Keeping my fingers crossed didn't do Andy Murray much good then.

I woke around 5 a.m. when Murray's game had just started but couldn't drag myself out of bed to watch it. Over the course of the match I caught the score now and then when I momentarily surfaced and at one point had the impression that he was heading for victory in the fifth set but when I finally got up it was all over. Too bad. Roll on Roland Garros.

I've just signed up for what must be the cheapest language course in the world. It works out at £1.25 per hour over the session. Just what the economist ordered in these trying times. The other resoundingly plus points are that it's during the day, my evenings being taken up by rehearsals, entertainment and social activities, and it's only ten minutes walk from my flat. I tried a couple of different levels this week and have settled for one that should give a good brush up to my Spanish.

The class is held in a secondary school and that in itself is quite fun. It's an old building, in very good order inside, full of little stairways and long corridors and mysteriously marked doors. I was following a labyrinthine route trying to find my way out and as I went up a stair a gaggle of kids rushed down towards me and as they passed I heard a boy cry "Captain Hook".

Goodness me I thought and turned to bask in the glory of having been recognised by a fan but the crowd swept on leaving me forlornly crying "Yes I was he, did you like the show?"

The heat of the moment having subsided rationality crept in. At most the lad was 17. My Captain Hook would have had to be very powerful indeed to have seared itself into a 4 year old's head and the memory to have popped out in a brief encounter 13 years later. I'd like to believe it but I'm not entirely daft.

I've been watching a lot of television this week.

I stayed up on Sunday night to see Ronnie O'Sullivan carry off a closely contested Wembley Masters snooker final playing some magnificent shots with a brand new cue. A new cue - so what you may say. I knew that players valued their cues but didn't realise that most of them use the same cue throughout their careers. So much of the commentary was astonishment at what he was doing with a cue he had picked up for the first time only days before the competition.

Not like tennis players who can get through half a dozen racquets in one match. That's been the other TV treat, the Australian Open. Scotland's other player Elena Baltacha (born in Kiev, lives in England but claimed by us for good reasons - check it out) kept me up till 2.30 this morning. Winning the first set with the best drop shot I've seen so far in the tournament wasn't enough and despite frequently being two or more points ahead in a game she couldn't do quite enough to topple Amelie Mauresmo.

I got out of bed about 9.30 expecting to see Andy Murray limbering up but Carla Suarez Navarro and Venus Williams were still slugging it out. Navarro was busy taking the second set against expectations having been well beaten in the first. When she was 2 games to 5 down in the third I went off to make a cup of tea in anticipation of Murray's imminent arrival on court. But she went on to take 5 games in a row and send Venus Williams home in economy class.

So then there was Murray. He didn't bounce out and sweep his opponent away in the first set as Nadal and Federer tend to do. He plodded his way through a straight sets victory over a player almost 50 places below him in the rankings. But he won. Fingers crossed for the next round.

Another rabies jag - another bus story, or rather storey since the most frequent bus in town is now a double decker. The tops have been chopped off others to provide this capacity, including the one I was waiting for amidst the confusion caused by the resumption of tram works on Leith Walk.

There are more cones and diversions than ever, leaving uninformed travellers and those who cannot read waiting anxiously at stops that are out of use or at which their bus will not call until the present flurry of hole digging is over.

LRT have slipped a fare increase into this maelstrom. They have clearly been listening to those economists who warn us that the current deflationary trend is a slippery slope to stagnation. As I understand it the theory holds that when prices are going down people don't buy things because they are waiting for them to get cheaper. So thing makers go out of business.

The converse of the theory surely implies that LRT will expand inexorably as people rush onto the buses to get their journey in before prices rise again. That must be why they've added a deck to the 22. Triple-deckers next?

This is a somewhat ironic picture. Plotting a route to the Western General for a rabies jab (I'm taking no chances with this Amazonian trip) I discovered that I can access real-time bus information on-line for any bus-stop in the city. So what you are looking at is the actual display you would see on the bustracker outside if it weren't for the fact that its head is still missing. (Plus some features you don't need when you are at the stop).

If you have the right sort of mobile phone you can access these displays wherever you are. So stranded in Newington late at night you can answer the question "Is it worth getting a 3 to Princes Street on the off-chance that I'll catch a 22 or should I just wait for a 7?". What a facility for the modern traveller.

I can see a game to rival Mornington Crescent being developed and played with this data.

I came away from the hospital with a box of malaria bills as well. They are for trying out. I had a long session being instructed on what anti-malarials are now available, which are recommended for what places and what their side effects are until my head rang.

Product X is taken weekly and is counter-indicated for various categories of person since they may experience depression, mood changes and god knows all what.

Product Y is taken daily and may increase the skin's sensitivity to light

Product Z is taken daily and is counter-indicated for anyone on a budget since the tablets cost an arm and a leg.

I'm trying out product Y so if you see me sitting on my verandah in my swimming trunks you'll know it's all in the name of medical research.

Leaving my local Tesco the other day I was accosted by a lady who wanted to interrogate me about my shopping experience. One of my friends tells me that he makes it a point of honour to lie wildly to market researchers and focus groupers whenever he gets the chance but I didn't have the brass neck for that.

However I seized upon the opportunity to complain about the lack of unsalted butter. Perhaps head office will pay attention since the local management didn't.

Or more probably they won't.

I noticed another weird pricing move in Tesco recently. They increased the price of a particular brand of muesli by 30 or 40 pence and a couple of days later brought it back to the previous level.

Presumably customers shunned it. I certainly did, but I bought it when the price fell back. Was that me falling prey to a cunning bit of shopping psychology?

Every so often I get up to date with what one of the groups I was involved with in Paris is doing. I've just had a look at their site. It's changed its address since I last looked and has added a rolling picture gallery feature that I must find out how to do. It would be great for the Grads.

It's a super little trick and none the worse for having my picture in it. See if you can spot me .

The puff for the Che Guevara bio-pic I saw today says "Soderbergh has recreated his life not in epic terms, but as a long, hard slog" - very true - a long hard slog for the filmgoer. From its totally hagiographic story-line I suspect that it may also be the first step on the long, hard slog to sainthood. I can't wait to give Che Part Two a bodyswerve.

This being twelfth night I have conscientiously taken down my Christmas cards. In previous years I have tended to keep them. Ancient cards still surface from time to time when I'm searching for something in the roof. This year though they have gone straight to the recycling bin.

I suppose I should honour the twelfth night tradition, or is it superstition, by deleting the e-cards I got as well. I'd better take no chances with lady luck and get rid of the website cards I created too.