One of the joys of being oldish, I find – and there are many – is that you no longer have any desire to be stayed with flagons and comforted with apples (which can be a tedious and cumbersome business at the best of times), but discover instead the true philosophical comfort of clichés, proverbs, trite sayings and all other such hackneyed truisms that would previously have sent you screaming for the nearest psychiatrist. (Or the nearest flagon, whichever happened to be more easily accessible.)

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One of my current favourites is There are more ways of killing the cat than choking it with cream. Do you have any idea how useful this is? I rediscovered it first while playing Spider (another oldish joy) having spent considerable ingenuity trying to access one particular card without success, only to have it pop up on the next deal. Since then, I have applied the saying to numerous other of life’s frustrations with great success: when one door closes, you might say, another door opens. Or alternatively, all things come to those who wait.

I’m also working quite hard on Never apologise, never explain. This is not popular in the current climate of political correctness, when causing the least offence, however inadvertently, is deadlier than the Seven Deadlies. But it’s an extremely effective gobstopper when you find your mouth watering with apologies for the state of your house, your technological ignorance or your occasional senior moment. On the other hand, the first half of that saying – Boldness has genius, power and magic in it – should stencilled on my fridge until it leaps out at me as the first port of mental call.

Another of my favourites along the same lines is Don’t be sheep, Margot. People eat sheep. I’ve no idea who Margot was (or is) and any name can be freely substituted, but it has excellent stiffening properties for the weakest backbone.

The subject of money, however, is a lot more tricky. Looking after the pennies so the pounds will look after themselves is not only boring but patently untrue. I’ve been doing it for years, and if the pounds are looking after themselves, they’re doing it other people’s pockets. Money begets money is more attractive if it means spending money to make money, but if the initial pounds insist on remaining elusive... And while money may well be root of all evil, I can’t help thinking a bit of evil might be quite fun from time to time.

All in all, though – taking the rough with the smooth, counting your blessings and remembering that time and the hour runs through the roughest day – the most comforting thought of all is Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Or to put it another way, The crisis of today is the joke of tomorrow.