I had my first drink yesterday at 8.45am and the last at 11pm. I loved it all. There's an aesthetic quality to drinking, a sensual pleasure that you can't talk about, of your skin being stroked. "I wished he would get out of the car, because I was going to come right there." I spent a happy half hour sexting Denise, who applied her considerable literary abilities to texts of richly precise detail. It involved lipstick. I don't think I'm going to be able to pass the Revlon counter at Boots any more without sighing.

I woke up with a bit of headache, nothing much, but a surprise as I never get headaches. My daughter Jenny came round. "Tickle me", and we made up a game where I was just checking her cardi's hood to make sure it was OK. She loves being tickled round her neck.

I had to get some printing done. No idea, on a Sunday. Jenny suggested the Novel Cafe, a new bookish cafe but more Danielle Steele than Doris Lessing. Staff who are well-meaning to the point of irritation. But they had a printer. Went upstairs to use the computer. A little girl was on it. "Shit," I thought, "How do I kick her off without irritating her parents? Actually, that looks like GorgeousAdminWoman's daughter."

GorgeousAdminWoman was reclined deeply, almost horizontally, into a settee. I met her about four years ago when she was ticking boxes in the Department of Pencil Skirts. "Hello Tina," I said. "I've always wanted to see you laying down." I bent down to kiss her on the cheek. She offered the side of her face up to me to the same uneasy extent to which I felt I was stretching a social boundary.

"You've still got my number, haven't you?" she said. "Yes," I said. "We must do that drink sometime." Do that drink. I'd criticise that in someone else's speech. But I'm not going to ring her. She likes me fancying her but lacks the interest in others that would make me going round to hers result in anything but an unerotic night of her own self-examination.

In town, I met another good looking woman, who was a barmaid for a while in my local, doing an MA at the same time as me. We chatted about her teaching job in Kendal. She's always generously talkative to me in that open, unflirtatious way that says "No fucking chance pal".

Not sure if anyone local reads this, even less has the desire or ability to get pissed by 10am watching the latest defeat of the semi-country that continues to hold on to our apron strings, too timid to go independent, walking around with the biggest chip on the shoulder in Christendom (oh fuck, don't mention that word in Scotland, they'll all be attacking each other in a way that makes Muslim bomb-strapping nutcases look like doey-eyed Sunday School pupils). And yet, Scotland is a net contributor to the English economy! They should rename the Stockholm Syndrome the Edinburgh Syndrome.

I could never be Scottish, because I even bear goodwill towards Germans. I like the French. I've been on holiday to Brittany for a decade. Breton men are a model for how a man should dress. The women, of all ages, look classy and self-possessed. Both sexes' manners are impeccable. Monsieur. Je vous en prie. Pas de tout. Un autre? Likewise, the Belgian sense of humour, and its beer, are equally enjoyable.

But for a Scot, it's a betrayal of your nation if you actually like anything. Even if I, and my parents of nine generations, had been born in Fuckyerfeniantwatsuckmaballsyerunionistcuntburgh, I would be banned to Carlisle for expressing in public a desire to let things that happened five hundred years ago not affect our evening.

But just in case: The Richard Owen, tomorrow morning, 8am-ish. Kick off at 8.30am. I asked them today and they can serve us officially from 9am, but I bet we can charm them away from such a rigid adherence to their licence.

To the University, for a bit of work which Linda very kindly put my way (it's not what you know).

The bustling, hectic centre of Lancaster University.
Enormous energy, cleverly concealed.

The University has spent millions on building work this year. The main square now looks bleaker than ever, animated only by the heel-clacking of the almost exclusively female administrative cadre who generously tap out a percussive Early Female Approach Alert for the sexually frustrated male.

The Department of Finger Wagging is co-ordinating an outreach week where doctoral candidates will go into local schools to explain to the older pupils what actually goes on in a University. I made a list which began with extra-marital sex, chronic drinking, unacknowledged theft of others' ideas, and professionally questionable supervisor-student relationships, but I was told that I'd got hold of the wrong end of the stick. Apparently the idea is to present some of Lancaster's current research.

The balance of the sexes in the PhD students that we've got interested so far is about right: ten women and two men. All the scientists are female; the only people doing Howsthatgoingtogetyouajob Studies are me and the other man. It would be unprofessional to comment on anyone's appearance, so I won't say that the woman who'll be doing a talk about her mathematical model of the spread of arable crop diseases is bothersomely attractive.

I'm now faced with the interesting task of thinking of a way of outlining Marxist aesthetic theory in a way comprehensible to 16-year-olds, and finding some sort of practical activity they can do. I'm going into my girls' school, and I have been firmly told not even to acknowledge them if I see them.

On the final Saturday we're doing another version of the show for a general lay audience, so if you have a funny turn and find yourself possessed of a desire to hear me talk about ideology and subjectivity in contemporary art music, get yourself along to the Storey Institute on Saturday 26th November. There'll also be a fascinating talk about crop diseases. An emboldened member of the committee has broached the idea of some Ch. de Taxpayer being released from the Special Cupboard, the key to which is taken home every night by the Departmental Secretary and hidden in her knickers.

There is Bad News from the pub. Discussing our plans to watch England v Scotland on Saturday, the assembled throng was disappointed to learn that although the pub is opening at 8am, they're not allowed to serve alcohol until 10am. That's no use. By then the endlessly rumbling sense of bitter resentment towards everything in general and the English in particular, with which every Scot is born, will be magnified by their most recent defeat at our hands.

We've been trying to think of ways round it, such as paying for our drink in advance and calling it a private party, thus remaining beyond the reach of Plod.  But this should be simple. People just want a few pints for breakfast, starting at 8am, before going home to have some quality time with their children.

A young woman in a lovely ochre shift dress has just walked by.

Me to Linda:

Spending all next week in your home town, nearly. Could perhaps pick your brains about where a drunkard could spend his evenings. So much is true but it's also an attempt to get you out for a drink.

Me to Karen:

Total utter long shot here. But I get the bus to [there] and we go for a wee drink this eve? As I say more in hope than expectation but the offer's there!

Wish I hadn't put the exclamation mark at the end.

Predicted results: drinking alone then wanking using the internet.

Oh dear. Her pictures. Not that I'm looking for a particularly feminine, girly girl, but there's something of the shipbuilder about her.

We had a pleasant chat last night. We left it that I'll see if she's free next time I'm in London (me doing the travelling, again). If she'd been better looking I could have found a "conference" fairly quickly, but given her seat-spilling heft I think I'll wait until I'm genuinely down there for something else.

But to talk of someone who is undoubtedly beautifully feminine and provokes no thoughts whatsoever of bulkheads or cranes, I had a great time with Kitty, a quick visit which turned spontaneously into a weekend and a head full of red wine.

I had to nip out of the pub at about 9.30pm to get some money. I put my phone on the table next to Kitty and said, "If that rings tell them that Daddy will be home soon."

It wasn't as bad as it sounds - they were at a party hosted by the gorgeous woman who is (or was, I don't know) having an affair with my friend. I rang her and she assured me that they were OK to get home, as a mutual friend, a responsible mum who hadn't been on the lash all afternoon, was going up to collect her daughter and could walk my children back with hers. I felt a bit guilty going back into the pub, but over the sixth pint of the day I reflected that you can over-parent sometimes and that it's good to encourage autonomy in one's children.