I t’s not easy being an optimist these days. It requires practice, like exercising a muscle. It’s why I like to think of reading the news as a kind of challenge, batting away the miserable updates with optimistic mental rebuttals. Global heating on track to exceed the 2C threshold? “But we have the technology to turn this around!” I think. A well-funded global fascist network? “People have overcome worse!”

And so it is that this week I find my optimism being put through its paces by the news of US superstar homemaker Martha Stewart and her offensive Halloween costume of a homeless person, complete with a dirt-smeared face and a sign reading “I AM HUNGRY HELP ME!!”.

How’s this for a more upbeat interpretation: she is preparing for her next chapter as an edgy, anti-humour one-woman act known as Martha Stewart Lee . I can see it now: her Fringe show – which I am calling Laundered – receiving rave reviews.…