You may not notice, dear Followers, but I'm actually writing this two octaves above my normal pitch. What happened was, you see, was that as I was feeling a tad hot, bothered and slightly edgy, I went out to visit the residents who were engaged in ping-pong and other activities on the Boys' Lawn. (Actually, in refined establishments like this one, one tends to drop the definite article for such places, so let's re-name it 'Boys' Lawn'.) I stood, looking, I suppose, not overly-conversational, watching the activity. A few were playing football with rather more success than our national team, using a tennis ball. (Perhaps that was what went wrong in Blomfontein.) As I surveyed my subjects, I saw the aforementioned spheroid travelling at considerable velocity towards me. Unfortunately for me, but to the uncontrollable mirth of those foregathered in front of me, the ball was prevented from travelling any further by its sudden collision with - well, let's just say that I can think of more appopriate parts of my anatomy into which it could have arrived. Being of stern stuff, of course, I stood rooted to the spot, but allowed myself the luxury of a faint smile; more akin to that of a terrified chimp than that of a gravitas-laden lodgemeister. Still, they didn't know which it was, so the merriment continued.

Top Gear was on tonight, and it was fascinating to observe Mr May attempting to drive a Toyota Hilux pick-up truck up the side of the Icelandic volcano. I'm not even going to attempt to type its name. They're mad, you know. And James May continues to annoy me whenever I read his stuff in the DT motoring section: he's too good for his own good when it comes to writing. He wouldn't have written a sentence like that, of course, but then, all he does for a living is drive Lambos and Fezzas (sic) around the place. I wonder how he'd get on with 27 Third years. I know whose job I'd prefer.

Nice work if you can get it.

And you get to live in a lovely house in North Oxford, too.

Goodnight.