Well hello

One day Satan was wandering around with nothing to do when God caught his eye. 'See my servant St,' he said. 'What do you reckon?'

'Can't say I've noticed,' said Satan. 'He ever done anything that I should be bothered about?'

God was impressed. Developing the work and staying under the radar. Better than I thought, he thought.

So it came to pass that Satan gave God good odds that if he was allowed a little niggle that St would pretty soon buckle. They kept St unaware of the deal as he would probably have been into Ladbrokes himelf. Nothing serious like bereavement. That was saved for real heroes of the faith in the days when women, children and camels were deemed equally unimportant by the people who wrote these things down, despite God's best attempts to get through to them.

So Satan used the itchy skin disease with sores and boils trick. Nice one. St spent three months scratching himself although technology had moved on from broken pot shards to HC45 cream. Satan was particularly careful not to put the sores anywhere visible so St would look like a moaner if he spoke about it.

'See said God.' He remains optimistic.

So Satan caused West Brom to lose away at 9 man Preston, but he hadn't studied the tables and they were still top on goal difference.

'We'll see,' said Satan, who caused St to bite a massive chunk out of his cheek in two places so it ulcerated, a trick he saved for holidays. St shut up talking, cos it hurt, which was a bit of a rebound on Satan for it only made him more friends. His wife loved him more and more for using his listening skills on holiday and granted him favours, even though the house they were staying in was cold so that was nice of her.

So Satan gave St a fever which caused him to go to bed for 12 hours in the middle of his holiday and then he felt better. God wondered what happened to the all-powerful tormentor who brought houses crashing down on rooms full of slaves. West Brom beat Burnley to stay top as Satan had tickets for the rugby.

And so it came to pass that St and Mrs T came home from their holiday planning one final evening of relaxation know what I mean before disappearing up the backside of employment so Satan stuffed up their heating system which dissuaded one of the parties from parading around the house in a series of interesting outfits. The other party was stoical and three hours later the heating system fixed itself.

Meanwhile St got a sense of perspective, realised he had a good job, a good wife and many friends and threw himself back into his work with the sort of wreckless abandon for which he is easily ignored. He missed, which may, as Douglas Adams once remarked, be the secret of flight if it is the ground you throw yourself at. Consequently his first day back has only two appointments one of which is for a free lunch and the other for beer, as a baptism visit cancelled on him.

So he watched the video of last night's football while the heating system cut in and decided to have a quietish day and pop to the doctors for some more cream as he still felt a bit sore and itchy.

That was what I did on my holidays by St aged 52 apart from the restaurant reviews which will be posted separately. Not the greatest holiday of our lives but necessary and in the right place chronologically.

Did I mention that West Brom were still top?