After last week’s little diatribe, I find myself in a mellow mood, unwilling to vent my spleen too excessively. This is probably partly related to this week NOT having to be into work for 7am, but rather with an officially-sanctioned 10am start. though heaven knows there are certainly plenty of targets, notably…well, what’s the difference between Gazza and Ginger Spice? One’s ugly, overweight and past it, while the other is…er, can you repeat the question? Once again, it was an embarrassment to be British, as far more important things were going on elsewhere.

The nastiest surprise of the week was on Thursday night. As mentioned previously, a couple of weeks back, I was in Hamburg (photos now back from the chemists, so a report on the fine time had there will follow real soon), and we did notice the industrial-strength ICE trains in the railway station. It was something of a shock to watch the news and see one of them wrapped round, under and through an overpass. Makes me kinda glad that the train I get in the morning never seems to go faster than a slug on beta-blockers. Technology provides mankind with the ability to self-destruct in ever more spectacular ways.

Otherwise, though, it’s been a good week. Not really much specific at which a finger can be pointed, just a lot of little things combining to make it a satisfactory event. Things like lobbing a video tape across the living room towards the row of unwatched tapes — only for it to land, right-way up, neatly aligned on the end of the row. The ability to take pleasure from simple stuff like that is disturbingly gratifying.

And, miraculously, the next issue of TC finally managed to slide its way off to Juma, our printers. I’d been getting paranoid about this getting done before my looming holiday, not least because Juma were also shut down — head dude Martin was off in the Bahamas [I’m clearly paying too much… ;-)] However, it seems they do a lot of football stuff, and with the season just finished, they always have a quiet patch this time of year, especially because every self-respecting fan will be warming up to watch the World Cup. Though you could save yourself the bother, because England will go out in the quarter-finals. To Germany. On penalties. Again. Snigger. Mind you, Scotland will fail to qualify from the group stage. On goal-difference. After a shock result against some minnow. Again… So it’s all looking good for a large chunk of my luggage being a box of TCs, and I can go back to pursuits other than proff-reading for typong errirs — at least for a month or two.

Life could, naturally, be a little bit better in minor ways, mostly involving Nastassja Kinski and a family-size blackcurrant cheesecake. But for once, it seems that the static electricity of everyday existence has temporarily dispelled, so no tingly fingers when I touch doorknobs. However, I can’t help but feel a strange sense of…unease. This can’t last. In dramatic terms, things like this are but a mere precursor to, oh, disaster, insanity, death, y’know, the usual. However, the fact that I am ready for this hopefully means that it won’t happen, because under the same dramatic rules, things only ever happen to those who are not expecting them — this applies to both disaster/insanity/death and Kinski/dessert things. One imagines few people on the ICE were thinking “Hey, we’re about to lose a wheel and slam into a road bridge”.

I’m sure this proves something. Probably that it’s 1:57 am, and I really should be in bed. Just time for a slice of cheesecake though…