11.10 PM & I’ve only just stopped school work. To be precise, only a minute or so ago I clicked on ‘send’ & shot into cyberspace a masterpiece of icy politeness & steely detachment to a parent who had complained to me that I had misunderstood her daughter. I pride myself that I was able to suggest that, in actual fact, I had understood her perfectly well without once mentioning that her 16-year-old was a manipulative, manoeuvring, malicious, mendacious little game-player with the street suss of a futures trader twice her age.
But then I had just emptied the second of two large glasses of Mouton Cadet & there’s every chance that from special courier tomorrow morning I shall take delivery of a libel summons…
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Courtesy of the Miles Kington column (which I usually find suffocatingly smug) in the excellent Independent newspaper, I present the following. They come from a book due for publication in the autumn called The Bumper Book of Albanian Proverbs. Call me sceptical to a fault, but I have a notion that one or two of them may not actually originate from Albania at all.
You can represent anything in a hologram except a hologram.
There are many, many people who know a lot about wine, but very, very few experts on phylloxera.
If we lived in a symmetrical world, then Africans would come back from their holidays with a much lighter skin and their friends would all say, “You’re looking well. Where’ve you been?”
Always remember when it comes to the giving and receiving of Christmas presents: it’s not the thought that counts, it’s the receipt.
There are two benefits to be gained from gargling. One is to make your throat feel better, the other is to remind yourself that the bathroom ceiling needs doing.
Never cough into an open fridge.
Three things will make your eyes water: putting your right foot into a left-hand shoe, encountering last night’s hot water bottle at daybreak and sitting on a lavatory seat which, unexpectedly, still has its lid down.
The magpie sat on the horse’s back & got nowhere fast.
A dictionary: a list of ingredients with no cooking instructions.
Three things we fear to throw away: a left-over screw, a telephone number on a piece of paper, and a banknote which is no longer legal number but still looks valuable.
What was that man doing up a gum tree in the first place?
An onion cannot make people cry until it is dead, and it is too late then.
Insomniacs have the nicest bedrooms.
The British think they have a sense of irony. They also think they have a special relationship with America. But they cannot have it both ways.
11:52:11 PM 
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