My horoscope for tomorrow in the Liverpool Echo is unusually precise:
VIRGO (Aug 23-Sep 22): Expect to find the greatest amount of co-operation from others around 09:30-10:00 this morning, so if you’re seeking some support or a bit of a favour, best try then!
My father only hit me once – but he used a Volvo.
Four days off work, and I’ve regressed into my unemployed state: I’m staying in bed until 11.30am and not bothering to get dressed until 1pm. It’s going to be one hell of a wrench going back on 2nd January (unless they’ll let me go into work wearing pyjamas at 11.30am).
In other news, I have a £10 gift voucher for figleaves.com, the internet underwear store. However, I have to spend £40 or more to take advantage of this offer. I’m not sure I can spend that much on underwear. Although they do sell thongs…
Today I used the bus to visit a couple of friends. Normally, even on a Sunday, I can have my pick of 6 buses an hour, or a fairly fast, frequent train serice. Today being Boxing Day however, there were no trains running and only two buses per hour. Every bus a single decker, and all of them packed full.
I was fortunate and managed to get on board, but at every stop more people piled on, until eventually the driver had to turn away passengers, who presumably had to wait half an hour for another bus which would probably be just as full.
This is, of course, one of those days when the powers that be tell us there’s “no demand” for public transport. :-/
I got the new Have I Got News For You Guest Presenters DVD for Christmas, and can now prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Paul Merton is psychic. From a show earlier this year comes this exchange about the Mars Beagle probe:-
SANJEEV BHASKAR (guest host):How will we know when it’s got to Mars?
PAUL MERTON: We’ll lose all communication with it.
Actually I suppose most people could have seen this coming.
If you’re reading this on Christmas Day, you must be really desparate to escape from your relatives. Anyway, here are some festive (and some not-so-festive) links to click on:-
If they ever actually do abolish Christmas, I want them to rename it Decemberween.
Mmm, Mum’s home-made pea soup: tonight’s batch was so thick that the spoon rested comfortably on top. I could have spread it onto a slice of bread like chicken paste if I’d wanted to.
Anyway, on to the important bit: How about a bona-fide, 100% official, 112-frame, trademark-infringing, FABland-nostalgic, year-2000-vintage Sun & Cloud Christmas Special then?
Seb’s having a full-blown Daily Mail Moment about people who try to ban Christmas imagery for fear of offending people — he’s even used the cliched "Political Correctness Gone Mad" headline!
It is a legitimate point, of course, but in general I don’t think "Christmas-phobia" is as widespread as the hysterical tabloids would have us think. I have, however, noticed that stupid, meaningless Americanism "Happy Holidays" creeping in a lot this year.
RISC OS is a very efficient operating system. Shame the people who sell it aren’t as good. I just got a letter from RISCOS Ltd which is dated 9th September, but the franked envelope is marked 22.12.03!
Fortunately it wasn’t anything urgent, but the idea that a letter to me sat on someone’s desk for three and a half months is not a reassuring one.
It’s taken a bit of fiddling, but I do believe the site is now officially Christmassy 
It’s not polite to make fun of people’s accents, especially when the person concerned has obviously learned English as a second language.
However, I was quite taken aback this lunchtime when the waitress in the Chinese restaurant asked me whether I wanted “regular Cock or diet Cock” with my meal.
I was ordering a drink, before anyone gets too excited.
CNN Rules! (look at the picture illustrating the article). This is nothing more than a cockup, of course, but it’s nonetheless fabulous for that.
Saddam Hussein is now in safe custody, following a huge effort by coalition forces, under the codename Operation Red Dawn.
Yes, you heard it right: they named the operation to capture one of the most evil and brutal men ever to walk the planet after a Patrick Swayze film.
I suppose I should explain last night’s entry. I was feeling more miserable than usual, because it was one of those times when I look objectively at my life and see nothing but an empty meaningless existence with nothing to look forward to. I really should look at fixing that sometime.
Against my better judgment, I went to the office Christmas party on Friday night. It was a swanky affair; unfortunately it was swanky with a silent ’s’. I have an awful, tedious job, and it’s bad enough having to endure most of my coworkers for eight hours a day. In the evening, when most of them have had too much to drink? No thanks.
So after 20 minutes of pretending to be having a good time, I gave up, excused myself and came home. So I watched Have I Got News for You (Boris Johnson, yay!), then put on my DVD of Beautiful Thing. It’s a good film — hard to believe the same writer came up with the utterly crap Gimme Gimme Gimme.
