I say it to my clients. I say it to myself. I just didn’t walk my own talk last night.

Last night, I watched ‘In Bruges’ before winding down for the evening. It’s a beautifully shot film, directed by Martin McDonagh with Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Fienne. I thought it was rather good. The problem was all the blood.

The film follows two hit men, holed up in Bruges after a job gets complicated. I won’t give the plot away in case, after reading this, you may still want to watch it for yourself. The problem was not the film or all the gorey shooting scenes which, as in all the best films, left the worst to the viewer’s imagination.

The problem was that I watched it just before heading off to bed. All night, my subconscious was desperately trying to process the anxiety-producing images. I had a bad night of broken sleep filled with not very nice dreams. Well, of course I did. I had practially programmed my subconscious to do that for me.

Let that be a lesson to you, Sophie Nicholls. Use some self-hypnosis to calm your mind and body down before bed – and don’t watch those kinds of films too late at night. At least when I watch ‘Sex and the City’ re-runs, I wake up thinking I’m SJP – an infinitely more pleasant prospect.