You know what they say: if it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger, but not if you've been seriously wounded and have perhaps lost a limb. Leeds again, then. Ho hum.
This is bad news in many guises. Since they've decided to punish the good people of Leeds and those hardy souls who have travelled from Middlesbrough (Middlesbrough being one of the few place on earth which makes Leeds seems forwards-looking and cosmopolitan) by making it a 1pm kick off on New Year's Day this means:

a) I must spend New Year's Eve alone. This isn't bad in itself - New Year's Eve was always too loud for my delicate sensibility - and indicates only practicality rather than other issues. I watch myself talking utter, utter rubbish on a John Lennon documentary and some repeats of Benidorm if you must know...

b) I have to leave my corral at 7.30am. Again, this could be worse. I love early morning drives and the roads are clear, but Christ, I'm tired.

and c) it's Leeds. With all that implies.

Since it's New Year and breakfast time, they do the decent thing and provide a hackbanquet featuring myriad fruit juices, sizzling bacon sandwiches, tomatoes fresh off the vine, black pudding and freshly filtered coffee. Only joking; they begrudgingly do unspeakable sandwiches and undrinkable coffee from an urn. The good news? I don't know a soul, so nobody blanks me.
And a big hello to my old friend deja vu: It's still freezing, the hackbox is still horrible and the stewards - with one notable, humanity-enhancing exception - are still insufferably pompous (and what's the difference between pompousness and pomposity?). Happy New Year everyone.
Still, Ken Bates's programme notes are, as ever, a joy. He talks of an anonymous player who a Championship team won't play again because one more appearance will trigger a £1 million contract renewal (£1 million for Michael Brown? God help us all) and he rounds up his legal vendettas with the promise of more to come. And his girlfriend's name changes its spelling along the way. Bless him.
The game is most peculiar. Leeds were impressive against QPR. They're not impressive here, chiefly because their three best players: Max Gradel, Jonathon Howson and Richard Snodgrass all have stinkers. Elsewhere, Luciano Becchio takes his goal well, but he gives David Wheater and Matthew Bates the afternoon off and they have trouble in central defence where Neill Collins and Andy O'Brien don't have whatever "it" is. Collins is this century's Roy Ellam, while if O'Brien were Premier League standard, I'd wager someone at Bradford, Newcastle, Portsmouth or Bolton would have noticed. Leroy Lita gives them the runaround. Leroy bloody Lita! Of course, if Leeds do go up - and it'll surely be the play-offs at least - it'll all be very different.
And Middlesbrough? They're terrific, I'm surprised to report. They play like a unit and if they could take their chances, they'd be thinking up instead of down. Steve Gibson might have a shockingly bad track record at picking managers, but after the dead hand of Gareth Southgate, the genuine strangeness of Gordon Strachan - although in fairness he did sign Scott McDonald who's the best player on the pitch - Tony Mowbray is a revelation. They can't go down. Can they?
Afterwards, apart from some nonsense vis-a-vis Andy O'Brien where he seems to think he's acquired Duncan Edwards, Leeds manager Simon Grayson is better in near-defeat than victory. I grasp his appeal a bit more now and he might just be one of the good guys. He's honest enough to admit how lucky Leeds were and I can see his notion that drawing twice over Christmas might be superior to winning and losing in the long term, even if it means one point less in any term. Shamefully, I miss the obvious question that signing O'Brien and persevering with Collins means it's all over for Leigh Bromby, who's surely a better bet than both of them. There'll probably be a next time.
Stone-faced Tony Mowbray's body language is awful and he mumbles like a granddad, but he's smart enough to say this performance was the culmination of several weeks' effort and he doesn't fall into the trap of saying how unlucky his team was. I pen my words, shoot off into the night and I'm home for Wallander. Things could be worse.

Playlist
R. Dean Taylor
Indiana Wants Me
Man kills man who upsets his ladylove. Goes on the run. The gun-toting police are coming and he knows it's the end and so he writes her a letter, regretting only that he'll not be seeing her again. All human life is here and you can scream along to the chorus.
On the fabulous The Essential Collection, which still forgets to include Window Shopping. Pah.