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       COPYRIGHT

      4th Estate

      An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.4thEstate.co.uk

      This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2017

      Copyright © Tim Dowling 2017

      Cover photograph © Plainpicture/Blend Images/Kidstock

      Portions of this book have appeared in Tim Dowling’s Weekend column in the Guardian between 2007 and 2015

      Tim Dowling asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Source ISBN: 9780007527717

      Ebook edition © May 2017 ISBN: 9780007527700

      Version: 2018-07-23

       DEDICATION

      To my sons, Barnaby, Johnnie and Will

      – if you’re reading this, call me.

      CONTENTS

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Dedication

       Introduction

       Chapter One

       Chapter Two

       Chapter Three

       Chapter Four

       Chapter Five

       Chapter Six

       Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       Chapter Ten

       Chapter Eleven

       Chapter Twelve

       Chapter Thirteen

       Conclusion

       Acknowledgements

       Also by Tim Dowling

       About the Publisher

       INTRODUCTION

      I am sitting at a boardroom table in the offices of a PR company, interviewing an ex-Apprentice contestant called Raef. Though he was booted off the show in week nine, after Alan Sugar dismissed him as ‘a lot of hot air’, Raef remains possessed of an unshakeable self-belief. I find this irritating, and I have to keep reminding myself that it’s not Raef’s fault he believes in himself. It’s probably something to do with the way he was raised.

      Raef is in the middle of a digressive burst of false modesty, which, I think to myself, is probably the only kind of modesty he has ever known. As he speaks I flip through my reporter’s notepad, looking for a question I may have scribbled down earlier and forgotten about, a question searching and incisive enough to pierce Raef’s shiny carapace of confidence. Instead, I find a page on which one of my children has written ‘DAD YOU SUCK’ in large block capitals, using a marker pen.

      When I get home an hour later, there is a new Personal Power newsletter in my email inbox. I’ve been receiving these regular motivational updates from an internet life coach ever since I signed up for an online course while writing a newspaper feature about life coaching. This was months ago, but I don’t know how to make the emails stop. These days I rarely read beyond the subject line, which usually says something like, ‘Hi Tim – Self-Confidence Is A Magic Key’ or, ‘Hi Tim – Happiness Is All Around You If You Look’.

      This latest newsletter is headed, ‘Hi Tim – How Would It Feel If You Knew Why You Were Here?’ and goes on to detail a prolonged exercise in soul-searching that is supposed to end with you receiving a short, secret phrase that sums up your reason for being on earth. I think about my life’s true purpose for a bit, but I can’t come up with a secret phrase better than ‘DAD YOU SUCK’.

      That evening my wife comes home from her bookshop and immediately launches into a tireless inventory of my failings. This has become a weekly event, which coincides with the shop’s late opening – my wife has spent many hours being polite to people, and she has already said all the nice things she is going to say today. I get whatever’s left. My oldest son knows it’s Thursday again, and he has come down to watch.

      ‘You didn’t slice the bread,’ she says, peering into the bread bin.

      ‘The slicing machine was broken,’ I lie. I have developed a dread of the bread slicer at the supermarket, the repeated operation of which only serves to underscore the grinding futility of existence. Also, it strikes me as vaguely unhygienic.

      ‘No,

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