On days like this when I'm really busy playing Operation with my daughter I'm faced with a dilemma. Do I go to the nearest newspaper shop, where the head guy doesn't really speak English (apart from 'hello' and 'yes boss') or go a bit further away - in fact, cross over the border into Hackney borough, on the other side of Mountgrove Road, to get my papers from Dursun. Dursun and his family are interesting talkative types. But his shop is about 30 yards further away.

I used to go to Dursun’s all the time but now I try to save time by going to the shop that’s nearest. What I think I’m going to do with this saved time I haven’t really considered. It's only about an extra minute. And I only buy three newspapers a week these days. That’s three minutes a week, 156 minutes a year. Could I write a novel in the time available? Yes, in theory. In 156 minutes I reckon I could do around 1500 words. So for a shortish 80,000 word novel, it’d take me 53 years. So I’ll have finsihed it by the time I’m 93.

It seems ridiculous but I think it's a worthwhile project and soemthing to keep me occupied when I’m an old dodderer. I’m going to give it a working title of The Newspaper Novel. One minute a day.

By the way, today I persuaded my wife to get the paper as I didn't want to leave the house. Some of the plastic bones from Operation have gone missing and I needed to do a scan of the living room. I think they’ve been deliberately hidden because my daughter knows they are my lucky bones.