It is bloody freezing outside the Back of Beyond pub in the Kings Road, Reading (there were no seats available inside that gave me a sufficient buffer zone between myself and a pissed old bloke doing nothing but drinking; such is the clientele of your average Wetherspoons pub), but here are two signs of spring; a daffodil and a fat section of situations vacant in the Times Educational Supplement. Mind you, one of the pissed old blokes has just come outside to smoke a fag and switched the heater on. Things are looking up!