I dismissed the driver as politely as I could and went back to bed, after a brief conversation with Gabe. He said, ‘Why are you so polite? Why don’t you tell all these people to fuck off? Not just the ones who send cabs at four thirty in the morning – all of them. You’re great at telling me to fuck off, and you enjoy it so much. Why not branch out to other people?’

My God, he’s right, I thought. I love telling people to fuck off, and when I don’t dare, I love thinking it secretly, in my head.

‘What would X do if this happened to her?’ Gabe said, naming a famous high-maintenance female comedian. ‘Can you imagine? That PR firm’d be closed down within the week. Shortly thereafter, all its former employees would die of radiation-like symptoms.’

‘This would never happen to X,’ I said. ‘Everyone knows X takes no shit, so no one risks – oh!’ I stopped as the obvious way forward struck me.

That was the night my life changed. First thing the next morning – the proper morning – I pulled out of the comedy festival associated with the unwanted wake-up call and sat down to write my commandments.

From now on, I vowed, I would be the highest-maintenance comedian of them all. I’d make X look like a pushover. Anyone who wanted to see me, book me, interview me, catch a glimpse of me as I sailed by, would have to jump through so many hoops, they would hopefully decide it wasn’t worth the hassle.

Composing my list was a challenge. I needed hoops and had none. Hoopless all my life so far, I had no idea how to go about constructing or acquiring them. The drafting process took several weeks and many hours of revision, but I finally came up with something I was happy with and that, as an added benefit, made me laugh whenever I read it through. People would think I was an out-and-out lunatic. Fantastic. Maybe they’d all leave me alone.

My list was – and is, since I haven’t changed it in the intervening years – as follows:

KIM TRIBBECK – EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW IF SHE’S HEADING YOUR WAY