I had been given a rather nice 2000 Margaux by someone through work, and we cracked it open last night since we were both, frankly, in need of a little alcohol.

Will I never learn that I simply cannot drink red wine with impunity? It really was a very good bottle of wine, but so rich and heady was it that I woke up this morning (after only three glasses of the stuff) feeling like my body had been subtly poisoned by an Elizabethan apothecary hell-bent on showcasing the effects of some of his more spectacular concoctions.

It really is a curse; I adore red wine. I'm not claiming I know any more about it than its price, but as my friends will attest – most notably Jenny who has often steered me home from Claire & Jeff's or Celia's, pausing occasionally metaphorically to hold my hair back for me while my body violently rebuked me for having abused it so with so much plonk – I really don't take well to it.

If I drink red wine, my hangover always takes the form of a blinding headache. Like cider, lager brings feelings of slight nausea, but more unpleasantly my body just feels really polluted, an effect exacerbated by the fact that for some reason it's lager more than anything that makes me want to light up. If I drink spirits, I wake the next morning positively brimming with vim and vigour, but where's the fun in that?

In other news, Jenny and I did some online grocery shopping to stock up on heavy or awkward stuff that we otherwise couldn't have carried, with the result that we are now the proud owners of 24 rolls of toilet roll, 12 rolls of kitchen roll, eight two litre bottles of diet coke, and enough rice to feed a family of four for the rest of their natural lives. What an exciting life we do lead!