Long, lingering dementia, followed by death from choking on a fishbone.

Having conversations with young people who you remember being born.

The inability to do things for myself.

I was looking at ageing in action, in black-and-white MRI pixels, death and dissolution foretold, and already partly achieved. My 70-year-old brain was shrunken and withered, a worn and sad version of what it once must have been. There were also ominous white spots in the white matter, signs of ischaemic damage, small-vessel disease, known in the trade as white matter hyperintensities – there are various names for them. They looked like some evil pox. Not to put too fine a point on it, my brain is starting to rot. I am starting to rot. It is the writing on the wall, a deadline.

Finding a tenner in your jeans pocket. It has always been there but you find it at the moment you really need it.

When I was naive to the complexities of life.

Telesales – having to sell terrible kitchens. I thought, maybe I’m not a good actor because I can’t even convince myself that these kitchens are worth paying for.

Curious, playful and silly.

Helen Mirren was in the elevator with me at the National Theatre. She pressed the button but it didn’t move. I said, “Fancy seeing you here and being stuck in an elevator.” And she said, “Was that meant to be funny?” I apologised, and she laughed. Even talking about it now, it feels so awkward and embarrassing.

To a resistant materials teacher at secondary school called Mr Noel. He had a comb-over and whenever he turned his back to write on the blackboard, we would roll up bits of paper and launch them at his head. Once, I hit him. I remember him turning around and looking crestfallen.