The return of a long-neglected feature... I've just come out of a two-hour meeting in which the speakers peppered their material with a plethora of officespeak - "thinking outside the box", "implement best practice", "support brand essence" and all that bollocks. Who actually talks like this? In the real world, I mean? There must be some sort of dictionary available. I mean, "dimensionalising the business paradigm", for fuck's sake. Is this English? Is this the language that Chaucer, Shakespeare, Swift, Milton and Adams smithed into a thing of art, rapier wit and lyrical beauty? I think not.

Some bloke described to me the other day how the hard-working employee's habit of eating lunch in the office, rather than going to the pub or the canteen, is now known as dining "al desko". At least that's vaguely amusing.

In the interests of not doing another post about how little posting I'm doing, as one reader has helpfully suggested I should cease to do, and plus also in the interests of not staring vacantly into space feeling sorry for myself, which is what I was doing two minutes ago, here is a limerick I have just made up, because I felt like it.

There was a young masta of pasta
Who always got beaten at canasta
Though his tactics were low
His shuffles were slow
And he just couldn't deal any fasta

Eagle-eyed critics will undoubtedly point out the poor scansion in line two and the appallingly contrived spelling. To those worthy adversaries I wish only the best. Unkinder critics, such as the colleagues to whom I have just recited the above limerick, may describe my use of the self-descriptive "young" as exaggeration. To those unworthy adversaries I wish a raft of boils upon the tender inner surfaces of their nostrils.

My small humans are quite unwell at present. Sarah is laden with chicken pox, which makes her very popular in the Children's Items section of our local supermarket. Young David is suffering from the sort of cold which forces one's nose to produce Augean quantities of green goo, even when the nose in question is only a cubic centimetre in size, as a result of which his bedsheet was a new and unexpectedly lurid colour this morning. The resultant lack of sleep for all parties concerned is a perfectly good excuse for the random nature of today's ramblings and the poor quality of my poetic efforts, and as such I shall not waste it. The resultant facial encrustations for both wee'uns is also an excellent excuse for not posting the latest photos of them, as I'm sure you've just had a delightful lunch and fully intend to keep it in your stomach.

Only seven weeks until Christmas, and I haven't made one single bloody trip to the shops to buy presents yet. I foresee a long and fruitful financial relationship between myself and eBay.

P.S. In case you were wondering, omphaloskepsis means (literally) "contemplation of the navel". I love learning new words.