On Friday, I went into the smoking room to get warm and have a cigarette. Later, just before lunch, I went in again – the heater had gone and the chairs had been rearranged now that there was vacant space! The heat already in the room from the heater kept the room above freezing for the rest of the day, so better than nothing. Several people have said that, in the New Year we shan’t be able to smoke inside the buildings any more. It will be quite funny to see the MD outside lighting up! We shall see. On the plus side, at least it won’t get so cold in my office as she won’t have the window wide open in hers whilst having a cigarette. So there are advantages to everything, I suppose.

Last night was a fancy dress party. It was held in a friend-of-a-friend’s shop in an area of Milan that, they say, is up-and-coming. She sells designer clothes from lesser-known designers from all over the world.

I absolutely HATE fancy dress parties. I never have a clue as to what to go as and am always genuinely shocked at other people’s ingeniousness and how something so simple can look so good.

As we had less than 2 days notice and it was Friday night (so no time to try and do something special on Saturday), V came up with the idea of going as 70s people. My era. Sadly, we had all the necessary items in our wardrobes including, for me, a pair of real platform shoes that I had worn only once before. They had brought them in as new items in the 80s in Schuh, in Birmingham, hoping for some sort of revival, I guess. Well, it never took off but I kept them as I loved them. Boy, they looked good last night but how my calves suffered! Anyway, it was a cool party and we got back about half one in the morning.

Finally, I had written a long post about the jury’s verdict on the de Menezes case but feel it was far better covered over at Stef’s site. If I lived in the UK now I would be very, very afraid. What kind of future is there when you cannot trust the police to be truthful and themselves uphold the law against murder?

Oh, yes, and it hasn’t stopped bloody raining for days!