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Let’s be real about this thing they call “cancel culture”. The only people who need to worry about being cancelled is the Oxbridge set. The rest of us… we’ve spent a lifetime being cancelled, from that first redundancy, through unemployment and unpaid invoices for freelance jobs, to working in internet cafes and driving coffee machines, to that foot in the door, sticking labels on files all day long. There was no graduate job awaiting me after a three-year degree and the Masters that followed. No, I’ve spent my illustrious career being cancelled, living a life of monotony.

Let’s be real about “cancel culture”. Somebody like me, with a personality like mine, isn’t going to be given a publishing contract. I’m not going to be adopted by a literary agent, to be brought to the attention of the great and the good. Nor do I want to be, really, for I am content with this obscurity. Yes, for we cancel ourselves too, self-censoring, running for the hills whenever it gets too hot out there. Only the big-hitters need worry about being cancelled, for apparently uttering profound truths — usually profound only to themselves, and hardly true. The rest of us: we were already cancelled by the Oxbridge and Ivy League sets, who have appointed themselves the high priests and gatekeepers of cultural orthodoxy.

It’s not our fault if the shoe now sits on the other foot.