I know public holidays are not very good for the economy, what with the loss of productivity and all, but I have to say that I’ve been grateful for this long weekend. I stayed in bed for most of it, much to P’s annoyance. She wanted us to go for a drive to some scenic place and have lunch to celebrate finally having a whole weekend alone together. But I just wasn’t up to it. I told her I wasn’t feeling well, but she didn’t show me much sympathy. She walked around banging things, and when I asked her not to, she said it was all my own fault that I was feeling so bad. Which it was, I suppose, although I think my new friend should take most of the blame.

My new friend’s name is Pat Ryan. Pat came out from Dublin to study construction in sub-Saharan Africa, and he liked it here so much that he stayed. Actually the main reason he stayed was because he married a South African woman who didn’t want to live where the risk of getting poked in the eye with an umbrella spoke was high. She said if he wanted her, he had to stay, so he did. Pat is an eminently sensible chap.

I met Pat at a conference a few months ago. He was the last speaker and, besides being quite interesting, he cut things short so we could all have a drink after a long day. I liked him immediately. It seems a little strange to make a new friend so easily. Most of my friends are buddies I’ve known for years. I don’t get close to people quickly, but I do keep the friends I’ve made. Just about the only one I’ve lost contact with is Klippies, who lived next door to me from when we were about five years old. Klippies and I were inseparable until he was sent to reform school for setting fire to the hardware store. I had nothing to do with it, I swear.

In any case, Pat is the first new friend I’ve made in ages. I mentioned this to him when we went for a drink to celebrate the long weekend. He said we should have a drink to celebrate our friendship, so we did. Then I told him about Klippies, and how he’d moved on from arson to other public demonstrations of his contempt for society. The last I heard they’d put him in a place where he was forced by the staff to keep his clothes on. Pat said we should have a drink to celebrate the fact that neither of us was Klippies, so we did.

Pat is interested in science, and after another drink or two, to celebrate the fact that we were having drinks, he told me about the Bell effect. This, he said, with a drink to jog his memory, is based on the principle that two subatomic particles which have interacted will remain linked, however distant they may be from one another in space. One of the characteristics of such linked particles is ‘spin’. A pair of linked particles will have symmetrical spins – if one has a spin of plus-one, the other will always have a minus-one spin. Changing the spin of one particle will, allegedly, affect the spin of the other particle, even if it is spinning a million light years away.

I had a drink while mulling this over, then I asked Pat if the same principle applied to humans who have interacted. He said he didn’t think so. I said that was just as well, because if my interaction with Klippies had linked us in that way, then as he spun out of control I’d probably become the dullest fellow on earth. Pat suggested that maybe the theory did apply, and maybe it explained why I remained stable when Klippies didn’t.

We had a drink while we thought about this, then I disproved the Bell effect by falling off the stool, thus demonstrating my lack of stability. “That settles it, then,” said Pat, and we had another drink to celebrate the progress of science.

Eventually someone called Pat’s wife, who came to fetch us. She gave me a lift home and a lecture. The parts I could remember made me feel even more ill the next morning, and P’s indifference didn’t help. But it was a good evening. I have a new friend and my scientific knowledge has been broadened. Actually I’m working on a theory of my own. It’s called the Bells effect, named after the substance that induces the particles around me to spin without ceasing, even when I close my eyes and put one foot on the floor. I just wish I knew how to make it stop.