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Afternoons are out of fashion. There is a melancholia about the afternoon - a sense of torpor. The gradual displacement of am and pm by the twenty-four-hour clock reduces the significance of ‘afternoon’, which can now seem just a long slog between lunch and the first drink of the day. There are 'morning people' and 'night people', but are there still 'afternoon people'? Novelist Andrew Martin considers all of the above.

The Lost Hours is a series of essays about how the day used not to be so monolithic; about how it was punctuated by rituals that lent a character to different hours. All the rituals described seem to be in decline, but none can be written off completely. And, a cheering thought, perhaps some will revive post-Covid as we rediscover the social possibilities of our days. They reflect a way of life both more leisured and more regimented, and one of their virtues might be that as well as enriching our days they actually slow them down too, and paradoxically give us more time.

Written and read by Andrew Martin
Produced by Karen Holden