On mornings like today, when the sun is streaming though the curtains at an early hour and the birds have seemingly been singing all night, it is very easy to rise and make the most of the available hours. Winter does not make it quite so easy. However, getting up at an early hour has never been a great problem to me and with good reason. I am a great believer in making the most of every available minute. Indeed, on the basis that life is too short, the one pill I would happily take above all others would be the one which renders sleep unnecessary.
W. F. Deedes, the former editor of The Daily Telegraph and one time Member of Parliament and Cabinet Minister, is still, at the age of 93 years, working as a journalist. In this respect, he is a man I admire. In an article by Stephen Robinson in yesterday's The Daily Telegraph (19th June 2006), the question is put to Deedes as to 'why, at the age of 93, he still switches on the laptop each day'. Apparently, Deedes's reply, whenever such a question arises, is to quote from the poet A. E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad (1896) no. 4:
Up, lad: when the journey's over
There'll be time enough to sleep.
It is an adage to be well abided by.
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