Me to the guy in the hard drive fixing place: Hello. What's the news on whether there's any data I can save from my entire last three years worth of writing?

Guy in the hard drive fixing place: Well. Er...

Me to GIHDFP: That doesn't sound good.

GIHDFP: It's without doubt the most damaged hard drive anyone in here has ever seen. I did a whip around. They all agree. Nobody has ever seen anything like it.

Me: Oh God.

GIHDFP: I can one hundred percent guarantee that you will never, ever be able to recover even a trace of data from it.

Me: Not even a little trace?

GIHDFP: When we turned it on, we heard a grinding noise. The heads on the hard drive were cutting into it.

Me: I hate computers.

GIHDFP: I'm so sorry.

I am re-writing the comedy festival show from memory.

I can't help but feel a little persecuted. Worst they've ever seen? Is someone telling me something? If they are, I wish they'd pipe down. A broken wrist and a broken hard drive are a slightly heavy-handed way of telling me to stop writing. Surely the carrot approach would work better than the stick. Offer me a highly paid job doing something else and I might stop writing. Break my arm and my hard drive and you'll just give me more material and get me really peeved.

You have been warned.