So, here I find myself again: a meagre few hours left before tomorrow and a grand total of zero words. Once more, it is time to whirl ourselves into the relentless tarantella of dallying doom. You know the deadline is there. You know the time is running out. But who cares when you can watch a montage of Nicholas Cage getting really angry? Once you've put your essay rage into perspective with that tasty treat, take a visit to everyone's favourite monolith of SS-inspired architecture for the perfect antidote to those dangerous studious urges.

AVOIDANCE TECHNIQUE NUMBER TWO

Spend your life at the UL.

Deep within the beast, this is where the wiliest of procrastinators peddle their trade. You see, the beauty is this: you feel smug the WHOLE TIME without actually doing anything. You wake up at eight thirty, cycling over the river with an air of self-satisfaction only the early riser can muster. You check your belongings into the Stasi-esque lockers. You wave your little see-through bag at the receptionist - no, I don't need to buy one, I've been here before - she regards you with repugnance. Your scholarliness is breathtaking; you exude cerebrality. Once seated in the pale glow of the Reading Room lamps you unpack your books, making sure that ultra-fashionable gender theorist rests atop the pile, then you sit back and survey the room.

Where have these beautiful people come from? They're all over the place like a well-coiffeured rash. Just now one comes swanning through the swing-doors with the squeak of a battered brogue-heel and a coquettish regard surfacing over curved hornrims. They pause to scan the cavernous hall for potential babe action. And then it dawns on you: no one is here to work. This is just one bespectacled meat-market, and those definitely aren't real glasses.

It's everywhere. To your right a woolly-jumpered lad peers surreptitiously at an event invite to Kiki's dystopian tea-party. Over your shoulder, a blunt-fringed girl is tapping furtively on the BlackBerry she's hiding behind her copy of Freud: “Lunch at twelve thirty?”; “Hey stranger – you're here too? tea at eleven?”;  “OMG – been working so hard I think I'll implode – you, me, biscuits, two-thirty?”. Here's the best thing: everyone's in on the sham!

At the pulsating heart of the building, the tea-room is the mecca of work avoiders the whole town over. Overpriced, understaffed, and strangely like an airport waiting-room, you can spend hours maundering at its oddly-sized tables, and since its privatisation the service is delightfully plodding. The other day I was there, as usual, nibbling my exorbitantly priced ham and cheese panini in the company of a few friends, and volume-wise things MAY have got a little out of hand. A grey-haired woman taps me on the shoulder with a bony digit: “Excuse me, but this is a place for grown ups. And you're all acting like children. Some of us are here to have a conversation.” “Really?” I replied, “I thought we were just here for the booty.”