Mathematics was always a mystery. Despite the hair-tearing efforts of Caradoc Williams, a teacher now performing in that great Eisteddfod in the sky, I absorbed nothing of Pythagoras or his chums. All I remember is that in algebra there was a thing called the constant – something he declared, with Welsh drama, existed in every aspect of life.

Deep stuff perhaps – but those words flowered where vulgar fractions and quadratic equations failed to root.

A few days ago I fell down the stairs, damaging my left foot as it became entangled with hardwood banisters as I pitched forward. It was – and still is - painful and there was some degree of delayed shock.

The reaction of friends and family alike was a constant when this wounded soldier first explained his limp. Foreheads furrowed, voices changed to reflect concern, heads inclined to one side and genuine offers of help were extended.

Then they asked how it had happened. (Stand by for a sea change.) “I tripped over the cat,” was the reply.

There were – and still are - roars of laughter. Every old joke was aired and the only words of sympathy – if any - were now for the cat. My damaged frame was forgotten even though the injuries were the same had I suffered a collapse at the top of the stairs, been pushed by a marauding burglar or been under the influence of too much alcohol.

What makes an attempted assassination by a slumbering cat so funny, thus turning the constant into a variable?

  • Cowley Road was awash with students, each carrying notebooks or large pads, on which they scribbled furiously.
    Some had cameras and stopped to take pictures – plants in shop windows, a drainpipe and an iron gate, much in need of attention. They wandered around in groups.

    They were part of a 120-strong intake of architecture students at Oxford Brookes University, sent forth to make notes and sketches about a variety of items, presumably relevant to the course.

    “That seems an unusually large intake,” I suggested to one of the group, a girl perched on the low wall in front of Manzil Way. She looked less than delighted with her task, confessing that sketching was not her forte.

    “There’s usually a large drop out in the first few months,” she said, tossing her long, blonde mane. “And if we have to do much more of this, I could be among the first. I thought wandering around streets, drawing pictures, had been left behind at primary school.”

    • How different were the expressions and attitude of a quintet of first-year secondary school pupils as they walked down Little Clarendon Street behind a long-haired, extensively tattooed young man.

    • They were in mocking mood. He would have heard their ribald comments had both ears not been stuffed with plugs attached to wires which in turn were fixed to what was probably a state-of-the-art music playing device. (Could it have been an iPod? Names change so often I have stopped trying to keep up.)

      He would also have heard what had tickled their chuckle muscles.

      As he walked past, his trainers not only flashed around the heel, but his left one squeaked loudly like a mouse with a megaphone, while the other can best be described as having a deep flatulent tone, guaranteed to appeal to the lavatorial humour of the young.

    One of the three girls caught me smiling and offered an explanation.

    “He taught at our old school for a short time,” she said, adding with a shriek of laughter: “He was a music teacher.”

    At which point the volume of noise from the five must surely have been greater than that of both the iPod and the trainers. But ‘Sir’ continued his musical way either unaware or unconcerned.

    Lack of that much in-vogue word ‘respect’? Perhaps. But, come on, we’ve all done it.