I was doing my thing, prowling on London rooftops in green tights, peering into the bedrooms of young middle class ladies – pretty standard night really. One silly bint had left her window open, so I crawled in and made myself thoroughly acquainted. Wendy – an alright sort of girl, despite the shit name. A bit naïve though; I had to carefully guide her towards ‘Never Never Land’. But after that it was straight on till morning, let me tell you. Unfortunately her little brother was in the room; I had to cart him out the window too, after I’d finished explaining myself. Meanwhile, I’ve been languishing in Hook’s dungeon for ‘lost boys’, hoping the goateed bastard doesn’t grab hold of my Tinkerbell. He never wants me to grow up, you see.

Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie’s deeply suspect imagination, 1904.

‘Be fair to me, wife, I’ve had a reeking shit day being a Thaine in early medieval Scotland, trying to extort rent from a belligerent peasantry and hosting swan dinners for visiting French “dignitaries”. What’s more, these three old trollops keep following me about mumbling things. I just want to come home to a fish supper and some wholesome bed-sport in our drafty four-poster. Is that really so much to ask from a housewife in the eleventh century? I can’t be doing with your “I’m not going to put out until you commit regicide” back-chat this evening. Get with the fucking times, woman. Know your place.’

Macbeth, Cupar, 1039.

Jus' suffocated my teenage wife cos my bes' mate told me to. Bros before hos, as the Moorish adage goes.

Othello, Venice, 1603.

Been trapped for what seems like half the fucking war in a cramped tunnel beneath a French field, with only a sewer-rat commoner called Jack Firebrace for company. Story of my life really. Can’t hear a bloody word the pleb says. Beyond his risibly blue-collar name, there doesn’t seem to be much to him. He didn’t take a gap year before the war. The only way I can preserve my middle class sanity down here is by replaying scenes from mine: France 1910! What a mess that year was.

There was this middle aged French bird in the house – Isabelle. Absolute tigress. She used to lure me into the ‘red room’ and then beg me to give her a good seeing to. Now, my friends, an English gent never tells. But, rest assured, she got a thorough pounding from this Englishman – in the biblical sense. Rode her like a huntsman on Boxing Day. Naturally her husband threw me out the house. CAD.

And now, look at me, up to my balls in mud in some grim corner of France, trying to spank one out next to a grinning cockney ex-minor who keeps mouthing on about the laughs he had (hardly) digging the Channel Tunnel. War: the futility of it all. I think I shall write a slim volume of effeminate poetry, detailing my suffering.

Stephen Wraysford, the Western Front, 1918.

‘Calm down, Peter, of course I didn’t mount your sister Susan while you were off conversing with magical creatures. I’m Jesus; I don’t knob people – it’s just not what I do. Don’t believe that Dan Brown bastard; that filthy slapper Magdalene washed my feet and snuck a look up my toga, nothing more. Besides, all that was before I became a metaphorical talking lion. Everything’s different now.’

Aslan, Narnia, Winter (but not Christmas).

‘Alright, woman, I’ll eat that sodding Granny Smith and put my willy away.’

Adam, Eden, the Dawn of Man.

I’m ready to be done with that muggle bint Hermione. She keeps getting her baps out whenever we go camping. What’s more – I shit you not – she keeps grabbing my broomstick and asking to ride it. So inappropriate. It doesn’t matter that I keep reminding her that the Firebolt’s out of bounds to all but the Gryffindor quidditch team. Me, I’m still sore that my last broomstick snapped – the Nimbus 2000, the best ride in Hogwarts. (Snape did for that one.)

Harry Potter, an anonymous bit of woodland, 2007.

Went to my daughter’s bedroom this morning and found her playing with her daemon. I think I’ll make it the subject of my annual slide-show lecture at the Royal Society: ‘The Limits of Masturbation.’

Lord Asriel, Jordan College, Oxford (parallel universe), 1995.