Good news: Last night I horribly burned my mouth using a forkful of boiling lasagne. I was in the company of others, and did not wish to spit anything out, so I drank cooling liquid instead in order to reduce the heat. However, it only lowered the average temperature of the lasagne by approximately 5º, leaving the roof of my mouth dangerously proximitous to a boiling sheet of pasta. And as you'll all recall from chemistry lessons, the boiling point of pasta is approximately 600ºC. I am in pain. I just tried eating some toast and marmite for breakfast, and I may as well have been chomping on steel wool dunked in sulphuric acid. My diet is hereby restricted to egg yolk and margarine, with honey and marshmallow – or any other kind of mallow – for afters.

I'd like to see a menu labelled “befores”, “nows”, and “afters”.

On Northcote Road yesterday, a local cheesemonger had a convienient table chalked up in his window – “Metric Conversion Simplified”, which you may find useful:

50g – morsel
100g – smidgeon
150g – bit
175g – portion
200g – chunk
250g – lump
300g – wedge
400g – hunk
500g – behemoth

As I walked back to Clapham Junction, I passed the Allders sale, now into its last 3 days before the entire chain collapses in on itself through sheer lack of public interest. I went in, and wandered around looking at the almost bare shelves which contained such unattractive items as ice crushers, door handles and gaudy curtain material. It was depressing. Here were the absolute dregs of the shop's stock, watched over by those few remaining sales assistants who had not yet found alternative employ. In the music department, 3 unsold electric grand pianos were sitting there – a snip at £1,299 – while an Allders employee sat hunched over one of them, mournfully playing “Fool If You Think It's Over”. I can't say I ever bought anything at Allders, but it was good to know that they were there.