H ad Jo Brand , who turns 70 next year, been spending a long time thinking about getting older? Had it become the subject that consumed her, and the reason why, now, she felt impelled to write a book about the vagaries of ageing? No, she says, laughing. She was simply asked if she’d like to do it.

Still, it encouraged introspection about what she wanted her future to look like. “Now’s the time, if you want things, to get them in place. I think a lot of people say, ‘I really want to do that, but I’ll forget it for now.’ And then they get to a stage where they can’t.” Does she mean bucket-list things? “No, I mean … what do I mean?” Brand pauses. “I mean the ability to perhaps end your own …” She doesn’t go there, but the end to that sentence is obviously: life.

“I know it’s not legal yet, but I think it will be, sooner rather than later.” Her mother had procured drugs to end her own life when she was ill, though she didn’t use them. Two minutes in, and we’re already talking about assisted dying.…