Turn off Southern FM for a second and listen, very, very carefully.

Echoing up and down the land is the gleeful cry of the student hordes, pressing the fateful "balance enquiry" button on the cashpoint and performing a costumed dance of victory for all those watching in the precinct.

As a child, my mother always made sure I was well educated as to the fickle nature of the balance enquiry button.

"Don't press it, Lauren.

"The balance enquiry button will never be your friend.

"It delights in toying with one's mental well-being.

"It will gaily toss you around in its clammy palm as though you were nowt more than silly putty.

""It will cheerfully propel you from a state of blissful ignorance and believing M&S ready meals to be reasonable, basic sources of nutrition, to a place of abject horror and possible heart problems, pulling back the comforting curtain of the generous guesstimate to reveal that you are in fact a wildly irresponsible person and M&S ready meals are, of course, manna from heaven the likes of which you will never enjoy again.

"You actually are silly putty, of course, very silly, and at the touch of the balance enquiry button, you will be reduced to your true gooey state."

Of course, I don't believe these were the exact words, but there's a lot an eight-year-old can interpret from a wince, a groan, and the refusal to buy Dairylea Lunchables again.

So, I have heeded this sensible warning and come to regard the balance enquiry button like The Railway Children — only to be approached once a year, because I know I'll be crying for an hour afterwards.

Today, however is the exception.

Today is different.

Today, the collective goodwill of the student population is casting a warm, happy glow over the British Isles, as we skip merrily down cobbled high streets, our velvet purses clinking with golden pennies, wave silver tankards in taverns and sing Consider Yourself from Oliver!

Can you feel it in the air?

I believe when Andy Williams sang about the most wonderful time of the year, he didn't, in fact, mean Christmas.

He meant today. Ladies and gentlemen, today the balance enquiry button has buried the hatchet and become one of the good guys.

Loan day is upon us.

The wonderful magic of loan day is the illusion — for a few beautiful hours, you truly believe you are rich.

Your bank account bears a four-figure number, and what is that but the dizzy heights of avarice?

I could do anything!

I could buy name-brand pasta sauce!

I could go to Urban Outfitters and try things on without weeping.

The world is my oyster, which I can now afford to eat, washed down with caviar-flavoured Verve Cliquot.

In fact, the world is my Oyster card, which I can finally top-up and jaunt as far as Kent just for the heck of it (apologies to baffled Worthingites for unnecessary references to London transport systems.
Next week I'll slag off Teville Gate or something, to set the balance right).

But then comes the realisation.

It is then you are reminded (possibly by the big blue telephone from Loans Direct following you into Topshop) that you have a sum adjacent to a WAG's wedding bill to pay in rent.

And whoopsie, you've maxed out the overdraft in the conveniently-forgotten-about other account you use when your normal card gets rejected.

And you haven't paid the gas bill because you thought the red envelope was just them being festive.

And you owe your parents amounts that hugs just won't acquit any more.

And in your previous montage of Dickensian jollity, you gave 50 quid to a stray dog in a top hat.

And you've just bought five M&S ready meals for dinner. Stop it! Stop it, now!

So, there we are. In the space of 600 words I have ridden the loancoaster from despair to joy to despair again, and wasted the whole giddy experience on you folks.

The next instalment comes in after Easter, and then, if you don't mind, I shall savour every precious moment to myself.

In the meantime, give my regards to the balance enquiry button and don't tell npower where I'm hiding.