This time, I’ve decided to put some proper effort into it, rather than just dash off a few words and hope for the best. I fired up the internet with the intention of doing some research on Ask Jeeves but almost instantly became waylaid by Twitter. My follower count has now swollen to twenty-four; it always seems to increase when I haven’t tweeted and shrink when I have. After lengthy deliberation, I decided to follow Toby Salt. He now has more than three hundred followers. He’s also updated his profile picture to one of him staring intently into the camera, chin resting on his hands. He looks mildly constipated.

I resorted to more tried and tested means of research. Braving the snow, I headed to the bookshop in search of further inspiration as well as to get this month’s book group choice: Candide by Voltaire. I arrived back home with my bag bursting with books: three titles in a new series on technology and social change; a biography of Steve Jobs; I, Robot by Isaac Asimov; Presentation Skills for Dummies; How to Market Yourself on Social Media; and a book on how ebooks are taking over from print, which has just published in paperback.

Monday February 12th

Slush-trudging into work, I slush-trudged on with my Leamington Spa presentation. At the end of the day, I looked back at what I’d achieved.

It is still mainly pictures.

I need some words.

Any words.

Where are the words? I can’t find the words.

Who has taken all of the stupid words?

Tuesday February 13th

Shrove Tuesday rituals are more of a chore than a ceremony when you have only yourself to make pancakes for but still I persist with its sugary sacraments and lemon-juiced litanies. As my frying pan began to sizzle, I remembered a poem I’d written for Sophie, in pre-Dylan days, when she would still bother to read them:

Full moon peering through my window:

there’s nothing that you do not know!

You guide the tides and human hearts,

enlighten Science, enrich the Arts,

make poets weep and lovers croon;

for love is lost without you, moon.

Divine disc shining down . . . what’s that?

You seem to be this side of the glass.

An ancient memory starts to grow:

Shrove Tuesday several years ago,

a zealous toss, my pancake lost;

I searched all day but time wore on.

I’d often wondered where you’d gone.

I was still gently tossing when the doorbell rang. It was Mrs McNulty. She’s having one of her ‘gatherings’ on Sunday and advises me that it might be for the best if I could attend in person. The spirits, by all accounts, take a dim view concerning the absenteeism of those ‘under question’ and regard ignorance as no excuse.