Unbelievably, I have another cold

Yes, after just three clear weeks after the last cold struck, I have acquired another (or perhaps had the older one return). And so has Emma. This suggest that we were both exposed when up in London together last week. Both of us were hit the same day - Monday morning - and both have been getting progressively worse since.

This has blown a big hole in my studying plans. Indeed, given that one week when I was feeling better coincided with the holiday in France and another with the Oxford PhD application, I really haven't managed much work in four of the last five weeks.

Today I have managed about two hours of Latin and might be just about up to where I should have been last week. Then off to Oxford to arrange for our pictures from France to be framed, have a very quick visit to the RSL and Blackwells, and buy Linda her various food requirements. Unfortunately, I then feel so unwell that I have to sleep for close to three hours.

But on the brighter side, two of my three referees have now submitted references - so just one to go, then the first application will be done. I feel somewhat tense still about hitting the deadline, but it should be ok now. I have even begun to think about the next ones - which may well be the Warburg Institute and UCL.

With no "hard" work possible, I am reduced to reading Mehta's Fly and the Fly Bottle, a book from the early 1960s about arguments between academic philosophers and historians, mainly at Oxford - an attempt to soak up some of the atmosphere