‘Not interrupting, am I?’ I asked, looking around for somewhere to sit. Unmade bed? Nope. Beanbag covered in clothes so dirty they were stiff? Definitely not. The floor? I tried to find a square foot of carpet that looked like it wouldn’t give me a rash. Well, they did say sitting was the new cancer.

‘No, I’m not streaming,’ he squawked as the three screens froze all at once. I nodded as though I had any idea what he was talking about. ‘Veronica said you wanted to talk about the pod stuff.’

‘Yep,’ I replied, slowly edging my way towards the window and reaching out for the curtain. This might have been enough daylight for him but, as someone who prized their eyesight and didn’t want to drive home with a migraine, I needed at least a little more. ‘Is it OK if I open the curtains a bit?’

With a trademark teenage sigh, he slumped down in his chair before spinning it around to face me.

‘Whatever,’ he groaned. ‘But, like, stay out the window or they’ll get a photo of you.’

I peeked around the curtain, expecting an army of paparazzi, but there was nothing out of the ordinary.

‘How will anyone get a photo from inside your bedroom?’

‘Telephoto lenses,’ he replied as though it was perfectly ordinary. ‘The neighbours let them hang out in their bedrooms and take pictures.’

‘That is extremely disturbing,’ I replied as I snatched the curtains closed as fast as I could. ‘Is that why you wear your mask in your room?’

He scratched at his neck, right beneath the opening of his furry guinea pig head.

‘Yeah,’ he squeaked, tossing a complicated-looking controller onto his bed, accidentally choreographing another dust ballet. ‘And, you know, means I haven’t got to shave.’

Hmmm. I wasn’t so sure he needed to worry too much about that.

‘So, about the podcast,’ I said. ‘What I’m thinking is, we pair you with a couple of co-hosts, people you’re comfortable with, and we pick a different game each week to play and discuss. Could be an old game, could be a new one, maybe a game that’s famously considered to be bad?’

The guinea pig clasped his hands together in his lap.

‘Like what game though?’

‘I don’t know.’ I desperately tried to remember the names of any of the games I’d literally heard of for the first time over the last seven days. ‘Grand Theft Auto? Halo?’

He giggled, the mask bobbing back and forth on his narrow shoulders. ‘They aren’t bad, they’re iconic.’

‘I’m going to level with you,’ I said, inching my bag a little higher up on my shoulder. I really didn’t want it to touch anything in the room. ‘The last game I played was Snake and it was on a Nokia phone that belonged to my dad.’

The guinea pig looked entirely unmoved.