First day back after half-term, and everyone is astonished at how smart I am: I am wearing a new black suit with those trendy small lapels and a longish cut, a new swish tie with silky red stripes, and I have a neat, short back and sides haircut. L in the office says I look much better in a concerned but relieved voice, as though I have been suffering from a long illness and now I am miraculously recovered. I suppose I used to be a tiny bit crumpled in my appearance. One of my tutor group said I used to look like a middle-aged man but now I almost looked thirty! But then she said that I needed to drop the teacherly hand gestures and I should ideally be on the phone calling my stockbroker about the shares I wanted to sell instead of talking about Child Language Acquisition.

By the photocopier, a colleague congratulated me on my new smart look, but we both reflected about how long it would last.