Driving through a red light at an intersection is never a great idea, and is only really acceptable in rare circumstances (pregnant woman in the passenger seat, being chased by the FBI, late for a date with Evangeline Lilly, etc), so when I did it today, I had very little in the way of an excuse.

So, why did I do it? Nothing as exciting as any of those I’ve mentioned, I’m afraid. I was trying to iron out one particularly stubborn – Ray Davies-sized – kink in my novel, in my head, and I completely switched to auto-pilot while I was behind the wheel. My bad, of course.

It would almost have been acceptable if the lights had just turned red (because we all do that from time to time, don’t we?), but that wasn’t the case. I know that because just as I figured out the answer to my literary conundrum, I awoke to find myself driving through the middle of the intersection, past an elderly woman who was quite rightly crossing the road in good faith, not expecting to meet her maker at the hands of a guy who was trying to plan Chapter Eighteen at thirty miles per hour. She – quite rightly – gave me the dirtiest of looks as I went by.

I guess I’m lucky she was the only thing I met in the centre of the crossroads.