Bunked off my Italian class this morning to watch Andy Murray play Rafael Nadal in the Australian Open and what a good decision that was. It was a great match. Murray won the first set in the tie-break and was 4 - 1 up in the second when he lost the plot. He came back strongly to win the third but then failed to capitalise on a significant number of breakpoints especially in the early games of the fifth set but all in all he played a stormer. Given that two years ago we had never heard of him his rise in the rankings has been phenomenal. Surely at some point in the near future he's going to be the first home grown Wimbledon winner since the ice age.

Back in the rehearsal room our one-act is coming on. Everyone has a pretty reasonable grasp of the lines and we've got various props out to help the action. For an ex-smoker blowing rather than sucking to produce smoke from an imitation fag takes a little bit of getting used to. Of course I failed at one point yesterday and got a mouthful of cotton wool and some obnoxious powder.

Failed too to see a documentary about Leonard Cohen after the rehearsal. It was sold out by the time I got there. That's the second time this week I've missed a film. Clearly need to do a bit more in the advance planning line.

I got some Labour party junk mail today. It was pretty self congratulatory in tone throughout as these things tend to be. For example they beat their breasts with satisfaction at reported praise for Lothian buses. Not sure to what extent the Labour party has played a part in providing our good bus services but if they have, all credit to them. It set me musing a little. It may be a great service but they have the weirdest shift patterns. Is it that my natural travel rhythms match driver changes? I was on three buses yesterday and on each occasion experienced a change of driver. Such a 100% hit rate is unusual but I suspect that my daily average is around 50%. What's the statistical probability of that do you suppose? Is it like tossing a coin, 50/50 every time? Or like love at first sight, 100 to 1 against?

Answers on an electronic postcard please.