Journalist and activist Afua Hirsch

The journalist and activist on ignoring emails and braving a child-centric holiday

I RECENTLY MET AN AUTHOR whose work I have long admired. (Let’s call her ‘The Writer’.) She is one of the most widely read female novelists in the world, and she is beguiling – beautiful, in an interesting, rather than a conventional way – with intense eyes, intriguing accessories, the manifestation of all of our fantasies about what a brooding literary genius would be like.

We said we’d stay in touch, and I duly sent her an email, once I’d finished reading her latest book. But instead of her replying, I got the following response from someone else. ‘I am The Writer’s personal assistant. We were happy to receive your heart-warming words. We appreciate your taking the time to write to us. The Writer has started to work on her next novel and disconnected. We send you a wave of positive energy and hope to stay in touch.’

Unwittingly, The Writer could not have sent me a more meaningful email if she’d tried. I found myself dwelling on it with a level of attention more appropriate for a powerful piece of literature. I thought about the use of the word ‘we’ – revealing as it did that this woman has paired herself with another human being to whom she outsources emails. The ‘disconnected’ explained that she had switched off from the neverending cyber splutter – a unique form of torture because, as we all know, the more you respond to emails, the more you receive back, requiring a response.

Perhaps she just didn’t want to talk to me. But it’s OK. Because the next day I found myself responding to someone else’s email, to which I was already overdue replying and had no good excuse by saying, ‘I’m sorry. I’m a writer. I have to disconnect sometimes.’

The joyous discovery that being a writer provides a socially acceptable reason for not reading emails is the best thing to happen to me so far this year. It’s enough to make you want to write more books.

IS THERE ANY SPACE left in our calendars yet to be colonised? January was the victim of multiple, month-long aggressors like Dry January, within which the Americans offer us individual days – gems like Chocolate Covered Cherry Day, Buffet Day, and perhaps, not surprisingly, Weigh-in Day. Being a devotee of International Sceptics Day (13 October), I enjoy ignoring as many of the sillier days as I can. So I was upset to discover that, this year, I had actually fallen in line with depressing predictability. Like a lemming, when an innocent Sunday night in January became – unbeknown to me – Blue Monday morning, I booked a summer holiday.

I like to think of myself as a bit of a subversive character, so this is embarrassing to admit. Worse still, I was obviously so deeply in the grip of the approaching Blue Monday that I let my choice of destination be influenced by my six-year-old daughter. Until now, we have got away with breaks in quiet, unassuming, tranquil locations. That was before she was old enough to think about television ads. ‘Butlins looks good,’ she has started saying. ‘It says so on the TV.’ And, the three dreaded words I had hoped to avoid. ‘Mummy? What’s Disneyland?’

So far, I have justified avoiding childoriented destinations with the argument that the point of our holidays is to restore my personal sanity, an investment from which the whole family benefits. Instead, this year, I find myself committed to a week in a place with waterslides. I feel an International Day of Banning Holiday Ads on Children’s TV coming on.

Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging by Afua Hirsch (Jonathan Cape, £16.99) is out now

The Americans offer us individual days – gems like Chocolate Covered Cherry Day