Four-and-Twenty Blackbirds

That's the beauty of a title. It doesn't have to mean anything. Take the one above, for instance. It has nothing whatsoever to do with what I have written so far and what I am going to write in the rest of this post. But still, in the extremely unlikely event of these chronicles surviving for a century or two, some historian may well read into them deep and profound meaning and into the blog a commentary on the metaphysical state of the world at large.

The human mind is kind of strange that way. Right now, for instance, I am sleepy enough that I could write, "Bertie Wooster married Cleopatra and Hitler was their great-grandson" and not realize that anything was amiss. On Wednesday night, on the other hand, no matter how little sleep I have between now and then, I will be all set to sit up watching TV while reading a book and sending SMSes to friends in the intervals of prolonged chats on the cell phone... and all this juggling without dropping a single ball. (If this seems improbable, let me specify that right now refers to an instant of time when I am supposed to be studying Economics, and Wednesday night refers to an instant when I will, for good or ill, be done with ISLM graphs and long-run aggregate supply curves.)

Exam-time resolves are right up there with New Year's Day resolutions as things that aren't meant to last beyond the first week. In college every time I realized that I was eight hours away from my Number Theory paper, not entirely certain which textbook we were following, and in grave danger of being awarded zero marks, I decided that it was positively the last time I would find myself in such straitened circumstances. Every time.

Circumstances apart, it really is rather nice weather now. It's just cold enough to make snuggling into the blankets with a book a whole new kind of nirvana, but not cold enough to make you quiver like an aspen in a strong wind if you happen to forget your sweater in your desperate haste to reach wherever you're supposed to be going before the clock strikes whatever hour it shouldn't strike before you get there.

Is there anything else to say about the blackbirds? Nothing... except, to those who can afford time to enjoy it, Joyeux Noel. 'Tis the season to be jolly... But I daren't sing, even on paper. 'Tis hardly the season to offend the ears of all around. The first day, the partridge in the pear tree. By the time it is joined by the five golden rings I shall be home free.