These are the things I learned yesterday.

• If you have a back problem that has lain not-quite-dormant for five years, do not take it upon yourself to 'have a good clear out of the stationery cupboard' first thing on a Monday morning, without any sort of warming up, a back brace or tequila of any kind.
• Crawling around the office whimpering "Anybody? Painkillers? Alcohol? SMACK? Anything?" will just get you largely ignored by most of your co-workers.
• Do not believe other co-workers when they assure you that 'these drugs are the shit' because they are not strong enough, ever, and will just make you talk a bit funny without dulling the pain.
• It is scarily easy to be fooled by a South American accent and a prescription packet.
• Some drinking establishments in London think that a huge day-glo paper fish and a sombrero make appropriate Christmas decorations.
• You will be disturbed by this. As will Euan.
• It is ill-advised to pour coffee all over your desk, particularly when there are Important Documents sitting on it, that you are Ignoring because you are reading blogs.
• It is similarly ill-advised to allow the word 'fuck' to burst out of your mouth so loudly that people frown at you from the other side of the office.
• If you spill coffee, and it gets on your mouse and mouse mat, ignoring it and hoping it will evaporate does not work. Eventually you are going to have to find another mouse in a dusty corner underneath somebody else's desk and then stand under the hand drier for ten minutes watching with detached interest as bits of your mouse mat melt, and the whole place fills with the smell of the glorious combination of burnt rubber and old coffee.
• Taking more of the drugs won't help. They will just make you dizzy.
• Drinking red wine on top of lots of painkillers will cause you to send overly flirty (read: overtly dirty) text messages to the person you happen to be dating.
• It will be ok, because men, it turns out, do not mind that so much.
• The day after all of this, you will write a strange post that appears to make no sense, really, and that nevertheless you publish because your brain is so addled by the pain/painkiller combination that it has turned into a huge, day-glo, paper fish.