Finally finished the work for FRU this afternoon, then unsuccessfully tried to get on the Inner Temple debating team for the European Championships in Istanbul. I did get to have a good rant though so it was alright. Now to do the work for tomorrow morning, and then hopefully a little more on OLPAS. Then maybe tomorrow I can prepare for the exam on Wednesday. I'll be glad when this week's over and I'm safely back in Liverpool with a cold, sensibly priced pint.

Yesterday was incredibly depressing. At half time it looked like the league was back in Chelsea's control, but a ridiculous come-back from Man U and our own circus-style defending seems to have finally thrown it away. The misery of these poor results was compounded by everybody else going out and me being unable to join them, because this is OLPAS weekend. Even worse was the fact that whilst I sat alone drinking coffee into the small hours, struggling to get my work for FRU out of the way so that I could start on OLPAS, my phone went crazy. It decided not to receive any messages, or even ring. I was left to assume that everybody else was ignoring me. To be fair to Orange, I think it had something to do with me not paying my bill.

Now things are looking up. I finally received yesterday's messages, I've written a few decent applications and there's talk of a barbeque later on...

Our washing machine finally died yesterday morning. It's been on its last legs for some time, and when the drum simply didn't turn I immediately feared the worst. Despite bravely perservering with its noises, and managing to soak my clothes with soapy water, the machine was unable to get them clean. The bloke that fixes everything on behalf of our landlord came round to try and save it. He slid the back off and was soon up to his elbows in the innards of the dying machine. The band had fallen off, and although he tried desperately to put it back, the bearings had gone. Devastated, he explained that there was nothing he could do. Choking back his tears, he suggested that we must have overloaded it, but I knew he was just lashing out in his frustration. He slid the deceased washing machine back under the worktop and with a sad smile left the band on the kitchen table. Taping his battered toolbox shut he wearily trudged away, ignoring his ringing mobile, presumably unable to handle another terminally ill kitchen appliance and choosing instead to drown his sorrows.

It's been another fairly horrific weekend of anecdotal evidence about some of the worst miscarriages of justice on record. Another weekend's training in American law and procedure that will hopefully equip us to work against the death penalty. I find that most of us head to the pub straight after every session and I think that's largely a result of some of the horror stories we hear each time. It makes you wonder whether we should be doing this at all, because if just hearing about these things second hand is so traumatic then how are we ever going to work amongst them. But then you realise that it's exactly because we find these stories so moving that we have to do something about it. So often you find yourself thinking "I can't believe that happened", but the real problem is that you absolutely do believe it, and that's why you have to get involved. I'm aware that this is deteriorating into a rant, and that I need some sleep, so that's it for now...

As the checkout droid at Sainsbury's pointed out this evening, the weather's been brilliant the last few days. Crucially, it has shattered my bizarre winter illusion that I was living inside a collosal, deserted space station.

The early evening darkness was like a roof over the streets outside, making them more like tunnels connecting parts of the station. Sainsburys became like an enormous storage bay in a part of the station near to my sleeping quarters, where I could go to collect any supplies I needed. I had to swipe a plastic card each time I went there as a requirement of the space station's security rules, which also served to create a record of what I removed from storage so that it could be replenished by the robots. I almost convinced myself that I was imagining all the other people. The longer you live in a crowded city, the more it seems that there are only a few different types of person. It therefore seems more likely that you could have imaginged them all. The fact that nobody you don't know ever speaks to you makes them seem even less real. The illusion was intensified by listening to the Klaxons with headphones that block out external noise.

This evening I took the unusual step of removing the headphones whilst going through the checkout. Suddenly the background noise flooded in. One of the robots turned out to be a person and commented on the weather, and the illusion vanished. I then realised that instead of living in a giant space station, I have simply become very judgmental of people, and have developed an alarming fondness for supermarkets.

Roll on summer...

Have that, MCT 2, you bastard. As I awoke to find myself, not in my bed as I had dreamed, but on Spencer's kitchen floor, I could only assume that the exam was over. Looking back I remember a vaguely confident feeling as I handed in my answer sheet roughly half-way through and hastened to the nearest pub. If in doubt, pick C, and all that. I'm proud to say I was the first aspiring barrister in The Dolphin that morning and the barman was still eating his toast as he poured my first pint. From there things progressed steadily downhill, through the obligatory whisky and political ranting and into oblivion. Spence thoughtfully made me some tea this morning, which could have compensated for Nicole's cruelty if I had managed to drink it. But unfortunately my head had become so heavy and sore that there was no prospect of moving until after 11. Spencer now has to explain to his house-mates why there was a vargant on their kitchen floor during breakfast, and I don't envy him.
With the help of directions from some sort of nanny, who was evidently not impressed by the smell and confused by the sunglasses, I found Euston station and the tube. The near-orgasmic strings of Bitter Sweet Symphony soundtracked my journey to Kings Cross, blasting away any remnants of a hangover, and now things are looking up. I'm even going to clean the fucking flat.

The meeting turned out to be more of an informal chat, following which I was given my first case! It's alarming how excited I am about helping this person get more social security benefits. I suppose it's my first step towards saving the world, one client at a time.

Apart from that it's been an incredibly slow day of revision, trawling my way through civil procedure to the point that I'm starting to think in CPR. No doubt in order to deliberately highlight the sheer tedium of civil law, my flatmates have all gone out. It seems that on the LPC they get holidays, whereas on the BVC we get a little time off with which to revise for the next exam. But then one day I'll be able to wear a wig at work, and then we'll see who has the last laugh...

Not written anything on this for a while, and that's bad because according to our monthly copy of Men's Health (which gets delivered here courtesy of a Mr Kieron Redman who has evidently forgotten to cancel his subscription) writing is cathartic. But I haven't got time now because I've stupidly arranged a meeting for 10:00 tomorrow morning so I'd better snatch my 7 hours sleep while I can.