10:18am

Back to the new morning routine today, meaning I left for work two hours later than normal. It makes a reasonable difference to my state of mind, so I shall continue with it for now. It also gives me a chance brush up on my taxi Arabic, which I have become quite skilled at feigning fluency with. Pictured is Osama, who discussed everything from the merits of multiple-wives through to the current political state of the country. That's when he wasn't on his phone, that is. No seatbelt either. I've become somewhat desensitised to the danger of riding in a taxi on the streets of Cairo and have just resigned myself to the hands of fate...

Observe the steering wheel, untroubled by human hands. Now behold the speedometer.

Work was the usual mix of nonsense. Mr Boss couldn't let me know how his promised fight with Knobface went because he'd just been over to the dentistry building to get a tooth removed and wasn't in a chatty mood. He went home, leaving me to babysit the department which mainly involved checking the mid-term exams and dealing with a couple of teachers who really shouldn't be left alone in front of students. The pair of them are living proof that extended university qualifications in some unrelated nonsense do not, despite their moaning protests otherwise, automatically make you a good English teacher. The only other thing of note was the utterly priceless look on a colleague's face when, during a discussion about animal cruelty, I suggested that drug testing should be done on human babies rather than mice. I can't wait till we have the evolution chat.

Right, I'm off to keech my pants a bit more with Dead Space 2.