Yep, it’s true. Without someone cracking the whip, I eventually became completely nocturnal, which made it difficult to socialise (and shop!). I only wish I’d given up work sooner: to find the motivation to reform my sleeping habits without all those years of fighting to wake up each morning.

I hope you’re not using any of the articles I wrote to put you to sleep at night are you? LOL House of Lords, eh? Well, I could probably find one of George Dubya’s rousing speeches on the news to bludgeon me into unconsciousness while I’m here in the USA

I’m certainly not brave enough to try staying up so late at the moment, for fear of slipping back into waking up at lunchtime. Perhaps after a few months of my current routine, it’ll be ingrained enough that I can mix it up from time to time.

Let me know if any of these tips make getting up easier for you, or if you have any others of your own to pass on…

Without trying it seems as though I have been doing some of the right things for years. I have an Encyclopaedia (of London it so happens) by my bedside and two or three articles and I am feeling sleepy – it doesnt really matter what articles, I usually forget them and read them again the next night.

Another solution is to listen to the radio programme Today in Parliament, the debates of the House of Lords are particularly useful.

Rising in the morning I find more difficult, but if you have something you want to do awaiting you, then it is always much easier (though clubbing till four in the morn is always a killer)