“TAKE UP GOLF,” they said. Both of them within the space of a week. The acupuncturist and the alternative healer. It was not the advice I had expected. Not from them. They were both rather spiritual people. I would not have been surprised at being told to meditate. Make contact with your higher self. Even renounce the world. But golf. Shades of P.G. Wodehouse. It sounded disturbingly serious.

“You live too much in your head,” they said. Both of them. “All those books, all that mental activity. You neglect the body.”