Burble of intoxicated happiness at Cambridge University, did I mention it…

I am sitting in my peaceful University room with a glass of wine and some frantic last-minute things to do.

Obviously I should have done them before I came here, but equally obviously, I didn’t, and so now I am desperately trying to compose earth-shattering prose at the last minute in order that tomorrow I can manage a reasonable impersonation of somebody who is brilliantly organised, gifted and perfect. I don’t even have a dog to eat my homework any more.

I woke up this morning from a truly horrible dream which recurred again and again during the night, during which I had inexplicably gone home instead of to my first class this morning, and was frantically trying to get back again. I managed this several times, only to find myself back at home whenever I thought the day should be starting.

I can’t tell you how surprised and pleased I was to awaken here in Cambridge, although it took some time before my shocked subconscious believed it, and I sat in bed looking around anxiously, trying to decide if this was real or just another cruel dream.

I rang Mark and told him about it, forgetting that of course he was still pursuing our normal timetable and was still in bed. He made a reasonable impression of an interested person, but I could tell that he would have preferred to be asleep.

It has been a brilliant day. I am here in Cambridge with lots of people all passionately interested in the thing I like to do best, in an ancient and beautiful building, with everybody going out of their way to be kindly and nice. The world could not possibly be better than this. I walked round the grounds this morning and found myself in the Walled Garden. Everywhere was shrouded in the bright morning mist that you only ever find on frozen southern mornings, it is not at all like the Lake District, it smells different and the air feels foreign.

The Walled Garden has a long arched walkway, filled with snowdrops and aconites. I walked along it and gazed at the domes and turrets rising majestically out of the mist, and thought that it was splendid to be daydreaming into such a stunning morning instead of having to keep a gimlet eye on the dog so that he did not buzz off for a surreptitious poo whilst I was not looking. I do not know why dogs do this, but they do. Roger Poopy has a little air of triumph if he manages to secrete a poo somewhere I can’t find it.

We have had four wonderful and fascinating lectures. I thought I would be bored because of being rubbish at writing plays and entirely too snobbish to be interested in television, but I was not at all. Indeed, one of our lecturers, a chap called Simon Lancaster, was so completely gripping that I would like his books for all of my birthdays, please.

Probably I will have bought them myself by then, it isn’t until July.

He was ace anyway, probably one of the cleverest people I have ever heard. His talk was about the Art of Speechwriting. He writes speeches for politicians, and showed us how to do it. It is easy as anything, you don’t need a single actual sensible argument or mention of the thing you are talking about, because usually people are bored by that. If you are writing a speech about, for example, HS2, you should not at all be making a sensible economic case or discussing the social impact. You should be looking for three breathless sentences, three repetitive sentences, and then a load of other stuff that I have forgotten without checking my notes.

I could have listened to him all day. He played some speeches made by politicians, and we all counted the exaggerative statements, the metaphor and waited for the rhyme at the end. Apparently we are more likely to believe something if it rhymes. We know that because somebody was once given a research grant to find that out, so all I can say is jolly well one in the eye for the poetry lecturer who said that my poetry would be easier to write if I didn’t bother with the rhyme scheme. Well, yes it would but nobody believes your poetry, do they?

I am looking forward to tomorrow. I love Cambridge with a joyous passion, and I will still be here in the morning, unless I accidentally go home again in the night.

I am very happy indeed. Learning is the most exciting thing ever.