The chocolate cycle has been broken. Emilie and I gave it up for seven days after a fortnight of pigging out, having our first nibble of the comfort drug in seven days yesterday morning. Today, back into the abstinence cycle, I neither miss nor crave it at all.

Perhaps it’s because between us we pigged out massively, pandering to the withdrawal symptoms. We went to M&S to buy cookies and chocolate cornflake cakes to share with the team, and munched them with mugs of hot tea. Bliss.

It was one of those last-day-in-the-office days when you spend your time running around finishing off the tail-ends of jobs that would otherwise hold up the production process if they weren’t out of the way before leaving. Felt very accomplished come half six when I finally switched off for the next nine days.

Digging through the cupboards, we came across a fantastic book. Very weighty, priced up at $120, it’s every calendar from 1900 to 2200. A wealth of useless information, such as the fact I was born on day 2441950 of the Julian calendar (that’s a Sunday in our language). The moon was almost full.

I’ll be 200 on a Friday - the best day for parties - when the moon will be an eighth-full. Most of the world will be celebrating the year 2173. Ethiopia, though, will still be counting the days of 2166, not having caught on to modern dates.

So, it was full of useful information that I walked through Bloomsbury with Mark to Mike’s leaving do in a pub near the BT Tower. Pretty much the whole of PC Advisor was there, along with Mac User and a smattering of freelancers and PRs. Mark and I were the only two from PCW, everyone else having already headed off out of London for the weekend.

I felt exhausted after a long and busy week, and it was good to sit back and chat for a couple of hours. Got cornered by someone whose name I never caught, but who seemed to want to spend the evening talking about the state of the magazine market. Mark and Will saw me necking my drink in an effort to escape, and saved me by calling me over to tell me something ‘very important’.

Moochecd home by about tenish and flopped down to watch the extra bits and bobs on the second disc of Lord of the Rings. I don’t normally watch DVD extras, but these are very good - for a change. Lots of half-hour programmes from the Sci-Fi channel among others about the backstory and the making of the films.

1. Back in the cycle
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2. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
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3. Chocolate headache
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