The Mammoth Odd beach like sensation in bed. Gradually worked out that now that there's a thaw, Calliope is trotting grit into my sheets. All day I have had this image in my head of a mammoth in a glacier. The mammoth stands for progress and my joie de vivre which is resolutely sealed away. It's the January Blues. I hate January. January is scum. The media is full of finger-wagging. An article on the BBC: a sedentary life spent staring at screens will kill you. As this is pretty much all I have done over the last few weeks, and I am morbidly obese, I decided to have a day of moving to stave off an abrupt demise. Had a longish walk by the sea, in nose-pinching cold. The pier almost deserted. A keen wind biting through the rides and stalls, and hardy men mending things out of sight with power tools. The merry-go-round horses stored in a pile under canvas sheets, and above them half a dozen silent seagulls stationary in the sky. Then to my new cafe to work. As I walked in the two...