Stink bomb

Don't you just hate it when London Underground publish posters which advertise "planned" closures of lines and stations. Like it would be possible to create a poster which advertised "unplanned" station closures!

The weather today was brutally cold. I haven't yet needed to wear a coat this winter, but today I rather wish I'd at least worn a scarf. I'm not really complaining. I love it when it gets really cold because it's the only time of the year when I don't overheat. I have a broken thermostat.

I went into town today to meet a lovely lady called Sharon who works in the alumni department at the University of York. She wanted to introduce me to Tom Cantrell who runs the (relatively new) theatre department there. We had lunch in a cafe called Note, which, when I last checked, was the classical record store attached to the Coliseum. I was a little sad to see that it's gone, but, let's face it, who goes shopping for CDs these days?


It was a lovely meeting. I was able to fill them both in on the career successes of some of the people I studied with at York, and they're keen to bring me up to the university to talk to some of the students about my own work, which would, of course, be a great honour. No one has to ask me twice to go to Yorkshire!

I bumped into Hannah Chissick on my way into the meeting. She looked haunted and confessed that she was on her way home from rehearsals, suffering from a ghastly 'flu. There's definitely something going round and I'm now convinced that what Nathan and I had definitely had the severity of a 'flu. She described herself as feeling "transparent" and I knew exactly what she meant. I'm personally a great deal better, but by no means out of the trees. I'm still finding most things, including the merest act of thinking, highly tiring. Even today, whilst sitting in the cafe, I suddenly became aware of having a desperately dry mouth, which no amount of water seemed to be able to touch. I'm also still making a slightly watery, gurgling noise when I breathe. It's a horrible sensation.

I went home via Leicester Square, which smelt of shit. Do people still let off stink bombs? If they don't, some old lady had a really rough journey down the escalators just before me!