It’s been a week of exhaustive negotiations. I’m fighting over fractions of a ¼ per cent with a client who promises to spend more than £10m so wants to reduce my fee. And I’ve been going back and forth with my extremely expensive but brilliant lawyer, ironing out details of a referral agreement with a city firm that promises to put serious business my way. Thank goodness I came to a swift and amicable agreement with my two new freelancers, though on reflection that might have been because I simply agreed to their terms.

The combative tone has, rather alarmingly, spilled into other areas of my life too. I’ve taken on my mobile phone company for overcharging and my car mechanic for carrying out and then invoicing for unsolicited work. On an artistic note, I fell in love with a 1970s painting I spotted in a gallery and called Big Daddy, who knows the dealer and managed to unearth the “bottom price”. When I said I’d pay it, Big Daddy was horrified. “That’s what he says his bottom price is. Always go lower. You’ve got to learn how to hard-ball it – in everything. Never show an inch of weakness.” And so, although the sense of being on a battleground in every aspect of life is something I’m unaccustomed to, I told him I would.