On Halloween, is it wrong to sit in the dark with all the curtains shut and no light, save for the blue glow of the screen, while small demons hammer on the door, because you feel bad for having forgotten to buy any treats, and you think it might be better to pretend to be an unattended safety nightlight than open the door and confess?

Or is it eminently sensible?

No wonder people get scared on Halloween. All over the country - the world, even - there are probably people sitting in the dark, like me, unable to open the door because they were too busy to buy sweets for tiny skeletons. What’s more scary - sitting in the dark and waiting for a knock you jhope will not come, or dealing with the ire of diminuitive devils?

In any case, I hope their masks are so heavy it prevents them from craning their necks upwards to see the faint glow in my study window. If they do, I’m going to have to deal with dog poo through the letterbox.

In just about every house I’ve lived in, I’ve had to deal with dog poo through the letterbox, or someone weeing up against the door, or flour on the doormat, at least once. At least around here it’s only on Halloween. In other bits of the city it was an everyday (or everynight) occurence.