For the last few weeks I’ve been ferrying drunken students home from the Union on Friday and Saturday nights. It’s not quite a living, but it is money (and they finally paid me up to date today). The bus is used by various other societies and groups and, though I can take it home at the end of the night for my own safety, some times it’s needed quite early the following morning.

So it is that I’ve discovered the beauty of the city centre at nine on a Saturday morning. Or, today, ten on a Sunday. As the streets wake up and the shops open for bleary eyed business I can wander around with that light, didn’t- quite- get- enough- sleep- last- night fuzzy feeling and a tune on repeat in my head.

I love the European/ Christmas markets. They just feel so damned civilised. Slightly shaming too, because the German sausage vendor knows far more English than I know German and I could have a conversation with the little French lady selling bread, but- for her- it would be a lot like talking to a six year old.

Poor language skills aside, I enjoy the whole feeling, which I also get from Venus, of shopping in a foreign country. It’s like a little commercial peek at another culture. Plus, it reinforces my feeling that Britain should be more European. At the very least, we want to be tied to the Euro when the dollar crashes and dies.