My friends, I have come to despise my security installation. I cannot tell you how much I hate it, nor what I would like to do to it, because I have just spent the past ten minutes logging on to this 'ere blog, while that stupid, hateful little revolving arrow goes round and round in the name of assuring me that it's preventing me from being attacked by people whose sole intention in life is to destroy the computers of those who want nothing more than to use said machines for harmless purposes. And I tell you, if I ever come across one of those pathetic saddoes ..... (I had, at this stage, actually written down what I would do to him or her, but as I frightened even myself by doing so, I deleted it.)

To nicer things. Thank you, Follower dear, for giving me the encouragment I needed to reach the milestone of 200 posts! I will certainly try to do it, although just at the moment, when there's so much going on that sleep is something of a luxury, if I do it, I shall be more than amazed. But yes, I do really enjoy writing it.

You know, considering we are withing a couple of days of the e of t, it's amazing how calm everything is atm. We welcomed next year's Newtonians here tonight, for a pre-installation visit - and they were lovely. Not, of course, as lovely as your little men, but very decent types all the same. My valedictory comments to your LLMs will be very different from what my housemaster said, when we left the junior house of my senior school, i.e.: "You're the worst house I've ever, ever had. But you're better than last year's." I think it was meant to be vaguely amusing. He was, in fact, quite a nice chap - although when I sat on a bed in one of the dorms and went through it (yeah, very funny: I haven't always been this shape you know), I was less than impressed when he accused me of 'mucking around with the other boys in the dorm'. Try as I might, he wouldn't believe that I'd simply sat on the wretched thing and that it had collapsed. He it was who, when inviting me to translate some particularly challenging passage of Moliere about horses travelling up a hill, enquired of me "So, Cheater, I suppose to you this is all about couple of horses going up a hill, pulling into a lay-by, having a cup of tea, is it?" Frankly, it might as well have been. I replied that it didn't, which resulted in being instructed to translate it correctly, making a complete b****-up of it and receiving an almighty b*******ing as a result.

Halcyon days.