Coincidence? I think not.

Irony o'clock. Today, on my way to my lecture, entitled 'Thatcher and the miner's strikes of the 1980s', I had to cross a picket line, full of people angrily protesting against public pay cuts. Some things never change.

Debaterama

Debate competitions are a rum affair: self-confessed nerds gather to discuss nerdy topics during the day, and in the evening, they attempt to have fun. Somewhat startlingly, the Cambridge IV involved more of the latter than you would normally expect, with the inevitable result being a bunch of lightweight and drunken debaters tottering around town.

One of those, whose name will not be mentioned, was 'crashed' at mine. The problem was not that he turned up at 3am (despite being fully aware of the requisite 8am wake-up next day). Nor did it matter that he gobbled up the remnants of my birthday cake. It was the fact that, at 5am, he decided to take a call from Mitt Romney's campaign secretary on ichat. It was that, in addition to his sleeping bag, he wanted 3 pillows, and an extra sleeping bag. It was that in the morning, he wanted a shower. And a towel. Even without that crucial item, he still persisted, valiantly using his clean shirts to absorb the moisture. It was that, following this episode, he then needed a dry shirt since all his others were sopping wet from his shower.

Others have variously described these tales as 'hilarious' and, 'classic'. I would invite all of these people to crash this person in future.