But then, that’s what happens when you ask people like style guru Stephen Bayley for opinions – that, and remarks like “there are few things more pleasing than chopping an onion”. All clever stuff: he was broadcasting into my kitchen as if hearing himself in his own, describing The View From the Fridge (R4). Actually, he spent some time on the view into several fridges, and it was all tomato puree, pesto and fresh pasta, not a single outdated apricot yoghurt or chunk of mouldy cheddar to be seen – nor yet an old bag of boiled beetroot accidentally frozen upon the back wall (I just looked). My mother had a theory that her wireless would be polluted if her children tuned it into horrible stations – the older I get, the more attractive this idea becomes. So there I was on Wednesday, alone and palely fishing silky bits of corn- cob-husk out of the sink, when the radio began to emit the suave and arty tones of Paul Allen – but this was an Allen gone all hollow and echoey, as if entombed in the Valley of the Kings.

In fact, I’ve never managed to make the timing device work and, anyway, spend virtually every waking moment in the kitchen, but that’s irrelevant. In our kitchen there is a radio. It is old, ugly and fairly inefficient, but it does boast a timing device allowing programmes to be recorded when there’s nobody there to press the buttons, so it’s mine, and there’s a sticker on it saying DO NOT TOUCH – I MEAN THIS. But where does that leave Oliver Stone and George Bush? If you know, you’re probably Brian Helgeland. If you don’t, maybe you have your suspicions.Cinema details: Going Out, page 14..

It’s an appropriate schism, perhaps, in a film so steeped in contemporary anxiety. A news report seems to confirm that the shuttle is responsible for major earthquakes, and events seem to verify Jerry’s claim that American society is covertly ruled by a powerful group of families. Rather clever, really.But the film leaves Jerry’s hypotheses only half-digested. It’s unable to decide where paranoia ends and justifiable suspicion begins. He is repressing memories of his involvement in a real government cover-up, and jabbering about the space shuttle being a covert seismic weapon precisely because he’s unable to dredge the experience of Patrick Stewart’s Manchurian Candidate-style experiments from his head.