Last night I took painkillers (which are not accurately named) and had an early night. Then I had a lie in, told Julia I was going to have to have a day lazing round in front of the fire doing nothing and limped downstairs for breakfast.

She said she doubted that it would be any different from one of my normal days and carried on preparing for Christmas.

She later asked me a lot of questions and diagnosed my problem as sciatica. It seems to fit with the variety of symptoms I get and has improved today after making a few changes. I might even try the recommended exercises, but on the other hand, might not. It would be embarrassing to end up on my back with my arms and legs moving aimlessly like a tortoise on its back.

Losing weight should help, as should giving up smoking. Unfortunately I gave up smoking 20 years ago, so it looks like a diet or going to the doctor. As I usually end a visit to the doctor with more problems than I had when I went in, and orders to lose weight, I try to avoid that.

I must have had the new computer a month, as I keep getting pop-ups about signing up for virus protection. The pop-ups are a lot more annoying than the viruses, particularly as Microsoft seems able to keep my computers clean these days.

And, a final thought for the day – I see that the train stations of London are full of people wanting to get home for Christmas despite being told not to by Boris Johnson. We should take a leaf out of the mediaeval treatment of besieged cities and give it a new twist. Instead of catapulting infected carcases into cities we should stop the trains at a pre-set spot, take all the Londoners off, and start catapulting them back into London. After the first few are sent flying through the air, I expect the rest will volunteer to return