You call yourself daddy. That’s new fathers and large men in prison. But you start to talk about yourself in the third person as this daddy character. I didn’t even notice myself doing it until a few days in. I am talking about myself in the third person to someone who has a completely undeveloped consciousness. He has no concept of meaning. Moreover – for a great deal of the time – I am talking to my partner. “Shall Daddy put the tea on?” WHY DON’T YOU JUST ASK HER IF SHE WANTS SOME TEA?

In fact Daddy is less certain about things than Phil, though. He seems to have to run everything past a tiny baby. I am like a man broken by some evil regime. My spirit has been crushed. I tell him when I am walking out of his line of sight (which he can’t see more than a couple of centimetres in) as though I will be shot like a member of a chain gang. “Just taking a drink of water, boss.”

This daddy character certainly seems a lot nicer than the Phil character I have been playing for some years. Phil would never offer to make the tea, he would wait starving until his partner wanted some tea enough to offer to make it. Daddy is right in there offering to make some. Admittedly I see this daddy character being easily swayed into behaving like Phil more often.

The biggest worry is this is going to creep into my life outside this flat. When I want to make a point in a meeting at work am I going to start talking about what Daddy thinks is a good idea? “Daddy’s just going to point out the flaws in your idea and try to make you see that you’re talking shit” “ or “Were you talking to Daddy? Because Daddy’s not really been listening so he’s just going to say something generic to make him seem semi-professional”.