This morning I saw the woman who lives opposite emerge from her house dressed up like a Michelin man, calmly scrape all the snow from her bike saddle and handlebars, and cycle away. That’s hard core.

In the newsagents’, a man with a Liverpool accent rolled inside and told us all excitedly, ‘It’s colder outside than it is in your freezer!’ It was 9 am but by the smell of him, he had already been celebrating something that morning. Maybe the snow.

The pavements are all icy, and no sign of grit except mysteriously, beside the council bins around the corner, where there is a big pile. Are we supposed to help ourselves?

Scrooges of the week are the Norfolk Arms pub in Bloomsbury. On Wednesday, the radiator wasn’t on and several people including me were in their coats. We were going to eat there, but decided to go instead to Chilli Cool across the road to warm up with some Szechuan food. It was very good – pig’s intestine and other offal featured heavily on the menu but I wasn’t intrepid enough to try it.

And finally, I was too cold to go to the gym this morning, so will go to Bikram yoga this evening to heat up. That’s provided I can get myself out of the house …