Michael's Column

Michael wrapped his arms around Admiral Lord Nelson, using the great man to shield himself from the full force of the wind as it buffeted up the rubbish around Trafalgar Square.

He peered over Horatio's head and across the rooftops of Whitehall towards Big Ben. It was quarter past two in the morning. How had it got so late?

One minute he'd been curled up in front of the snooker after a slightly over-indulgent supper, watching Peter Ebdon compile yet another frame-winning break in meticulous and monotonous fashion, the next he was one hundred and sixty feet above the pavement, eyes pinched half-shut by a gale, shouting frantically and almost blindly at hopelessly inebriated passers-by.

No-one down below could hear him. The storm swirled around the square, scooped up his shouts and whipped them off away from their intended targets.

Michael grimaced, pressed his face up against Nelson's, just as Hardy had done two hundred years before, and cursed his bloody sleepwalking.