Greetings from a very empty Newton! Last night we enjoyed (and we did) the company of but three Newtonians, all of whom were delightful - other than when, for a minute or five no-one could agree upon which television channel could act as the favoured one. The matter was soon solved, though, and the Winter Olympics, with all their attractions, so well-documented in the national press, proved to be flavour of the night.

I don't think we've ever had such a paucity in the number of overnight residents, either in Mayfield or in Newton, which says a great deal about the virulence of the current 'bug'. I'm up and about now, and was touched by the number of boys who enquired about my state of health, espcially one who asked, sweetly, upon seeing what he must have thought was an apparition,

"Sir, when were you freed?"

I replied that I regained my liberty at 3.45pm yesterday afternoon - and you don't want to know how I could be so precise about it. I was also entertained, though not a little confused by another Newtonian who, upon realising that he had not seen me in the lodge for 48 hours, asked Mrs C whether I was 'in New College'. Yes, I said it was bizarre. Upon further investigation, I learnt that he believed that I could have been there as I 'spoke about New College Chapel' in Headmaster's Assembly on Thursday morning. Well, may I assure you that, fond as I am of the organ loft in that glorious place, I am not banged up with only a huge organ for company (you'll be glad and no doubt relieved to hear) and that I am sitting, comfortably, if a little weakly, at my desk, banging this tosh out, instead.

I do hope all Newtonians who have shared my fate are feeling stronger now and that we shall be back as a complete unit very soon.

The Chilean earthquake is causing some tribulation in the Cheater household, as there seems to be talk of tsunamis in Tokyo: and as Tom C is out there at the moment, we're rather hoping that such natural occurrences won't affect him. Or anyone else in Japan, for that matter. When I asked him to be give me a big wave from Tokyo when he spoke to me on Skype, tsunamis were not quite what I had in mind.

Incidentally, some of you may be somewhat irritated by what appears to be our inability to respond to voicemail messages. I do want to explain that the reason for our perceived idleness is because we have two (actually four, but two with voicemail facilities) phones on the same line. Now, you would think that would be fine, but the problem arises when, if someone is speaking on our BT voicemailed phone, the message you leave goes through automatically to our NTL phone, and as we use that one only rarely, as voicemail messages are complex to retrieve, we don't pick up your messages. The way to tell is this: if you dial the Newton number and you go straight through to voicemail, chances are that we won't pick up your message for two or three days. If you hang on for six or seven rings and THEN you get put through to voicemail, then our phone in the kitchen will bleep at us until we retrieve any messages. I know it sound ridiculous, bu that's the problem of having BT phones (which work well) on old NTL lines (which don't.)

So there you are. I write from a very depleted Newton; in fact as I write, there are just Miss Chloe (who's succumbed to the bug and has been confined to her room for the past four days, poor girl) , Isla, Jamine, and me. (In case you're new to the Newton blog, btw, Isla and Jasmine are the dog and the cat. No need for Diana to worry.)

Incidentally, for those of you who might be interested, this is my 120th post to the Newton blog. Thank you to all of you who read my humble offerings, and here's to the rest of this academic year!