The year 2005 was busy. I was commissioned to write the book that became Talk to the Hand, but beforehand I had to write a series of half-hour monologues for Radio 4, while also serving as a judge on the George Orwell prize.

But I was geared up to write this book, having explored some of the issues already in series of radio talks. Rudeness in everyday life – or at least the alienating feeling of being kept at arm’s length – was a timely subject: society in 2005 was on the brink of discovering social media, which have distanced and divided us much, much more, under the cunning guise of bringing us closer together.

My favourite example in the book was from Radio 4’s The Archers, and concerned the village telephone box. In the past a public-spirited woman named Martha would routinely place a vase of flowers in it, to brighten it for others; by 2005, a community webcam was trained on it, in the hopes of catching vandals.