Things (guess what?!) are different now. You can get fully made sandwiches, for a start, which puts you a week ahead of any peasant schedule right away. So the cult of early rising as a means of transforming your life is as gimmicky as wellness practitioners who promise that flaxseed will make you immortal. In short, it’s a dramatic, empty promise that looks good, sounds tempting but is worth nothing.

It may make you feel more productive because you’re getting stuff out of the way early, but a) there will always be more stuff to do and b) remember that you will be effectively dead by 4pm. Meanwhile, the only thing we night owls are tired of is being treated as if we’re deadbeats because the world still clings to a feudal timetable.

Eight hours is eight hours is eight hours. Employers need to accept that the 11 to 7 (or 12 to 8, or 1 to – you get the picture) is as good as the 9 to 5, and everyone else needs to accept that I will never be joining them for breakfast in the park at 7am. But if you ever need someone to have a drink with at midnight – great, I’m there!

Lucy Mangan has a message for smug people who always wake up early