As I write this week’s column, I must suppress the hilarious knowledge that I am booked in for an operation tomorrow that will feature the insertion of various items of machinery into my rectum. My blood counts reveal a progressive anaemia whose source needs to be traced and, if necessary, cauterised. In my imagination, the machines they want to insert into me vertically are the size of combine harvesters, but that, of course, will not be so. As civilisation progresses, everything gets more nano. If they can put a radio in your ear, they can put some machine with the power of a locomotive up your bottom.

Yet there is no “of course” about the way one’s apprehensions work. I can already hear the thrumming howl of approaching farm machinery as I sit here for a long day of not eating anything. There is hardly anything I am allowed to drink, either, except perhaps elderflower cordial plus water, the diet of a playboy sparrow. I just had some, and wow, it tasted like nothing at all plus a drop of perfume. Later on this afternoon, I am allowed a bowl of jelly, as long as it is the right colour: which, apparently, is the colour of gold. In my mind forms an image of King Farouk being offered a baby rusk for lunch. Remember him? Those of us who do are growing fewer.

Farouk was such a worthless twerp that he still serves all who knew his name as a reminder of our obligation to achieve something with our lives. I was reminded of that obligation recently when the news came through that Azaria Chamberlain’s father Michael had died of leukaemia. I think of it as my disease, but he had a nastier version. When it finally turned out that it really was a dingo that stole the Chamberlain baby, Michael could have spent the rest of his life taking revenge on the Australian press for the way it tried to frame him, but he preferred to keep his dignity.

Clive James: ‘I hanker for a time when everybody was given a job description by everybody else’ Read more

At this point, I pause for another sip of lightly perfumed water. If all this austerity turns out to have been worth it, you will see my name in this space next week. If not, not. The best I can say for myself is that I have had the wish, if not the ability, to do my best with the extra time that medical science has already given me. A slim volume of my recent poems is almost ready for the press. It does not contain, however, a poem about the day I had a huge piece of farm machinery medically inserted into my fundament. Such a poem, I hope, will need to be written. If it doesn’t, nice knowing you.