Continuing her current theme of arriving early and working solidly Janice, who had now firmly ensconced herself as “Head of Personnel” was deep into the county hall electronic files by the time I arrived.

She did however emerge for long enough to ask me to pop next door to see Mr Masamasam, the Bursar to find out what he knew about cashless catering.

I told him we were all very upset (well all except Mrs Marchmont who turned up in new clothes and sporting not just a spikey new hair style but a variety of new hair colours, and Janice who having asked me to make the visit returned to her computer and appeared unaware of what was happening in the rest of the world), as the feeling was that it could be the prelude to the removal of the collection of money for school dinners by the office staff.

Mr Masamasam expressed incredulity at our concern reminding me that we always complained about collecting dinner money. I agreed but tried to explain the concept of redundareaphobia.

He told me I should have no fear as I was so good at my job – which left me feeling great for two seconds before he asked me out for a meal on Friday evening so that we could discuss developments. I countered with the notion of aibohphobia and suggested Mrs Marchmont might be interested.

By the time I got back to my desk Janice was beaming. “Time to do a good turn,” she said.

Janice then told me that Derek, who (as you may recall if you have been paying attention since the very start of my diary) likes to pretend to be as thick as two Subway rolls but is in fact as sharp as Havoc Blythe, but with a better sense of humour. Derek it appeared had got divorced a couple of years back (before Janice and I joined the school) and this had left him in financial difficulty. “I have just wiped out his debt,” Janice told me.

I gave her the worried frown that I keep for moments when my best friend has gone so far out that she has fallen off the edge and I know I’m going to have to wait until we go around one more time before I can help her jump back on.

“Where did it come from?” I asked with mock patience.

“The Head of Sport,” she said. “I am diverting one of his salaries into a second account I have set up for Derek, and from there into his loan account, which will in fact be paid off in six months.”

“But the Head of Sport will notice,” I protested.

“And will do what? He’ll come in here and ask – and I am short-circuiting that by inviting him to the Toppled Bollard this weekend for the quiz night. As soon as I tell him who has control of the knowledge these days, he’ll back off and be thankful he’s still got two salaries.”

Late in the afternoon the Head and Mr Fixham were noted in frenzied argument outside the deputy head’s study. I told Janice, and she told me that I would not believe what they had been saying to each other via email.

It appears that the deputy head wants his office back, and the head has told him he can have it, if he can get the dentists and pizza delivery boys out of what he likes to call the headmaster’s study.

At 4pm the Head rushed into the office and asked Janice to dig out the terms and conditions of employment of the deputy head. Janice told him she would like to but currently couldn’t find Bolivia and so it would have to wait.

It is good to know that the book of Administrative Excuses is still being put to good use.