'Do you not see that I am unarmed? And at this season, at this hour, there are frightful, unearthly beasts about.’

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I was carrying a bowl of cereal in my hand walking through the freezing downstairs realm and very eager to return back upstairs where the temperature was just a few degrees warmer than the regions below, when the phone rang.

I walked over to the phone still holding the bowl of cereal.

There is an unwritten law of thermodynamics that states that even as you reach for a ringing phone, the bowl that you are holding in your right hand will suddenly lose its equilibrium.

Strangely, as soon as you are looking at a ringing phone and reaching for it then the unwritten law of thermodynamics comes into play. Even though you know you haven’t shifted the grip of your hand; nor have any sense at all of moving your hand along any directional plane; unknown spatial forces will seize this moment to act. The action of these subtle forces means that a mere mortal will no longer be able to maintain the full bowl of cereal along an horizontal plane, but will instead find that it tips just enough to allow maximum spillage over the ringing phone, the address book, the settee arm, and the table.

Despite all this, still undeterred you pick up the phone. This is the moment when an automated woman’s voice recites at a terrible speed an unknown mobile phone number.

With my phone in one hand, a half empty cereal bowl in the other and a Niagara Falls of cereal dripping down the front of my new pyjamas I have no chance of writing down this mysterious new number.

I’m told to press ‘one’ for the message. More cereal spills.

A machine talks to me mechanically. No name is given.

I half expect the machine to break out into evil mechanical laughter after it coldly recites the message...

‘Happy New Year!’
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