Happy New Year!

So, as I survived a phenomenon known as “Blue Monday” in the UK this week, allegedly a Monday so vile that it is the most depressing date to dominate the calendar, I feel compelled to share this breakfast vignette with you. See, I had been reading Arthur Miller’s All My Sons before going to bed on Blue Monday Eve, most gloomy of all the eves, and for some reason the next day my experience of breakfast itself formulated itself in my brain in his style …

The kitchen in a large basement flat in London. A staircase Stage Left leads upwards. Morning, but still dark. David Bowie circa 1970 plays from portable sound system. A microwave bings. Mother, a blonde woman in her forties moves about the kitchen preparing breakfast.

Mother: Boys?
(Silence)
Mother: (opening instant porridge sachets) It’s time to get up …
[…]