When my father was in his terminal year, I discussed death with him. I recall very clearly his relief that the cancer that was taking him was at least allowing him "all his marbles". Dementia in its varied forms is not like cancer. Dad saw the cancer in his pancreas as an invader. But Alzheimer's is me, unwinding, losing trust in myself, a butt of my own jokes and on bad days capable of playing hunt the slipper by myself and losing. You can't battle it, you can't be a plucky "survivor". It steals you from yourself. And I'm 60; that's supposed to be the new 40.

Becoming invisible.

Nothing. I survived a cancer scare at 60, so I am just overjoyed to be here.

I understand that you lose the register of hearing that enables you to hear crickets, and when I can’t hear crickets in the summer I’ll be really sad.

It’s usually a slight feeling that, having got through the day, I didn’t get any time to do any writing or something creative – it was a lot of admin, exhaustion from that and rumination.

A running accident when I was 14 or 15. I fainted but I was a bit of a jester and they thought I was taking the piss, so I was left for a bit. I woke up in hospital.

I’ve not always been great friend material. I’ve tried to get better at that, so to be remembered as reliable by a few would be great.

Steady, reaching, bewildered.

Putting chocolate mousse in my agent’s face. Somebody had done it to me – that thing where they go, “Smell this, it smells funny”, and then they put it in your nose. A year later I was in this French restaurant with a very 1980s-style dessert trolley and, before I knew it, I had a bowl of chocolate mousse in front of me. And my agent went, “What’s that smell?”, and it felt impossible not to … I immediately felt awful and tried to apologise. He, of course, said that he found it funny. But I knew he didn’t.

A movie. Does it have a name? It might do.