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Monday Mornings. The big Double M. As Luxembourg continues its process of gradual congealing waking up begins to be that tad bit harder. The dilemma is between putting the radiator on full and thus relegating your brain to an eternal slumber or to leave it on mild and wake up daily to the equivalent of a cold splash of water. All these difficulties are confounded by the onslaught of colds, rheums and other variants which tend to block all breathing apparata and, of late, seal the eyelids with a form of superglue as yet undiscovered by the pundits of commercial exploitation.

Radios in Luxembourg are of no help. Without a Carlo Borg Bonaci to deal with, the mind has to operate with more than one brain cell in order to process the output of Letzebeursch gabble. Unless of course your random hits at the autotune button draws RadioSaarland out of the jackpot of stations that are beyond mastering. Guten Morgen! Und gesundheit. In that case you may as well resign yourself to the inevitable mixture of P Diddy and Falco. The trick is to avoid Radio Ara. They play Morrissey in the morning. That's instant choking material.

Outside the obstacles have multiplied. Having ironed your shirt, chosen your suit and fed the cat (and cleaned it's litter) you venture into the biting cold beyond the double-glazing. The street has taken on a peculiar tinge - iceish white. It seems hesitant to freeze over just yet so it's performing the general rehearsal. After a few cautious steps to ensure the "slipperisity level" on the pavement you cross the road to your car. Miraculously it has not started doing its impressions of an icebox yet. So defreeze and pickaxe remain unused until now. Sit in the car and the luxurious leather seats proceed to freeze your buttocks con gusto. The comfortable allegro andante provided by the Alfa Romeo is further compounded by the fact that, this being Luxembourg, the heating starts to work after half the drive to Kirchberg is over.

Or it would be half way to work were it not for the inexplicable crawl of traffic. A sort of Matrix-style slowdown version of the approach to the Tal-Qroqq roundabout is reenacted daily. The Luxembourg manners (no irony here) on the road do not add any fluidity to the snake as red light after red light illuminate the lesss than 4 kilometre drive to the Kirchberg plateau. The irritating thing is that no accidents are a the root cause of this trawl. It's just a morning version of the Sunday Drive on the Maghtab Boulevard. Until the glacis that is. Where by some divine intervention all Luxembourg drivers rev up their engines and let loose the cheap diesel powering their SUV's. Which baffles me.

Because (I love starting sentences with because) if there is any place that those hideous Luxembourger excuses for policing can be found with camera in hand it is after the glacis. So the maltese driver is practically the only one chugging away at 50 km per ora while all around him zip by like some intergalactic space leapers. Take me to your leader! I had discovered the lack of joy of sitting on the roadside justifying your 95km/h in a 50 limit zone to an unamused police office. So I'll be damned if I ever press the pedal again in the Niedergrunenwald.

Leaving the last two traffic lights behind me I approach the Curia with caution. The last bit into the car park is downhill. Dangerous if some hidden patch of ice is lying in wait. Swipe card at the ready I enter the building with a warm freudian feeling of relief as if entering a welcoming womb. The cold is behind me. The ice is history and the slow nerve-wracking traffic an illusion. Most times parking is a headache since all my co-workers contrive (nastily) to be there ahead of me. Today was a nice one. I was kinda early.

Which is why I have time to tell you about my experience. Let us hope that this week (which for blogging purposes is the week of the 30,000th hit) will be a good one in blogging and real senses. I hope that this week by some magic all the guns do not work, all the bombs can't explode, all politicians lose their voices and all the people develop a strong and sudden urge to smile and be happy.

You may be wondering how I've got this feeling. Easy. All this morning I have been listening to reggae in a traffic jam. It's cool man. Da real thing. And makes you feel so uppity it's crazy.

So...

Pass the Dutchie on the left hand side

Pass the Dutchie on the left hand side

It a gonna burn, give me music make me jump and prance

It a go done, give me the music make me rock in the dance

You play it on the radio, a so me say,

we a go hear it on the stereo

A so me know you a go play it on the disco

A so me say we a go hear it on the stereo