He’s worked his hands off today

and he’ll be the poet

who’ll be going home happy

with three stanzas in the bag.

Bereft of other ideas as the team went into the break trailing 4–0, Rob Trafford put Dylan in charge of the half-time team talk.

‘Teamwork is the fuel that allows ordinary footballers to achieve extraordinary things,’ he told his fellow players.

There were murmurs.

‘If we divide the task, we can multiply the results.’

There were whoops.

‘Losing, like winning, becomes a habit. Let’s go out there and break it.’

There were fist-pumps and roars. It did the trick: six second-half goals and their first victory in more than two years was secured.

Rob Trafford has now promoted Dylan to Assistant Team Manager.

Dylan was delighted. I wish I could feel happier about it.

Sunday March 4th

Dessert Island Discs

1. Sundae Bloody Sundae

2. Fool If You Think It’s Over

3. Key Lime Every Mountain

4. Champagne Supavlova

5. It’s a Family Éclair

6. Don’t It Make Your Brownies Blue

7. In the Gateaux

8. Brûlée-vous

I’d been listening to Desert Island Discs and thinking about lunch, when Dave popped around. He’d come to remind me about the all-day revision party they’re holding.

I don’t altogether understand how much revision can be happening amidst the thirty or so people who have since gathered in their house, the whooping and shouting, and the sounds of ‘Boogie Wonderland’ which are currently blasting out from within it. But I suppose exam-preparation techniques are different to what they used to be in my day.

Monday March 5th

Day eleven of no Wi-Fi. I am near breaking point. I have now exhausted all possible household chores, having checked through twelve years’ worth of Well Versed magazines to ensure that they were filed in chronological order (they were). After one last throw of my darts (scoring 140 points for hitting Toby Salt’s right eye, left nostril and upper lip), I removed January’s issue from the kitchen wall and inserted it into my collection.

With nothing else to do, I returned to the Guardian Bumper Christmas Cryptic Crossword and surveyed my progress. There were sporadic outbreaks of lettering in the north-east and south-west quadrants but the grid was still mainly comprised of blank squares, unfilled in and unfulfilled, waiting for someone to come along and remove them of their emptiness.

I redoubled my efforts and, by the end of the evening, I’d cracked 3 down:

EVENT HORIZON (noun): the boundary of a black hole, from inside which no normal energy can escape.

Which reminds me, it’s Poetry Club tomorrow.

Tuesday March 6th