"And thank God it's them instead of you..."

First of all, can anyone tell me about Lost? What the hell is this amazing show everyone in the world is watching but me? crack_van was not forthcoming and left me a bit high and dry.

Second of all, I feel Christmas sneaked up on me without my realising. This morning's assembly was a general celebration of Band Aid. For the record, I like the song. I do. It's catchy. It's rocky. It's emotive. It's got lots of good artists on it. And it's for charity. Really not the sort of music that inspires navel-gazing, so I don't know why people want it to be something it clearly isn't designed to be. And, also for the record, I have heard the original in excess of twelve times today and the new one more times than that, and I really can't see all that much difference between them. Yes, the new one has some totally naff rap on it. That's it. And I will buy the CD single with both of them on for £3.99 on Sunday. That's about £3.89 more than I have at the moment, but I'll jump off that bridge when I come to it.

So this morning they gave us ten good reasons to buy the single, played it to us and made us sing, and I went off to speak to the headmistress. She demanded I come to see her after I came back, and so I went to speak to her for five minutes. Five minutes became half an hour - it's amazing how effusive she can get - but I'm glad I went if only because it seemed to make her so happy. Anyway. The Christmas entertainment rehearsal went on without me. I have only two lines, as I believe I have said, but they come at the beginning and the end so I'm kind of committed to taking part. I don't know what to wear. Might just wear Eeyore ears for the principle of the thing.

The excitement today was Christmas lunch, with all the cheesy music and crackers cracking that involves. It wasn't bad, the food, and I have no objection to Christmas music. I haven't heard Merry Christmas Everybody by Slade yet, though, and until I do it's not Christmas. After lunch, I went to the library as I generally do, but Fidan was there too for once and playing a CD she made for Laura called the Cool Dude Mix. I found the title hilarious and the music quite good. We were playing Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah when we were chased out.

By that time, I'd heard Band Aid maybe two or three times; it wasn't until the afternoon and the Biology that I heard it the remaing ten times, as Rice-Oxley provided the single. She also provided the food for this afternoon, and we all had the most gorgeous holly leaves and Christmas trees made of marzipan and star shaped iced biscuits with our names carefully written on. There was much of the squeeage at how cute they were, and as this afternoon's prject was cutting and sticking Christmas decorations with eyes, brains, kidneys and synapses on, I rather think it was the closest to primary school I've been in a while. And the Band Aid lent it the festive air. I had yet another minor spat with Fidan over this:

"And thank God it's them instead of you..."

"I hate that line!"

"Well, I love it. It's the best line in the song."

"No, it isn't!"

"Yes, it is!"

"Isn't!"

"Is!"

Thing is, I do actually believe that. It's the least anodyne lyric in the song because it's actually effective; a certain shock factor is in it at least. I finished the argument with an aggrieved, "Fidan, you have no poetry in your soul!" to general laughter and an elbow from Fidan. We ended up playing Keane in the end, and while Bend And Break was on I noticed Rice-Oxley's copy is signed. Huh.

Becky O is back from Cambridge, and the first thing she said to me was, "Who's the Minister for Health?!"

"John Reid," I answered.

"Thought he was the Secretary... State... something..."

"Secretary of State for Health. Same thing," I assured her. It appears that she was asked this question and didn't know.

(Emma said, "Why didn't you say 'Morocco'?")

Now everyone knows this. The last of the medics and scientists are going down to Oxford tomorrow, and are nervous. It's the sort of nervousness I was suffering from three days ago; bone-deep stomach-clenching fear, more like, and the only thing that really works is to keep people's minds off it. Accordingly, I drilled this one piece of information in, finishing with, "Mrs Rice-Oxley, who's the Minister for Health?"

"Alan Milburn," she said thoughtfully. I groaned, turned round and addressed the room at large. "Who's the Minister for Health?"

And was, of course, met with a resounding chorus of "Morocco!"

I went home smiling slightly, sending out good luck vibes and with my star shaped biscuit that has "Iona" written on still uneaten. It's too pretty to eat.

Last night, I did watch the Angel episode Hero. I will post coherent comments about it once I've stopped going, "Waaaah...."