Staff Room

The patient is not at all well. He displays torpor, lassitude and is greenly pallid. Movement comes only with difficulty and is usually achieved with the assistance of a drink. His stomach is distended, even more so than usual, and the brow, once a broad, intelligent plateau, is now creased with pain.

Thus runs the latest bulletin on the health/ welfare of the post-festive pedagogue. It's not a happy story and, 'tis said darkly, that his condition is self-inflicted. The progress of this particular syndrome, once recognised, is usually rapid. In the case of this subject, it began frighteningly only three weeks ago at at the usually frolicsome occasion of the Christmas party.

Ironically, he never wanted to be there. When canvassed initially by the Social Committee on a choice of venue and menu, he wrote defiantly on the slip of paper "I'd rather have a bowl of coco-pops". But, like the good egg he always was, he tagged along.

It was an intimate little get-together of about 150. He was with us but soon not of us, preferring instead to engage in airy banter with a Presentation headmistress whom he insisted on calling Paisley. No doubt he had seen her doff her scarf in the cloakroom.

We did notice that night that he ate very little. He did, in fairness, ensure a steady river of liquid into himself and the occasional tributary into the good nun. But it was only when he rose to make his after-dinner speech that the true horror of his condition impacted on us.

God help us all, but it would make you appreciate your health. Like a willow in a storm, the poor man swayed through his peroration but his voice was already failing. The only bit we consistently caught was when he became very animated at the band and croaked in frustration, "Would ye turn down that feckin' racket."

Anyway, speeches over, noses powdered, After Eights stuck into colleagues' pockets, we took - where else - to the floor. He didn't join us yet, preferring the warming company of Jack Daniels as they both surveyed the bopping masses.

We didn't see him for the next two hours. But, what's THIS - he's on the floor now, hokykokying with Paisley - and clearly in remission. But it was not to last. I brought him home about 4 a.m. and left him at his gate. The width of the path up to his door seemed strangely to bother him much more than its length. That, I thought, is not a well man - nor will he be tomorrow.

I've seen him a good bit over the Christmas. It's a progressive thing, really. Last night, he confided that he had been haemorrhaging money as well over the past few weeks. "From Thursday I'm cuttin' it out," he hissed at me from all-too-close vantage. He is, it appears, going to live out the rest of the month in dignity.

Until this day, I never knew what the physicists meant by Resolution in Optics. Now, maybe, through a glass darkly, I'm getting one slant on it at least. Cheers and Happy New Year!