THE window is a sort of stage and the performance runs most nights. At some godforsaken hour, the light in the spare room will come on and a man dressed only in pyjama trousers will stumble into view and lower the blind.

The man then reads whatever book is helping him scratch the night's wakeful itch. As he reads, he will listen. This is because the family cat, having spotted the light, will at some point decide that the inside is better than the outside. When she arrives, the cat makes a solid thump as she jumps from garage to conservatory, then up on to the narrow windowsill.

The man will sigh and get out of bed, pull up the blind and open the window. The cat will leap through and pad downstairs, perhaps stopping for a roll and a stretch. Cat safely shut away, the man will remount the long stairs to the spare room, where he will lower the blind again. At least now there will be no yowling heckle from the cat shortly after sleep's stop-start arrival.

Such is my almost nightly pattern. While awake, my mind whirs with unwanted activity. Sometimes, depending on the day of the week, thoughts that shouldn't be thoughts turn to what to write about in this column.

Here are a few observations from an interrupted man:

Wasn't all the fuss about the princely tot during his visit to Australia and New Zealand all rather over the top? The news was nightly filled with nothing much about the Prince George or whatever he's called. Admittedly he looked cute, but really, is there no limit to the nonsense?

One tabloid newspaper even splashed on the story. And while we're on that topic, doesn't the BBC's royal reporter look ever more like a man condemned to haunt some private circle of hell as he takes his hangdog features around the globe, stalking the royals in order to come up with whatever display of obsequiousness is required that night?

Or maybe it's just tired old me.

And while we're on the news, does it drive anyone else just a little bit mad the way that the BBC news constantly projects graphics on to blank walls or whatever? I find myself watching the news and waiting for the reporter to stand next to somewhere suitably vacant. As soon as they do, you know a pointless graphic will fill that space.

It's all very distracting; so much so that I can't usually remember what the report is about. I'm thinking of standing next to a wall outside the BBC's new headquarters and looking for somewhere to write: "Stop it now, please."

Or maybe it's just tired old me.

And to stay with television for a moment longer, does every post-watershed drama have to come with a jittery warning about sex, violence or whatever? We're all grown ups, aren't we? Well, we are on our sofa, most of the time. A small thing, but an annoying one – especially when the advertised sex or violence turns out to be so slight you don't even notice.

Or maybe it's just tired old me.

Let's agitate our way to something else. HS2 unsurprisingly survived a vote in the Commons on Monday, thanks in part to Labour's misguided support for this ruinously expensive project. The vote came just after a report from the Institute of Economic affairs warned that high-speed rail's purported boost for the north was a myth.

The institute is a free-market think tank, and you don't find many of those in this column. Yet what it says makes worrying sense. As too did its spokesman on the radio who said it would be far better to improve transport links east to west. What a sensible suggestion, and one I made here only a few weeks ago.

As for not sleeping, that isn't only me. Insomnia is almost a competitive sport among the middle-aged, with tales of bad nights swapped with bleary-eyed pride. "You got six hours sleep... that's two night's sleep..." and so forth.

It is sometimes the case for columnists that writing about something causes the opposite to happen; address the hot/cold temperatures, for instance, and the weather will change. So perhaps writing about insomnia will make me sleep like a baby, although maybe not a royal one.