Tomorrow is the first bin day since twelfth night so today the streets were littered with discarded Christmas trees waiting for collection. If War Of The Worlds were about an invasion by spruce trees rather than Martians, this is what it would look like at the end of the film, once they've all caught the common cold and died. But probably without the tinsel.

I've also noticed an unusually high number of squirrels on the streets, acting rather erratically and seemingly completely unfazed by people. I phoned the RSPCA and they told me they'd had dozens of calls and apparently almost simultaneously across the entire country (much like the blue tits and milk bottle tops in the Seventies) urban squirrels have been seeking out discarded bottles of Baileys and getting drunk on the dregs.

On the way to the station I passed two gangs of inebriated squirrels fighting, and then later the sorry sight of one passed out in the gutter in a tiny puddle of vomit.