I was shocked to hear that a sizeable minority of London school kids firmly believe the battle of Waterloo actually took place at Waterloo station.

If they think that, then what does Trafalgar Square mean for them? Site where a famous one-eyed British admiral lost his life and was then paved over a few years later and turned into a public square?

The rain scuds in, the thermometer slips into single figures, and my teeth, especially those on the right hand side ache. They're like the three musketeers, where one goes, all go. This happens every year. Without fail.

So this afternoon I've been at the dentist, where after the check-up, I sneaked a look at my dental card. I've been going to the same dentist for twenty years.

C'mon guys reward that loyalty. Maybe a free check-up or a discount on an electric toothbrush. I must have paid for the revolving, up and down dental chair several times over. What about it.

Grind away, grind away. That's what they all say. Stick one word in front of the next and keep going. It's a marathon, not a sprint.

In that Real Men don't Eat Quiche vein, don't ponder, don't dawdle, don't dither, just write is more or less what the driving force behind the The 90 day Novel is saying. So that's what we do. Every day, another grain of sand thrown on the writing pile

I've seen something I've never seen before in London, and for that matter only a handful of times elsewhere: a swarm of starlings, whirling and reforming over a sunset Wandsworth Bridge.

Amazing to watch. Like watching a cloud of iron filings pulled this way and that by unseen magnets.

One of my abiding memories of France is seeing huge swarms every evening ripping and bending in great vortices over Vichy. To see the same thing in the very heart of London was heart-stopping.

With the peregrine falcons nesting and dive-bombing by Tate Modern and now this, it's obvious that London still is red in tooth and claw.

Any art exhibition featuring New York always ends with me being in a strange blended mood of wistfulness for all the wonderful times I've had there; a frantic earnestness to go back; envy, and I have to admit this, for anyone who lives there, and yes I know it can be an unforgiving maw, but what a maw to be consumed by is my retort; and the sense that even London, this dear, sweet, mad, packed city state, is still just the little brother.

NYC is still the only place that really matters. Where else can you reach down, touch the paving stones and feel the energy of all the ages, past, present and future surge through your fingertips ?

I must be in a minority here: those who revel in Autumn. There's something enchanting about darkening nights. People. street lights, shop windows. Magical for reasons I struggle to articulate.

All around me I hear the sound of dust being blown off CVs.

Whereas years ago I was like one of these Norfolk coast villages miles from the cliff-face, today I'm running in mid-air like a cartoon figure, competing with myriad others for a job.

We were told, all 110, that our team was being root and branch restructured, with 95% of us having to pass an assessment to get a job. When the music stops, you all sit down....

Words are not enough. The affirmations anyway are exhausted. It's a day of sensations, exquisite, undiluted euphoria, utter rapture. With the rest of the world, I have been privy to a miracle, an actual miracle. The miners are coming up.

This is a demonstration of collectivism, of hope, faith, planning, humanity, endeavour. All the things that the cynics bleat don't exist. Amazing. Extraordinary. The power, the raw naked, power of the Human Spirit.

I saw a comment on the BBC news feed that I've been streaming all day which so aptly summed up how we global citizens are reacting, and that is "...with an inexplicable sense of relief every time one reaches the surface..."

I am on tenterhooks this evening for several reasons.

Tonight they begin the rescue of the thirty three Chilean miners. I have been completely enthralled by this, from the moment that grimy, bearded figure waved at the camera through the drilling and the final slow, steady breakthrough into the trapped men's chamber, the testing of the Phoenix Rescue capsule, to now.

I am awed by the meticulous planning and superb organisation of the Chileans. Magnificent.

I remain on tenterhooks as I have for almost three weeks now, wondering whether I'll get more than four or five broken hours of sleep tonight.

Not everyone takes to street dance, but I do, even if I am well outside the demographic. Something about the verve and the energy really appeals to me.

Someone in the US sent me this clip of four young men dancing in the rain on a street corner in Oakland, California. It's blown me away. Simply electric.

A Sunday for me can often be a combination of aimlessness and solitude; the former cam, in it's own way, be peculiarly attractive, the chance of an odd find, a strange discovery, serendipity, whereas the latter state although I am a lone wolf by nature too often leads to the inner pathway of regret and ruefulness. Too many of the if only, but, and what if statements fill my head in those instances just as they did today.

Still, that's only one side to my Sunday, there is aimlessness to describe. Where did that take me? To the maelstrom of the recently opened Gauguin exhibition at the Tate Modern. Hideously busy with enough room to glimpse fragments of canvasses through a thicket of heads and bodies. Probably too many works to absorb sensibly in one go, I did feel weary towards the end.

Nevertheless it is full of gems, and not just the works either; amongst the contextual material was this statement written by Gauguin "I love Brittany. I find the wild and the primitive here. When my clogs resonate on the granite ground I hear the muffled, powerful thud that I'm looking for in painting"

I've heard that thud myself in many places where instinctively I've felt alive, at home, energised, and at peace: New York City every time I've been there, Barcelona the moment I stepped off the plane; Paris, Buenos Aires in spite of being held up at knife point on my first visit, the madhouse that is Tokyo, and last, but never least, this dear old city I call home.

I keep uncovering the hidden laws that govern modern life. Want to get somewhere quick? The tube never turns up. Need to get cash from the machine at White City station? Watch it meltdown and swallow your card. Decide to listen to that unknown voicemail? It's from a director of the company you work for wanting something on the double by tomorrow.

There's enough strength in me for a one liner, a sub-Montaigne, below par Pascal pensee: I'm tired beyond belief. Beyond my endurance. Work not guilty. Living arrangements most definitely. Something has to changed. I want my bite of the inalienable right to sleep, and I want it now.

My star sign is n't the Goat. It can't be. Simply not possible. The evidence is n't there. Does n't stack up. I'm a Cappy by name only, astrologically, I'm something else, I'm the hamster on the wheel. That's my sign. Frantic pedalling and yet never getting anywhere.

Effort, effort, effort, but the work, the paper across the desk, the salvos of e-mails never go away. Nail one and another fills it's place. I worry that I can't put my finger on one particular achievement; where I am putting my finger, all ten of them is in holes popping in the dyke holding back even more work.

Nearly an hour gone and the new Adobe download has only just broken the two-thirds mark. Feels like I'm having it hand-delivered. Still, the question you also have to ask yourself, aside from re-affirming patience, patience, patience, is what would this have been like via old school PSTN.