If there's one fictional character I've never liked...

I've started a new job. It's exhausting, isn't it? All those new people, all those new systems, all that tacit knowledge that everyone else has that you don't. And the pressure imposed by the need to appear competent, not to mention well-dressed, cheerful, pleasant, and... most important to this story... consistently alert.

It was Week Three that it happened - the moment that both Miranda and Bridget Jones would be proud of. Or not proud of. I'd had a busy morning. I'd gone shopping at lunchtime. I don't drink caffeine any more. It was the low spot of the afternoon. I had a one-to-one training session on the database with a colleague. The database... From 3.00pm to 5.00pm... In a warm, airless office... My colleague was showing me how to do lots of clever things, and there wasn't much interaction. I was mostly just watching the screen. Asking the occasional question. Trying to be consistently alert (see above).

I nodded off. Only for a few micro-seconds, probably, but who knows? Felt like a few minutes. As I woke up, for some unknown reason, I opened my mouth and said "Henry". I must have been dreaming, of English monarchs, or hoovers. In the split second where I realised that (a) I was awake, (b) I had been asleep, (c) one shouldn't fall asleep in the office, when a colleague is demonstrating the database, particularly when one is new, and (d) I'd just randomly said "Henry" out loud, my brain went into "save, save, save" mode, and I uttered the following:

"Henry... Horrid Henry... Horrid Henry... would be a name we could use if we wanted to set up a dummy record. For training purposes. On the database. Horrid Henry. Would be a good choice of name."

Then, failing to recall the great "stop digging" advice that is universally helpful, I kept on going.

"I was just having a clear out of my children's old books at the week-end, and there were lots of Horrid Henry books, so that's why his name is in my head. Actually, I've never liked the Horrid Henry books, so I was really pleased to be chucking them out, but the name must have stuck in my head. So we could use it. If we wanted to set up a dummy record. Just a thought."

(The bit about sorting out children's books was based on truth, actually.) I don't know whether my colleague was half asleep too, or just terribly polite. Perhaps she had already concluded I'm odd and was merely adding this latest piece of evidence to the picture. She seemed to be valiantly ignoring my jibberings, and continuing to stare at the screen, clicking away at search functions. I left the room, on the pretext of going to make a cup of tea, and as I did so, my brain woke properly, by degrees, until I realised that, irony of ironies, I hadn't actually uttered "Henry" out loud, or anything else for that matter. I'd just sort of dreamt I was doing so, in that half-awake, half-asleep, head-jerking-up moment.

The subconscious. It has a lot to answer for.

If there's one fictional character I've never liked, it's Horrid Henry. And now I like him even less.

.