Wednesday

There seems to be a dreaded lurgee going around at work as only two of us in the department manage to make it through the day. As it stands I am the only one of five that hasn't been sick-day-takingly unwell in the last two weeks, so things don't bode too well for the upcoming weekend and my future health. I should remember, however, that I am an absolute bear of a man who has only taken something like two days of sick leave in as many years with this company - not like the fragile hypochondriacs I work with! I'm sure I'll be fine.

I get a call from Andy making sure we're still on for a drink tomorrow, and then another call minutes later asking if it'd be OK for him to crash at ours afterwards and that that was the real reason he had called. I laugh and tell him it's fine - he clearly forgot to ask the first time but I like the idea that he felt he had to put in a groundwork call first, then wait two minutes before asking the favour. Andy is off travelling for a year or so from next week so tomorrow night will be the first of a few different farewell parties over the weekend and early next week. I'm looking forward to giving him a decent send-off.

I get home later and start cooking dinner while watching the new South Park and the latest Wonders of the Solar System on iPlayer, after which I had intended to crack on with book pitch work - until I realised that Arsenal v Barcelona would be on ITV.

The game turned out to be a brilliant one: Barcelona were almost sarcastically dominant for the first 20 minutes, albeit without scoring and forcing some career-best saves from the much-maligned Manuel Almunia. The visitors were 1-0 up shortly after half time through the much-doubted Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who added a second shortly after. It seemed that Arsenal were all but out of the tie already - until substitute Theo Walcott burst down the right hand side with his usual ludicrous pace and slid the ball past Valdes to get his team back in the game. Then finally, in the 85th minute, Arsenal won an extremely fortunate penalty as Carles Puyol was judged to have fouled Cesc Fabregas (I think they just crashed into each other, really), who converted to make it 2-2 - injuring himself in the process and rather heroically carrying on to the end of the game. It was a great game for the neutral - one of those properly exciting Champions League Wednesdays when anything can seemingly happen and European footballing history is being etched on the screen in front of you.