At the end of last year I found myself ticcing about ‘Brian’ so often that we decided to hold a surprise party in his honour. Fortunately I don’t actually know any ‘Brians’ so the tic didn’t create any confusion.

But somewhere between then and now, ‘Brian’ has mutated into ‘Alan’ – and this is where it gets more complicated.

That’s because Alan’s one of my colleagues at work – and I keep shouting out instructions to ‘Alan’ that often involve doing inappropriate things to goats. The real Alan’s got good at working out whether I’m really trying to get his attention or not, and that means these tics aren’t too much of a problem in the office.

But of course new tics emerge all the time and the one that’s arrived this weekend will, if it continues into the week, cause real problems. At top volume I’ve started shouting:

“Alan fucks buses!”

I’m not too sure how easy it’ll be for my colleagues to get on board with this one. I’ll let you know.