Cold

I am in bed with a cold. The rest of them have hard-heartedly gone out for a walk on the common, as if to rub in their state of rude good health.

I am keeping myself entertained by watching the birds' stealth attacks on our bedroom window birdfeeder. They do not stay more than the 2 seconds it takes them to grab a seed and get the hell out of there. What are they afraid of? It is not as if anything has ever happened to any of them when they visited the birdfeeder. Talk about Live and Don't Learn.

I also have the Times Killer Sudoku Book 3, Nigel Williams' Fortysomething, a bumper box of Waitrose tissues, a cup of hot tea, half a packet of rich tea biscuits, half a packet of Panadol and the security fob that gets me into my work e-mail, in case I am overcome by attack of conscience and feel the need to check it.

We went up to Oxford on Saturday to show the kids round our old college and inspire in them a great desire to study hard and eventually go there:

Larry: Which would you rather I went to, Oxford or Cambridge?
Me: Oxford, because I went there. But you will have to work very hard as it is very difficult to get in.
Larry: How did you get in then?

Huh. I recommended that she study some low-demand subject like Theology. Or Zoology, like my friend the Blonde from Kenya, who wrote to the Zoology tutor at Keble asking for information, and came away with a conditional offer, without even having to sit the exam. Or Lit Hum, which is actually interesting. Or Mandarin, which is interesting, immensely useful, and she is actually good at. On no account should she do English, as her father and I did, as it is insanely competitive and entirely useless. Why did you do it then, she said. I had to inform her that, in many respects, her parents are not the sharpest pencils in the box.

Unfortunately the old college was shut, as there was only one porter on the gate and he was not allowed to let anyone in "in case you injure yourselves". Clearly the college has an equally limited view of the mental acuity of its alumni.

Went to the Trout for lunch. Devastated to find that all its character has been ripped out and been replaced by a soulless generic gastropub design. Inspector Morse wouldn't have stood for it! We will not be going back. Why do things always have to change for the worse?

Went for a walk on Port Meadow afterwards. There was a brisk wind blowing. Curly said: Why is there so much poo? There is poo here, poo there, poo everywhere!