The café is crowded, which gives me a chance to slink in undetected and loiter at the back to observe Justin. He is doling out muffins, coffee and bons mots with charismatic zeal to jonesing office-workers who offer little in the way of intercourse.

Certainly, less than I did.

In a typically elegant bit of blog maintenance, I've managed to delete the original post, and although it has been recovered and re-posted, all your immoderately sympathetic comments are lost. Mea maxima culpa.

I exit the office bursting with self-esteem and skip out onto Swanston Street with an impromptu soft-shoe shuffle of which Gregory Hines would have been proud. It's a beautiful day, the finest in nearly a decade, for today I am bound for a café at which I intend to purchase a cup of coffee.

Full strength coffee.