I just had lunch in our canteen downstairs.

Now there's a sentence you won't read here very often.

James emailed to ask if I wanted to wander down for a sandwich. I'd already eaten my salad so I grabbed my soup in its disgustingly unenvironmentally friendly polystyrene cup (God, I can't believe they still serve food in these CFC loaded things in the 21st century!!) and headed downstairs. Before long Rich and Graham had sat down with their lunch and the conversation quickly went from 'how was your weekend?' to a discussion in a language I did not comprehend about a topic I cared nothing for. Golf.

Just as well.

So I came back upstairs to check out the news on the BBC website as the huge plasma screen in the canteen was flashing pictures of Maradona, but it was this one that that caused my lunchmates to all spew forth invectives in his general direction.

Graham: "I predict significant weight loss for him in the near future."
Me: "Why?"
Graham: "He'll be decomposing soon."
Me: "Gosh, and I thought it was, um, which nation are supposed to hold a grudge?"
James: [spat] "The French!"
Me: "Surely he didn't mean to use his hands."
All: "Invective, invective, death wish etc."

I don't know where the English reputation for mild-manneredness and restraint comes from but it must have been well before they started playing other nations in football.

Listening to: The tinkling, tinny hold music presently butchering Mozart in my right ear and Music from the Lonely Planet, Volume 2
Reading: The Last of the Mohicans, James Fenimore Cooper