In a perfectly appropriate end to yesterday's catalogue of errors, I went to my bedroom chest of drawers last night to get out a pyjama top, and the front panel of the drawer came off in my hand. So this morning I slathered it in Araldite, hit it a couple of times with a mallet and left two heavy rocks on top of it, and with any luck by the time I get home this evening it'll be willing to cooperate for fear of more such treatment.

Also last night I went to the pub and drank beer, which is the first time I've touched alcohol in nearly two weeks. I didn't find drunkenness as enjoyable as I used to, and the (very mild) headache this morning leaves me thinking it wasn't worth the effort. Perhaps I'll continue not drinking, or barely drinking, for a while longer after all; enjoyment versus health is a debate that can go either way, but if I don't even enjoy it there's clearly no point in drinking the stuff.

Two days ago, at work, I was relating to my team leader a tale of mild annoyance involving the company sysadmins. I began the story with the words ‘Last Thursday, …’.

It then became rather difficult to concentrate on what I was supposed to be telling him, because some part of my brain started singing ‘Last Thursday, I gave you my heart’. I struggled through my story in spite of this mental cacophony, but within the next few minutes the same part of my brain had managed to prefix ‘Last Thursday’ to several well known phrases or sayings:

• Last Thursday, I gave you my heart
• Last Thursday, our forefathers brought forth on this continent a new nation
• Last Thursday in a galaxy far, far away…
• Last Thursday God created the heaven and the earth.

I'm sure there must be some even better ones of these which I haven't thought of yet.