On the seventh day, God rested. He didn't watch television, he didn't do crosswords. He didn't catch up on the gardening. He dragged his aching body into the bedroom, put some mellow music on the stereo, pulled the duvet up over his head and fell asleep.

Almost as soon as mankind was created, people began to start sleeping. Adam and Eve rarely slept and perhaps their vulnerability to the serpent can be attributed to a lack of sleep. Likewise, perhaps Cane and Abel wouldn't have had such problems if they had a few hours more shuteye.

Sleep was amongst God's greatest gift to man. Imagine the pleasure that the first humans felt when, after a hard day avoiding mammoths, they crawled back into their caves and closed their eyes and drifted off....lucky devils.

(note: Giraffes sleep standing up. They sleep for about 5 minutes at a time and total only about 20 minutes of sleep each day. Giraffes are generally very unhappy)

The happiest moments in life are half-dreamy slumbers on a lazy work-free morning. Sunlight warms the room, but does not penetrate the eyelids.

I often go to sleep with pyjama bottoms, socks and a t-shirt on. When I awake I am naked. This is a popular phenomenon, known in scientific circles as theft. My family members steal my clothes in the night and sell them down the market. I often walk to work and see kids wearing the clothes that only the night before I was sleeping in. It is a disturbing development.

Margaret Thatcher governed the country on three hours sleep. I doubt Dennis Thatcher slept at all.

There are many arguments about dreams: do they reveal our subconscious desires? Are they merely a catalogue of our most mundane thoughts? Or are they some form of contact with the Divine (not Divine himself, I hope)?

The most popular misconception about dreams is that they are interesting.

There is nothing on earth duller than listening to other people tell you their dreams. It is like listening to a story without proper characters, narrative and form.

Rather like reading this page, in fact.