I am utterly devoid

of writing juice. I'm juiced out; wrung like a dessicated lemon skin or hollow kiwi husk.

I think that second sentence bears the first one out rather convincingly, n'est-ce pas? However, I am nothing if not bloody-mindedly persistent, and so I'll press on into the wilds of writer's blo(g)ck. You lucky things.

I seem to have done everything twice this week: two TM practices (the less said about the first the better); two drives through to Glasgow in the Saab (the less said about the second the better) and two big nights out (both of which thankfully can be written about without causing me retroactive physical pain).

The first practice was a farce of the first order. It has become, through unspoken, desperate concencus, a practice of which we do not speak. I still shudder whenever I come perilously close to actually thinking about it. We shall talk of it no more.

The first night out - Ben's leaving do on Friday - came and went without incident, and I was able to get up on Saturday morning to run some errands. You know, return a Christmas present for my Dad, get a cringe-inducing bad haircut prompting the comment "My Mum had the same haircut in the '60s"; that sort of thing. I jumped into the car and careened down to Carnwath and up to Glasgow to take my mind off my Princess Diana mop and get the hang of the car.

Initial long drive impressions: it's fast enough to get me into trouble, corners well enough to persuade me that I wasn't in trouble in the first place and brakes unconvincingly enough to make me think that I may be on the receiving end of the Crunch^TM rather earlier than I would like. It does cruise very well, though. Makes far more sense for RT2: NF's pan-European travels that a fire-hazard Porsche at any rate.

I had grand plans to get away early-ish from Jeff's birthday bash that night so that I could pick up Davis and Kerstin for Sunday's make-or-break TM session. Let's just say that I enjoyed the night and that I did not enjoy the next morning one iota.

We arrived forty-five minutes late, with various levels of hangovers, and proceeded to have a really good practice. We chewed the fat in the 13^th Note afterwards, and the sense of relief was palpable. Forward the Monkey! (Now with 100% more retro-yuppie transport goodness.)