The City that never Sleeps
Dear Chap,
There are times when a fellow's advanced years or hard won experience enable, nay oblige, him to offer advice to others. It is in this spirit that I write to you today, treating at length on the subject of sleep.
Are you getting enough, dear boy? Are you nestling your perfectly coiffed cranium in the cotton lawn and goosedown at precisely eleven each night? Are you, as a gentleman should, rising promptly at ten for a light breakfast before heading out to face the vicissitudes of the City.
If you're not, please do. Because, old man, nothing could be more important than sleep and it was only at four thirty this morning that I realised precisely how much of it I have squandered in a life of debauchery.
Sleep deprivation has long been used as a torture and is, I believe, outlawed by the Geneva Convention (I feel I may need to explain this to some of our American readers at some point. Some other time perhaps).
I, like you, have oft dreamed of evenings being tortured by beautiful young women, but in my fevered imaginings she was usually a six foot beauty in a leather basque, not a 48cm monster in a pink, sick-stained sleepsuit.
Never has the nacreous glow of dawn held less pleasure than when it heralds the culmination of a sleepless night entirely devoid of partying.
I understand that the cumulative effect of theta-state sleep deprivation in rats is psychosis and eventual death. It certainly makes strange thoughts run through a chap's head. Mostly, you think about how nice it would be to sleep - how, if you ever get the chance again, you are going to sleep as long and as deeply as possible - how you can't imagine ever voluntarily forgoing sleep and, if you were ever to find yourself in the position of not having a baby to look after, you'd elevate the pursuit of Morpheus to your foremost priority in all things.
I think, if some cocktail addled vixen were to offer me a fat line of Dr Chang's finest off her accommodating dˇcolletage at this very moment, I'd laugh hysterically and fall asleep.
Here's my advice to you, dear boy. Sleep now, and at every possible opportunity for the rest of your life. Even if you never have a child, you won't get enough to compensate for the sleep you'll lose if you do.
She's just dropped off.
I'm hitting the hay
T