'Vengeance is mine', etc. I knew I should have left the chocolate mountain alone in the first place, rather than brag about the fact that I'd found it. While shaving this morning, which is usually a time for quiet contemplation and focus on the demands of the day, as I've mentioned before on this blog, there was a very unpleasant twang from my back, which proved to be so agonising that I practically fell to the ground. I felt like the dentist in that well-known Mr Bean sketch where Mr B accidentally jabs the anaesthetic syringe into the leg of the dental practicioner. The humourous element of the said sketch, though, was sadly lacking in my particular version.

So, depsite counsel from Mrs C and a visit to Hobsons, I'm hobbling around the place like someone twice my age. Well, a few years older, perhaps. OK, a year older. The boys, I must say, are being remarkably sympathetic.

Mr Bryan tells me that all went well, although he was (not) surprised by one or two Newtonians who decided that newer members of staff might not be fully aware of episcopalian regulations concerning the adornment of the lodge by decoration, and 'tried it on'. I suppose you can't blame them, really; didn't we all try something similar during our schooldays? What the residents had not recalled, however, that Mr Bryan is a Cambridge Classics graduate, with a fine degree, and therefore at least five, if not more, steps ahead of even the most laser-beam-minded Newtonian. Oh yes. He could see right through it. (Dangerous that, you know, as the Chaplain reminded us on Sunday.)

Of course, there always has to be one, doesn't there. Clever-clogs incarnate, who decides that he's not going to accept any of this 'you-can't-put decorations-up-until-Mr-Bishop-says-so' lark. So what does he do? He takes it to the top. To Mr BT- and asks him.

And what does Mr BT say? He says it's up the lodge master. Oh great. I will not bore you with the minutiae (again), I will simply tell you that a Casesarean decree about Christmas decorations, from somewhere above was passed this morning.