I sometimes think that I am too much like an ageing Andrex dog rather than the Rotweiler into which I metamorphosed last night. I tell you that because tonight I was hoist by my own petard (again), as the following dualogue (sic) displays.

Me (to one of last night's culprits): What do you think you're doing? You know that you were told specifically to come over here, get washed and go straight to bed.

C: Yes, sir. I, I .......

Me: No, I'm sorry, I don't want to know. (Slightly lengthy and very boring diatribe about how one should behave, etc., etc, containing all the inevitable lines that many of you will recall from your own schooldays.)

Witness: Sir, I think you ought to .......

Me: Thank you, X, I've heard quite enough from you tonight.

Witness (persisting in the face of adversity): But SIR! He was trying to cheer up Y, who was really upset because of what happened earlier.

Me: Ah. Oh. I see. Thank you, Ge .......

What had happened earlier was that there had been a mega-fall-out between certain parties, as the result of some game of 'It' that had taken place outside, (as it does (did) every night, apparently, and had ended with two residents in tears that their hitherto cordial relations had terminated. I needed to change gear, very swiftly.

Eventually, following much placatory chat and reassuring words about how we were all very tired at the end of a particularly difficult term, all was well again and Newton was a happy place once more.

It wasn't all bad, though. Once we'd all got back on track (pun intended), I found myself going up the stairs in the form of a train, pursued by half a dozen 'carriages'. The whole scene bore more of a resemblance to the conga, although the sound effects were different. I stopped off at 'Heronian station' as it was christened, whereupon the carriages metamorphosed into passengers, who made for the bathroom and thence their beds.

Th culmination of the evening, of course, was being invited to bid goodnight to Roger the Otter, who has become an extension to a light switch. Shocking. I should switch to another topic. Ohm my goodness, how many more puns can I use? Watt? I re-fuse to give up. There must be more in the current series. Dear me, what a bright spark.

That's enough. (No, there wasn't one there.) Wire we still talking about it, then?

'night all.