Awful night’s sleep last night.

But yesterday I made my first ever joke in Russian. We were having a coffee break at the Ethnobarometer brainstorming session, and one of the other participants emerged wearing a massive Moscow-style hat. “У вас есть шапка”, I commented, and people laughed.

That minor triumph was then overshadowed by bashing into an elderly couple’s car while I was shopping. Their left hand side was badly dented, but the Renault Espace was barely scraped. It will be expensive though.

Alastair Cooke had a sensible reflection on how far the space programme has come since John Glenn was feared lost on his first re-entry. Not on-line yet.