On hearing Samuel Beckett refute his birth date my mother, who was pregnant with me, was thrown into a whirl.

‘He cannot’, she said to a gathering of friends who shared her view that he would praise their new club motto which, they had just decided, would be:

Seek disorder, Live for enigma. Beware of fools and false causes.

‘Why would he refute it? He says it is in April. We say it is in May. Thirty days difference! But birth is the least ambiguous of occurrences – surely?’

‘Surely’, they all said.