Tuesday

I thought my number was up yesterday, for about half an hour I was convinced I was having a heart attack, but I think it had more to do with an ill advised Tofu stir fry on Sunday - I did even consider that the vegetables might contain German beansprouts. After some recovery time I was OK again and settled down.Did my last tutorial of the year, my last interview, some teaching and had a coffee with someone who wishes me to point out on this blog that he is a very nice person, and he is.

Went round to one of my staff's houses to pick up some paperwork and had a quick look at house on Wellington Mews that is on the Market at just under 100k - not as small as I thought and spread over three floors - I actually really liked it. I can't manage to move now - I'll never sell this place - but it gave me a frisson of excitement and some hope for the future. Actually - years ago when I lived in London, going to see houses was a regular weekend pastime for me and my friend Claire - most Saturdays we'd be off to have a poke about - back in the days when estate Agents would just give you a set of keys and you could spend an hour looking around someone's house while they were at work. Mind you - they were the days you could get a mortgage for 4 times your imaginary income, or borrow an extra £25k, no questions asked - without paperwork or proof of income... I wonder if they still do self certified mortgages?

The giant stealth Totem opposite my house has been revealed as a Vodaphone mast, which I'm not happy about - and I'm already convinced I can hear a low humming at night and am having imaginary headaches.

They are talking about pensions on the radio - to have an adequate pension at the age of 70, you need a pension pot of 400k. I'm going to have to switch off. It's a little sobering to think that whatever happens to me over the next 20 years - I have one certainty if in life, if I live to 70 - it will be in poverty.

There is an American senator on the radio crying because it's been revealed he sent a photograph of his underpants to a stranger over the Internet. I don't know why he's humiliating himself like that - he should just brazen it out and say 'hey - I'm glad I was able to entertain so many people - at least I wasn't waterboarding teenagers or asset stripping family businesses, foreclosing on bankrupt pubic servants, closing schools, racking up education fees or straffing children with machine gun fire children and calling it 'unfortunate collateral kill' - I've never understood the public appetite for grovelling - I'm with the french with that one, just shrug your shoulders and get back to what you were doing.