Reasons to be cheerful

1. Nick Gibb has moved on.  He had an other-worldly air about him in a sort of non-spiritual way.  I quite admire zealots, but can always see the other side of the argument, so am not on the whole well suited to zealotry.  Mr Gibb was perfectly cut out for it.

2. The government is quite clear that its mission is to attract top graduates into teaching.  When I was at Exeter University I don't think it had any great claims to greatness.  Now that it is on the top ten list for prospective students, I seem to mention quite often the fact that I was there.  Once teaching becomes the top profession, I will no doubt refer to myself as a qualified teacher more regularly. 

3. We can be proud about how we ran the Olympics and the paras.  I like the line, 'You were Great, Britain' in something I read yesterday.

4. At last Andy Murray has made it.  And, of course, he and Chris Hoy have helped to weaken the stridency of the Scottish nationalists by their total embrace of their Britishness. 

5. I have been given an embarrassingly high golf handicap, which makes it a dead cert that I too will be on the podium for a monthly medal award in the next few months.  Dead.  Cert.

6. I have returned from four weeks' sabbatical to a humming team at Ten Professional Support.  I have introduced myself to the six new starters: once again we have managed to attract the creme de la creme, so together with our huge passion, we should manage a great pavlova in the coming months.  Don't think the metaphor quite works, but heh.

7. We have milk.  It was amazing how the staff satisfaction index plunged yesterday because we ran out.  But the cows have provided and our coffees can once again be fullsome. 

Have a good term.