So, this is 2008 then?

The back-to-work blues did not really strike today until about fifteen minutes ago. It was the time of day when, for the last week or so, I’d start the afternoon with a fortifying glass of wine, or a glass of fortified wine, depending on my mood. My fridge at home still contains the odd treat, a mince pie hiding behind something wrapped in tin foil and so on, not to mention a few bottles of something friskafrolic.

By contrast, the fridge at the tea point here contains labelled pints of milk. Luckily it does not contain strychnine.

Actually the journey in wasn’t bad this morning, the trains being mostly empty as people stretch out their festive holidays. Waiting on the platform gave me time to observe the empty cans and bottles decorating the flat roof of one of the station buildings – in the middle of the debris is one miraculously preserved pint glass.

It’s actually been there for a few weeks now and makes you wonder not so much about the mentality of somebody who punted the thing onto the roof in the first place (‘pissed’ should just about cover it) but how it’s managed to remain intact for so long.

Being back at work is, to say the least, not as much fun as watching the ‘Top Gear’ polar special on the BBCi player. That programme has to be the single greatest piece of television ever made. Man on the moon? OK. Thatcher crying leaving office – fine. But for sheer entertainment nothing can beat two middle aged men drinking gin and tonic and driving to the North Pole. Inspirational.