223.
I started off the day with the best of intentions. It's how I start off most days, I suppose. I opened the file that I was working on, and proceeded to look for distractions. The internet is both a blessing and a curse in this respect, for while it is a necessary tool in my locker, it is also a means of escaping from doing any work. Before I knew it, I had surfed from today's newspapers to information on the Hawaian monarchist movement. Whilst it was very interesting to read about, it had nothing whatsoever to do with Portuguese political history. I forced myself to stop pretending that I had the slightest interest in either David Blunkett's sexual relationships or the English cricket tour of Zimbabwe (or, in fact, any interest at all in cricket), and made myself a cup of coffee and a sandwich. I finished these just in time for the lunchtime news, which had an interesting report on David Blunkett's sexual relationship with a married woman and a piece about the England cricket team's tour of Zimbabwe. It is my duty as a political historian to keep abreast of current affairs. When the news finished, I came to check my email, then decided that I needed some lunch, which I ate whilst watching BBC News 24's in-depth report on David Blunkett and the English cricket team's tour of Zimbabwe. I now consider myself an expert. I rounded off lunch with a leisurely one-hour stroll to the bank and back to pay some urgent bills and add to my collection of Auchterhouse Hill photographs, and perhaps in the hope that someone might ask me about either David Blunkett or the English cricket team in Zimbabwe. By the way, I used to have two very close Zimbabwean friends: one was in charge of Harare hospital's Leprosy Unit, while the other was the son of one of Mugabe's ministers (they were both doing postgraduate degrees at Glasgow University). They were both very nice, and boy could they drink! I wonder whatever became of them.