Gandalf put his hand on Pippin’s head. “There never was much hope,” he answered. “Just a fool’s hope, as I have been told.”

I blame Tolkien for first allowing me to hope where no hope should ever have been warranted. Before learning of the ring quest, my expectations in life seemed reasonable, measured, based on logic and intelligence and a decent grip on reality. Post-LOTR, I was a dreamer, a believer, a wisher of impossible things. I may have spoken the language of pragmatism, but deep down I was counting on a miracle.

I discovered Tolkien at age 13 and, having endured more than two decades of false dawns since, I’m still sat here in eager-eyed anticipation that my next lost cause will somehow buck the trend of a lifetime and evade Sauron’s devastating lens.

For that’s what it feels like to carry hope around with you, however misguided or misplaced.

You can never fully resign yourself to bitter reality, even when it is staring you in the face, when you’ve run out of road, when what you’re trying to believe in is so ridiculously far-fetched that those around you think you’ve taken leave of your senses.

I’m the sort of person who watches live election coverage all night, despite a BBC exit poll suggesting that my party is certain to be defeated. And these days BBC exit polls are pretty damn accurate. Unlike many of my more politically-engaged brethren, I’m not watching the eight hours of wall-to-wall results and analysis that follows so I can better understand voting trends, what went wrong, where the election was won and lost. I’m watching in the hope that, thanks to a once-in-a-lifetime methodological misjudgement, the exit poll is way off and the results, as they’re declared, will instead point to the most unlikely of victories.

I’m the sort of person that still hopes they might yet make it as a musician, despite the fact they’re no longer in a band, despite the fact that they no longer write any songs or perform live, despite the fact that they’re now making just 1/1000th of the effort that they used to make in pursuit of such a goal. To me it’s not yet an impossible dream because I go to bed every night hoping that I might wake up transformed, motivation replenished, inspiration abounding within me.

I’m the sort of person that goes to bed every night hoping for an unbroken, restful sleep, even though I’ve been an insomniac for 20 years.

Tonight Manchester City face Leicester City in the penultimate round of Premier League football fixtures. As a Liverpool fan, I am hoping for Leicester to pull off the upset that will tip the scales and put our team in pole position for the league title. Last week my hope was with Burnley; before that it was Manchester United; before that it was Tottenham. Like scores of other football fans, each week I put my faith in the idea that this will be the moment where everything changes, where momentum shifts decisively in our favour once more, where the miracle finally occurs.

And then, after I’ve been crushed by another spirit-sapping yet wholly inevitable let down, I pick myself up, dust myself off and check the fixture list to see who I can put my faith in next. If it’s not Leicester, it might be Brighton & Hove Albion at the weekend. Of course, we’ll be in last chance saloon by that stage, but still I’ll go on hoping, even though Brighton are rubbish and City are probably the best team on the planet.

How I’ll feel in a week’s time, once this season’s hope has been conclusively extinguished, doesn’t bear thinking about. Besides, even though I’ll feel empty and desolate for a period, there’s always next season.

For that’s what it feels like to carry hope around with you, however misguided or misplaced. A fool’s hope.