A PAT ON THE HEAD

If modern life is a machine for evading certain truths about yourself and your death-fate, I can no longer join it.

As Sachin and I are heading towards Brook Green with our dog Cairo, where we will have an ice-cream at the café and watch people playing tennis, he begins to talk about a new phenomenon called “rawdogging”. This formerly obscene term now refers to the practice of doing a particularly boring task without distraction. Whereas before – for instance on a long flight - you might have sought diversion by looking at your phone, playing a video game or watching a movie, you now do nothing in order to demonstrate masculine self-control.

I say to Sachin, ‘To me, it sounds like a form of meditation, emptying your mind until your busy thoughts and anxiety evaporate.’

Sachin says ‘Yes, maybe, but they’ve turned it into a kind of macho activity to see how much deprivation you can take. What ice-cream do you want?’