[T]he biggest thing, which readers may find hard to swallow given my entire career has been based on ridiculing others, is that, for my next act, I w… - Lucy Kellaway

On returning, she got off the 214 bus outside our house, and spotted a familiar pram being pushed up the front steps. The person propelling it was a stranger — a sinister woman, tall with pointy glasses and a gash of lipstick. It would be nice to say that my earliest memory was looking up from my pram and seeing a prototype of Edna Everage.
Instead, I comfort myself with the idea that I may have been the only person in history to be so unmoved by the sight of the housewife superstar — who went on to convulse the world and once rendered the then Prince Charles and Camilla helpless with mirth by simply turning up in their box at the London Palladium — that I slept through the whole thing.

As I write, I'm interrupted by a dull thud. My partner has discovered medieval ceiling beams in the bathroom above a more recent suspended ceiling. Oops, another section of plaster must have come crashing down — but the sound is muffled as the walls are so thick. Indeed, my sister's housewarming gift of a school playground bell to summon people to dinner has been almost entirely useless — in this house you can't hear a thing.

With jobs, as with parties, it is best to leave when you are still having a good time.