of such disorganisation that I could no longer trust myself to get anywhere under my own steam. 'You know what really gets my goat? People who say they have a cup of coffee at 10 past nine and then another one at quarter past 11. I just want to say to them - shake it up a bit, why don't you? Go mad for once.'

Because I agree with this view of the constricting nature of routine, not to mention the exaggerated modern terror of caffeine's toxic properties, I nodded. But not quite as vigorously as I might normally, because something was telling me that, right then, I could hardly have been further away from the kind of ordered life in which even the taking of hot drinks is subject to regulation. And, painful as it was to admit, that suddenly sounded quite nice.

Blame it on the complacency that follows a small triumph. I had just navigated the shallows of a weekend in which no fewer than seven people had come to stay, three of them under the age of two, a further one who swears by a gluten-free diet and yet another whom I had never met. Bar some minor incidents - including a discombobulating moment when I went wearily to my bed only to find a confused and possibly tipsy guest already in it, a guest who was not only naked and fast asleep but also married to someone else - all had gone smoothly. And then they were gone, and there remained only silence and empty beds and surplus hot water. All that was left to do was to get through the week quietly, profitably and uncontentiously.

I've never been any good at lunchtime drinking, and should perhaps avoid it even more stringently when I am midway through a speedy pre-40th, no-carb diet. It emerges that the absorbent powers of grilled fish and asparagus are fairly limited. Another discovery, though, is that people are kinder than one might think when one is fast asleep on a bus in the middle of the afternoon and in need of a gentle shake. A shame none of them thought to accompany me to the front door and point out that it was a bad idea to go directly to bed, thereby ensuring that I had achieved a full night's sleep by 11pm. Only another eight hours of wakeful liverishness to get through before the alarm clock goes off, then. And that is how easily one's circadian rhythms can be ruinously disrupted.

By Wednesday, I wasn't sure that I could any longer tell night from day. I found myself scrambling eggs at three in the morning, and then surreptitiously closing my office door at noon so that I could crawl under my desk for 40 winks. I cleaned the local pharmacy out of herbal sleeping tablets and under-eye bag concealer. And then, in the middle of it all, I decided everything would get better if I went to a party.

Maybe a quiet celebration of the art of madrigals would indeed have soothed my jangled nerves. Alas, the revelry on offer was a gathering to mark the publication of a book by Mark E Smith, the musical genius behind The Fall and a man who might think my modest bit of debauchery resembled nothing more than a cocktail party in a convent.

It did the trick, though. Hanging around on the fringes of the rock'n'roll scene goes a long way to persuading one of one's comparative rude health and inner poise. A few beers on, I shuffled outside for a calming cigarette, only to be confronted with the sight of the great man himself, al fresco for the same reason. God, I thought, he looks even more knackered than me. And with that, drowsiness descended and I toddled off for a cup of coffee and a long, peaceful sleep.