"I like the idea of reading the Appendix first, and if you are doing so, then you are in this way like me, and we can break bread together in friendship." (Neck Deep and other predicaments, Ander Monson).

Hit upon this sentence leafing through the volume (borrowed) this morning and deciding to start with the last essay.

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All week the combination of pouring rain in the pitch dark makes for diabolical driving conditions. The street lights are reflected off the glistening roads and refracted through the rain drops then the windscreen then my own lenses. Multiple layers of distortion and dazzle.

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At lunchtime deliver a speech on behalf of a departing colleague. It goes down well but I'm tired of saying goodbyes.

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The impulse to pay someone a compliment but as usual it goes unspoken in a quandary of what ifs and better nots.

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That rare moment of anticipation at the beginning of a holiday. Eighteen days (I've just counted them to make sure). What plans! What hopes!

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Track down my elusive copy of But Beautiful (Geof Dyer) - tucked at the back of a shelf in the classroom. I must have taken it in to use for an extract or two. I read the first episode based on Lester Young and find more than I remember the first time around.

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Strikes anticipated tomorrow - trains, buses, schools, airports ... - and the attendant chaos for anyone trying to leave for Christmas. That sense of the logics of the modern world slowly grinding to a halt.