I’m currently without power here, so I’m working by the light of, well, the sun, I guess. I didn’t even have to scrabble around in cupboards looking for it, it’s just up there, doing its job. Power-wise I’m down to 57% on this laptop battery, with a spare one in the next room, and 4 bars out of 6 on my phone battery, also with a spare in the next room. I could go into the next room and get them; I’m not sure when I’ll actually do that, but when I decide, you’ll be the first to know.

I’ve called EDF Energy to come and sort it out. Thing is, I know exactly what needs to be done – they just need to flick a switch in a cupboard at the bottom of the stairwell of this block. I’d do it myself, but I’m not sure which switch it is. And if I guess incorrectly, I’ll probably choose the switch that’s designed to fire several hundred volts through the twitching body of the electricity dunce, i.e. me. So I’m waiting patiently. The freezer is slowly defrosting, and Jenny just opened the fridge – currently playing the rather convincing role of an expensive, rubber-sealed cupboard – and noticed two, er, mini salmon parcels from Waitrose, getting warmer by the minute. “Did you tell EDF Energy about the salmon parcels situation?” she asked me. “No.” “Call them back, would you? It’s approaching crisis point in here.”

Warm Valentines Day greetings to you all. My partner and I don’t really observe Valentines Day, and indeed pay scant attention to birthday or Christmas – I think I owe Jenny about 4 presents, she owes me about 3 – but we did make a special trip out for some dinner the other night, reasoning that celebrating our all-consuming love a few hours early would be better than struggling to find a table on the 14th, then ending up somewhere a bit grotty and paying 50% over the odds because there’s a depressed looking rose in a hideous vase sitting on the table. To burn off a few calories we walked there – this is to Fishworks on Northcote Road; it took an hour, in driving rain, and we arrived utterly soaked, mumbling semi-remembered lines from Withnail & I – “Are you the restaurant? We’ve come out for dinner by mistake.” We sat at an adjacent table to four women in their early 40s, braying at the top of their voices about the problems of heating their barn conversions in Cornwall. You felt as if class war could break out at any moment. “Well, you know,” said one of them, “I cook! I clean! I raise a family, I run a business – you know, I’m incredibly multi-talented, in a funny kind of way.” Vile specimen.

Some of the fish at this restaurant is offered by weight, and one specimen – perhaps a brill, I don’t know – was brought by a waiter to their table before being whisked away to the kitchen. “Now, you see,” said one of them to the others – it doesn’t matter which one said it, they all blurred into one hideous monstrosity – “this doesn’t look particularly fresh, to me.” The waiter stood there, smiling, knowing full well that all their bloody fish is brought up from Brixham at 4am every morning and that she doesn’ t know her bass from her elbow. I could never work in a service industry – I’d have picked up the brill and slammed it hard into her stupid, ignorant face. Which might have lost me a 10% tip, I guess.