There's no business like snow business

What’s this? Has my Head & Shoulders failed me? Have I entered the hall of the dandruff king? No, zut alors! I have inadvertently left my rather large window ajar and snow has drifted into my bedroom. Heavens to Betsy (whoever she may be) I have to shuffle up to buffalo in my own boudoir. I retire to my ice maiden bed with a cup of tea and a jolly good book.

It’s like the nightmare before Christmas, except it’s after Christmas and I’m very much awake. I creep up onto the balcony to survey the snowy rooftops, as if in a Narnia-land trance. I am in a trance and what’s more, I have no trousers on. I hurry downstairs for a boiled egg and some sensible marmalade, and read in the papers of Michael Howard’s "real immigration debate" stirring up the Tory heartlands with words which "...echoed the concern of millions of Sun readers" [Sun editorial]. What with all these bogus asylum seekers and layabouts who are just "over here to milk the welfare system", isn't it funny that while for the last eight years immigration has been rising, unemployment has been falling? And I wonder if Monsieur Howard is worried about Australian, American and French 'immigrants', or is it more to do with skin colour? Sorry - bit of Guardian reader rant again.

So, brrrrrr, I was going to go out cycling but the snow scared me off so I settled down at my laptop to editing and reducing my 437 pages down to 389…need to shave off another 89 pages then. After lunch I took a walk along the river and watched cormorants skimming the river’s surface. I walked along in the slushy ice puddles behind two rather fat-bottomed lady joggers, and eventually overtook them. They weren’t jogging – they were just wobbling from one fatty-lycra-clad leg to the other. What good is that going to do?

At the witching hour I joined MM&A (see how that’s changed to include Moiselle?) for a cocktail or three and then returned for my pork chop supper, and a smidge of red wine for purely medicinal porpoises. Lou Reed on the stereo (hey Lou, get off the stereo and use a chair), glass of local red, what could be better?