Have mercifully been able to sleep and stop drinking for a few days now. Naturally the sore throat interpreted this as encouragement, and has returned with gusto.

I have reached agreement on a price to move into my new place in Brighton. Still much to be done and it feels like an interminable procedure. I still have no date of moving. However it must only be a matter of weeks now... Surely to God?

Had a funny chat with Trace today who has come back shiny eyed from a week in Turkey. She also mentioned that she is going out with her martial arts instructor and they break into fighty stuff with no warning as they move about the kitchen and so on. A bit like the Pink Panther films.

Have finished Madame Bovary by Flaubert. Cracking read. Lovely descriptions of Normandy and amazing psychological insight. Quite a dismal story ending in Emma Bovary poisoning herself, her cuckolded husband dying of a broken heart and her unloved daughter being left to the fates. Emma's vanity and yearning for excitement and sex, and above all to be adored makes her seem to me quite a modern character in this era of celebrity worship. She can only exist properly when she sees herself through the eyes of a lover.

I am pleased, for a while I wasn't reading much. It is so much more rewarding than sitting in front of the idiot box. I've been getting a real pleasure from Flaubert. I read a short story by him today called A Simple Heart, which was also pretty dismal but masterfully written.

Went out with Paula for a thai today. She is just about to announce that she is leaving the agency. It'll be a great thing for her. We've been through lots of mad times together over the last four and a half years so I will miss her, she was a true ally in difficult times.