There has been a noticeable absence of harebrained activity in my life recently, which I should really count as a blessing, however fruitless it may be for this blog. I did have a brief period of dental trauma, after breaking a weak tooth while eating a sausage sandwich (comic in its own way, I suppose, though not at the time). Typically enough, it happened on a Saturday, so no dentist was available. Coupled with this was the further cruel irony that it was a bank holiday weekend, so I spent the following days eating noting but soup and yoghurt, until I saw a dentist on Tuesday. His pessimism didn't help matters either. He predicted that I would need root canal surgery, leaving me about €700 out of pocket, and sent me for an X-ray. Chastened by the dentists merciless ruminations about my oral hygeine, and miserable about the prospect of shelling out wads of cash, I considered doing the proceedure myself with a hammer and chisel. However, the affair ended uneventfully on Tuesday (ten days after the dread sausage did its foul work) with some nifty drilling, sealing and crowning, for a fraction of the cost. So, I celebrated with a bag of jawbreakers.