Sundays and introspection. There are times, too many for my liking recently, when one is not without the other. So, I thank serendipity that I fell over these words of Samuel Johnson a few minute ago: "If solitary, be not idle. If idle, be not solitary" I've been both for several days and idle thoughts especially at such a heightend season as Xmas are not pleasant.

I got some of my mojo back - a smidgen, more has come back since I read those words of Johnson - wandering through the Freud Museum in Finchley. Parquet floors, steaming light, acres of book cases, the smell of floor polish, all are intellectual catnip to me. The sensory side of creativity and intellectual endeavour that I yearn to be part of.

I can't be alone in realising that the same books, the couch, and the row upon on row of Egyptian, African and Asian antiquities that I saw were also seen by someone who had such a seminal effect upon western cultural thinking as Freud. Remarkable and very moving.