A MAN, A PLAN, A CANAL...

Well... I'm feeling a bit brighter today, after yesterday's anxiety. Sorry about being Eeyore. It has left me exhausted though, trying to fight it, losing, and then trying to fight off the guilt of losing. I hate being made to doubt myself, yet that's exactly what this noxious gloop does - it gets into your brain, and under your skin, making your heart pump faster and your stomach feel funny.

I need a break, I think. Can you go on holiday from yourself?

Meanwhile, the Intrepids are definitely on a break - on a break between the continents! They are in Panama - home of the hats, Vasco Nunez, icky cigars, and of course... the Canal!

"If ever there's a tricky quiz question about oceans," I said the other day to Erica, "someone told me once that you should always pick the Pacific because it's so massive you've always got a 2/3 chance of getting it right."

Tim stood up and chipped in, almost immediately.

"Okay then Matt," he said, grinning over the partition, "Which ocean is at the West end of the Panama Canal?"

I'll let you think about that. Meanwhile, I was faced with Tim's inescapable win-win, and I was mulling the trap over. I didn't know.

If I went with the rule I'd just bleated about, I'd be sticking to my principles (thumbs up) and would have a 2/3 chance of getting it right (another thumbs up). But if that were the case, if it really is the Pacific, then Tim clearly would never have asked me, twinkling like the Cheshire Cat with a riddle. Answer differently though, and I've abandoned my earlier pronouncement (thumbs down). I was kicking myself for not actually knowing the answer for sure.

My mind drew a map of Central America, with spindly Panama, stringing the two continents together. The canal, like a small line of blue dots, beamed East (Atlantic) to West (Pacific) and I didn't doubt it. But could there be another ocean that it empties out into, before it spills into the Pacific? Like the Panama Ocean? Is that a thing? It seemed unlikely.

So, I tentatively said I'd go with my conviction and I said it had to be... the Pacific.

Tim made the raspberry noise they play in Family Fortunes and then told me that it was the Atlantic. The Canal, would you believe, actually runs from the North West to the South East, due to the terrain it crosses - like a backslash solidus (\). The ocean at its westernmost end really is the Atlantic.

Unbelievable. Twinkly Tim went back to his work, inevitably victorious, and I raised my eyebrows.

"Well. At least I stuck to my principles," I said to Erica. She thought that was great, and then segued seamlessly into asking me what the capital of Wisconsin was.

I made a face.