Good evening, all, and a warm welcome if you are reading this in Ecuador or Sweden, as my stats tells me a few of you may be!

Mrs C and I have just returned from Dorset, where we had the great pleasure of enjoying our daughter's final Carol Service at Milton Abbey. As a senior prefect, she was, as her parents will be in a few days' time, begowned (but not behooded) and looking every inch the graduate-elect as she strode purposefully around the abbey! The music was lovely, the organ sounded magnificent (although, sadly, the assistant organist had to play, as the Organist was unwell and had to miss an Abbey service for the first time in 54 years!! That means I was just six when he was appointed organist!), and the surroundings were, as you can imagine, superb.

It was quite good to step out of the freneticism of SF for a few hours, not because it isn't fun, but simply because there is so much going on at the moment! You just have to be here; it's manic. (But, as I say, fun, too.) What a lot of commases - as Victor Borge would have said.) (And what a lot of parentheses, too!)

Quote of the day from Our Leader, upon seeing the Chaplain's transparent tupperware box of locusts for his son's pet lizard: "

"Good Lord! They look dead, but they're really alive! Just like a staff room!"

Ha, b***** ha. At least the Thursday biscuit upgrade is good now.

Goodnight.