‘Luck is what happens when opportunity meets preparation.’

My mother was fond of this quote. She was also fond of that one about success being ninety-nine per cent perspiration and one per cent inspiration, and the one about doors and windows and imaginary men.

Unfortunately, the only quotes I’ve ever managed to commit to memory come from uncomfortably un-PC British comedies. This probably explains why my life has consisted of rather less perspiration, preparation and ensuing success, and rather more slothful couch-sitting, adolescent giggling and sexual fantasies involving Rowan Atkinson.

Had I paid more attention to my mother’s borrowed words of wisdom, I may have avoided the situation I now find myself in, again: essentially unemployed, largely unappreciated, and wholly dependent on government coin to keep me in house and home.

Read the whole of Clementine Ford’s Issue Three piece here.