Or I could find a great restaurant, I think, as I restudy the price list and then put the bottle back. 'An Afghan one, or an Ethopian deli, or somewhere where I've no idea what I'm ordering, and then I could walk down Venice beach with a taco and buy some rollerskates and pretend I'm in the title sequence of a 1980s American TV show.'

I would love to be in the title sequence of a 1980s American TV show.

Actually, I'd love a taco.

I open the door to the balcony and step outside.

The sun is shining. It's mid-afternoon, but I know the evening won't be far off. I know it's important to act now, because it's always important to act now, and time already feels like it's running away, taking with it all the things that I could do on this day of nothing to do.

Maybe I could hire a car, I think, leaning on the railings and staring down at the traffic below. Maybe I could drive out to the valley ... or into the desert ... or maybe just up to the Hollywood sign ...

But I can't decide.

Because suddenly, there is too much to do.

Maybe I'll just stay in the room.

And then, just as I'm switching on the telly and skipping past 17 Again on the movie options, my phone rings.

It's my wife.

I remember the drill.

I prepare to tell her how boring it all is here, how the room's too small, and the bed's too lumpy, how busy I am and how busy I'll be, how much she'd hate it if she was here, but I don't have the chance, because she's starting to say something, and she's happy, and I can somehow hear the tears in her eyes, and suddenly there's a pause to fill, and she takes a second, and she says, 'I'm pregnant.'

And even ten minutes later, as I've popped the mini-bar champagne, and I've started to scour the internet for flights home, flights right now, flights right this minute, I realise I would gladly swap a million nights of anything-I-like and a billion days of nothing-to-do, just to hear her say those words for the first time again.

And indeed, I think I just have.

THE WISDOM AND PHILOSOPHIES OF A MODERN MAN: 3

MONDAY

I met an American man today. He was very jolly indeed, and revelled in telling me jokes. 'What do you do if your girl is peddling her bike all over town?' he said, and I said 'I don't know!' and smiled.

'You take her bike away!'

I didn't really get it, to be honest, but in the name of Anglo-American relations I laughed very hard indeed, and I shook my head at the brilliance of the joke, and then repeated the punchline for effect.

He wandered off, chuckling, and as I was walking away, slightly confused, he ran after me.