Bloody tuesdays. I get in, and Alleged is down*, there's a typo in the weekly strip (actually a photo story -- following on from this one) and (it turns out) at work people have been ... well I'm not quite sure what you call it, actually. What do you call it, when the same people responsible for withdrawing funding and support a few years ago suddenly discover that the section covering their area of interest on your website isn't as good as the leading national website on the topic, and start bringing in "professional" designers and "commercial" firms to see what can be done about this ... and then, only then, decide to tell you that's what they're doing?

... not only that, but I'm just in bad dumps today. Don't know why, the world isn't particularly worse than it was yesterday. Richard Herring thinks it might be to do with magpies, though given the crowds of 16-odd magpies which seem to haunt my steps, not to mention the sordid threesome that hang out in our chimney pots, I'm not sure where that leaves me. Confused, probably. Speaking of which, he's playing the Bullingdon Comedy club tomorrow. I know, I know. Nobody cares but me.

Yesterday, another small stinging insect crawled down out of the loft to join me. You'd think after the last time, I'd have learnt my lesson, and would just have killed it. But snow was falling, and I felt sorry for the bee that woke up too soon. The ceilings are due to be redone next month (so I'm getting moved downstairs to a desk next to the head of service for a fortnight, oh yeah) and word is (apart from dislodging 75,831 hibernating insects) they're putting in insulation. It'd be nice, the icy drafts have pretty much done in the weakest of my plants. But not the bee. Despite spending most of yesterday afternoon emitting a migraine-inducing barely-audible high-pitched keening I thought for sure meant it was dying, it yet lives, and is periodically making me jump half out of my skin by buzzing up to bang against the closed window. Doubly pointless; not only have the windows been irretrievably stuck closed since Adkins came in to see what they could do about the draft, but it's winter out there. Winter. Go to sleep, bee.

*It's up again now. And, anyway, it's flattering, kinda. But I just wish sometimes people would say that they liked things to me, rather than my having to infer it from echoes and effects. Edit: Actually it was just a power failure. Go me. Go, me.