THE BUCKET

How long can I keep my hand in a champagne bucket filled with ice water? Not as long as Leigh Angel is the answer to that question. More specifically though the answer is about 22 minutes, give or take, after which time my thumb starts to cramp and I have to withdraw. But let's be honest; the only thing that really matters is the winning and losing. No one really cares if the kid who ran second came in under the old world record mark too. And no one wants to hear him talk about it in the vapid sentences of the babbling vanquished. The winners can smile and the losers can please themselves and the only thing I can really do is suck it up and leave the country with my cold, cold hand grasping numbly at whatever imaginary straws of comfort I can find. Which is what I'll do. Tomorrow. At 9:55am.

Due to the fact I managed to misplace my handover note shortly before lunch and only located it - hidden down the back of the metaphorical cyber couch, ie the temporary file - some time in the mid-afternoon, this message isn't going to contain those nourishing words of love and gratitude that you needy, needy people always demand of my departure missives. If you're lucky I might have a couple of beers in the departure lounge tomorrow morning, get a bit gushy and smash out some hallmark sentiment while, between desperate, tearfilled sobs of anguish, I loudly singing songs from Frank Sinatra's; Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely. Or not.

As I've only got 20 short minutes of gainful employment standing between me and The Leasure, I better fill a few of those minutes with an activity which could, at least loosely, be described as work. I gotta go. More soon.

That is all.