I don’t know about the pupils but I learnt a lesson today – never leave the house without having breakfast. Taught on an empty stomach and boy did I regret it. Still, all went well and even managed to spend an hour balancing equations without a single involuntary yawn.

This afternoon I was invigilating a year 9 mock SATs exam and (as you do) whiled away the time reading copies of the recent A Level Maths papers that were left lying around. My God, it’s depressing. For all those who say that “all” exams are getting easier, I urge you to look at an ‘A’ Level Maths paper. I did that exam – with some success – and was even considered quite good at it. Now, seven years on, it may have well been written in Serbo-Croat for all the sense it made. Sudden realisation that I have forgotten nearly everything I learnt at school. Hmmm…

This evening was spent at Conservative HQ doing paperwork – am now sure that politics is the only career more bureaucratic than teaching. Still, it emerged during the evening that we now have more than 1,000 people signed up against City Hall Councillor’s suggestions for a Congestion Charge in Norwich. Amazing, really, that they could even suggest it – but am pleased that the Evening News readership and our own surveys are massively against. What’s worse is that the national LibDems have now said they’ll make it easier for Norwich to introduce it! A tax on entering our own City – big charge to come in, big charge to park, it’s an infringement of our right to movement I say. And the so-called opposition at City Hall? As one Green Party spokeswoman recently said: “My solution to congestion is to rip up the roads.” Lovely. Norwich economically destroyed and straight back to the Middle Ages.

Oh, one last thing – try www.libdemwatch.co.uk if you want a good look at the party claiming to be the “effective opposition”. What is more shameful is that the Norwich LibDems are held up for national scorn. I feel quite ashamed to know that people up and down the country are laughing at us – or worse, pitying us for having a LibDem council. Still, there’s always the elections to change all that...