Great Balls of Fire

Woke to great itching of the feet, and fire in my balls. Flaubert commented that as soon as we are born things seem to fall off, but they fall off quicker at 50 I tell you. However I'm not sure I'd want to recite these symptoms to my doctor without saying first to Julie 'It's not what you think'. So the day started badly on all fronts; grey beyond grey, rain, itching, balls on fire, prospect of trying to avoid everybody at the university, the sort of day you dress the best you can to secure your soul.

However I scuttled in and out of the university without turning any lights on, and at opening time in the Duke of York Todd (an excellent barman, streets ahead of the idiots we find in the Trench of Despair over here) informed me that it was 'officially' the most depressing day of the year. I was right in tune.

So I sat and Todd says things like 'Would you like another drink?' a phrase entirely unheard of in the Trench, and I said thanks. And then a chirpy student comes in who anyday now is probably going to scoot across Africa in a 'C Type' Land Rover (with his dad) to solve the world's evolutionary crisis, and he cheers me up because it's hard not to be cheered up by such a fellow, and it's hard not to be cheered up by fellows who actually deliver some work (even late work).

Later, the DJ at the White Horse offer's me his sandwich. This is really quite something for it is a top quality sandwich from the Conran emporium over the road, and then 'Daisy' dances to Imagination's eighties classic 'Music and Lights'.

Life really does look up in the afternoon.