Yay! This is the 400th post of the Newton blog! Thank you to all of you who tune in every night, wherever you may be, and I hope you'll keep reading until July, when I shall retire, hawk the blog round a few publishers and then live on an island like Necker for the rest of my days. Ho ho.

You know, SF really is a wonderful place. On hearing one of the rezzies making a strange noise, I challenged him with the following:

'Put the following words in order: you - weird - are.'

Quick as a flash, my respondent countered with the following rapier-like reply,

'Are you weird? ....... Sir?'

Marvellous.

Black shoe-cleaning took place tonight, and as the catering department issued us with enough Cola bottles to sink a battleship, there were some substantial prizes. Miss Alex came to your correspondent bearing gifts, and as I absolutely love the aforementioned confectionery, I accepted with alacrity. Wine gums, too: they're good. I once bought a large packet of same in a garage on my home from somewhere, and then realised, a little late, that I was a bit too close to home to consume the lot and destroy the evidence. Fortunately, I saw a sign that said 'Car wash', so I bought a ticket for the ultra-clean option and managed to guzzle the packet - and get away with it. Not a word to Mrs C, if you wouldn't mind.

You see, that's the sort of thing I'd have had to do if I'd accepted the invitation that came with the late-night knock on the door when I was invited to consider working with the security services in the 1980s. Oh don't worry: I said no, and never signed the Official Secrets Act papers, so I can tell you without fear of radiation in my tea. Yes, I really was. Mrs C will vouch for that. Can you imagine? Johnny English, you'd have had nothing on me. I was interested to learn that Dame Manningham-Buller was a former English teacher, by the way .....

Tonight I spent a most delightful, pre-Newton hour with some former parents, one of whose children is now in his second year at Oxford, one in her first, and one other son at Eton. It was wonderful to stroll down Memory Lane.

Ah well, there we are. Time to go and watch Spooks, which I recorded last night - to see what might have been.

Goodnight.