I have a problem with a writer’s block. Its owner is long gone from Madam Putney’s Retreat for Authors, Artists and Other Sensitives. The block remains.

Someone sat it at the dinner table for a lark. It’s no worse company than Harry the wordless wordsmith or Jane the weeping psychic. But Dr Robb is coming and he needs the seat. How else will he eat dinner?

I’ve tried to put it in the garden. Each time I reach for it, a snippet of poetry strikes me or I find a plot twist for my novelette. Paper! Pen! Desk! Yesterday, my hand was inches from the slab when the man from Porlock interrupted.

So instead of shifting this damnable block I write madly on Thisbe (my mahogany 6-footer, imported from an Italian deskwright). My wry novelette will soon be a trilogy. My limericks now address the four ages of Man.

Dr Robb arrives today, and his chair is still occupied by the block. I should move it, but a rather clever rhyme for Zeus has just come to me.

O to be rid of this damnable writer’s block!