The Great Recession claimed my dream flying. The fact is I never flew again after I left the hotel following my five-month stay there. I could hardly complain though. I'd had a good run of dream flying.

This fantasy flying had started in the mid-seventies whilst dreaming in the first of the two z-beds that bookended almost a decade sleeping on a bunk bed. In these early dreams, which I remember often featured both The Osmonds and the Bay City Rollers, I was originally flying through the air whilst actually lying in my first z-bed. Eventually I did away with the first of my fake beds and graduated to free-form dream flying, using swimming-like strokes to drive my way through the air.

The flying got me out of no end of troubled dreams, most notably in January 1984, when it helped me escape from the Gamorrean Guards that had taken over the QE11 where I was attending an Eddy Grant concert. It's crossed my mind on more than one occasion that perhaps my regular dream flying was born out of an urge to take to the air to keep off the ground and away from the dog muck that litters the streets of my home borough of Lambeth.