"Practise out loud until the words flow off your tongue and you'll make a great presentation".
Years later, Martin Amis gave some comfort by retrospectively wishing he'd done it the other way round, but deep down, after four decades of writing history books, I continue to feel a sense of inferiority to those who practise out-and-out literature.
It was practised out of doors rather than in a laboratory, and aside from the classification madness of Linnaeus, it was light on systems and formality.
Since last year, however, not only do the SlumGods practise out of two centres in Dharavi, they also teach young children from the slum and the streets about the things they know best.
"And some of them aren't going to be sitting down to Christmas dinner with their families because they'll be out practising".
And it's amazing how close you get to perfect strangers when you're practising pulling them out of crevasses on a backcountry ski week in Chamonix, France, with Ski Freshtracks (skiclub.co.uk).
"Everything is very positive at this stage," he said "Unless I cop another one on the thumb while I am practising or batting out in the middle that is the only thing that will hinder my selection for the first Test.
With England heading into the knock-out rounds, the players have been practising penalty shoot-outs.
Playing for Bridgend, with a contract at the Ospreys in the offing, his bosses put up a wooden post in the yard with a hoop for him to practise line-out throws – he was allowed 10 for every panel he finished, and was so determined to improve that he got up to 90 throws a day.
There are now just over 104,000 practising Jews out of a total of approximately 240,000 living in Germany, and an estimated 4 million Muslims.
