5 Star

I'll be the first to admit Norwich have not exactly had the best of seasons so far. However, after this afternoon's victory over Leicester is out 5th in a row! All of a sudden, a quick return to the Premiership is starting to look realistic. Hope they can keep it up in 2006!

So This Is Christmas

So that's it, over and done with again for another year. For some reason, I still always look forward to Christmas with some level of anticipation and excitement, despite the fact that the reality never quite lives up to expectations, and this year was no different.

It’s not that I had a bad time or anything. As per usual, I spent a few days at my mum’s in Norwich, just the two of us, plenty of food, drink and extra-dramatic soap storylines. But in the preceding few weeks when I imagine what it's going to be like, I always have in the back of my head, a – probably rose-tinted – memory of childhood Christmases where it's all nice, safe and cosy, and probably a bit picture-book, and whilst I know it's not going to be exactly like that, I always expect my Christmas to at least evoke similar sorts of feelings. But the reality is, it doesn't take long for the fact that my mum and I don't really have that much in common or that much to talk about beyond banalities to surface, and that a 38-year-old man is never quite going to relate to the occasion nor the wider world at large in the way he did when 10.

Still, never mind. It was "OK". Just enough time to enjoy being looked after, cooked for and catch up on my sleep before starting to feel smothered. And I did enjoy the big treat that was the special new Dr Who episode - The Christmas Invasion. A good way of introducing David Tennant as the new Doctor and get all the difficult stuff about why he looks different etc out of the way now, leaving the forthcoming new series ready to go straight into "proper" stories.

And now, back in London, I am eagerly anticipating the Duckie New Year's Eve party. Unfortunately it looks like we are certain to have a tube strike that evening and the next morning; luckily I should be able to get there using overground trains and a bit of extra walking. As for getting home again, haven't got a clue, but it's only been the past 2 years that the tube has run all night and I've always somehow managed to get home in earlier years. And I’ve just ordered a new TV, which should be delivered on Sunday 8th. Hurrah!

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As a reward for all our hard work this year, my team leader took us out for a delicious lunch at Wagamama's today. As a result, a woman I work with now thinks I am a Goth.

That'll teach me to make flippant comments about wearing black clothes.

RIP Club Le Strange

Thursday evening saw the very last Club Le Strange, the monthly comedy night hosted by the self-styled Byronic Lord Of Pop, Gary Le Strange. And, after a rather lacklustre night the previous month, I'm pleased to say he went out on a high.

I particularly enoyed the Katie Melua/Werewolf woman who certainly provided a new angle to The Closest Thing To Crazy. I absolutely despise the real Ms Melua and the dreadful safe, bland, coffee table, lift music that she produces; not only for the fact that her music is complete crap, but also for the fact that she seems to have suckered millions of people into liking it too. Shame the woman herself wasn't there, it might have given her some inspiration for a change of musical direction or something. Highlight act of the night, and rightly the last one, was dubious "children's entertainer" Jeremy Lion. A very generous man, he came armed with several bottles of wine and plastic cups and handed both out to the audience (or at least the front couple of rows). If I'd have known in advance, I wouldn't have bought that third pint. Anyway, he saved plenty of wine for himself and treated us to a drunken rendition of The Twelve Days Of Christmas, after showing us the educational snowman, that is.

Unfortunately sitting next to an ill Ian for two hours seems to have rubbed off on me; I started feeling ill myself at work on Friday afternoon and got progessively worse during the evening so that has scuppered my plans for going to Duckie this weekend. As I now seem to be improving, it looks like I'll be fit and well by Monday morning, just in time for work. What a considerate virus. Still, with the Retro Bar Xmas party next Thursday, if I'm going to be ill, it's probably best to get it over and done with now.

Done It Myself

After seemingly ages, I have finally finished painting my bedroom. Doesn't look too bad, does it ?

On Friday evening we had our annual big company Christams party. And I have to say, it was one of the most boring evenings I've had for ages. I think I have to be in the right frame of mind to deal with the mind-numbing mediocrity of the majority of people who work at my company. The food - an oriental buffet - was not up to much either and was going cold by the time it landed on my plate. I did have a delicious creme brulee for dessert which turned out to be the highlight of the night - unfortunately it left me too full to partake of the chocolate fountain that was also on offer. And perhaps unsurprisingly, no other hitherto unknown or suspected other company homosexualists revealed themselves at me nor threw themselves at my feet declaring undying love. Probably just as well given that I'd have probably already lumped them into the "mediocre company employee" category!

Postcards From God

On Tuesday I went to see a rehearsed reading of the musical Marcus is writing called "Postcards From God", about the life and work of Sister Wendy Beckett, the art-loving nun who improbably shot to fame via her TV show. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, for a start I didn’t even know what he meant by a “rehearsed reading”.

The evening started badly for me, thanks to some drunken football fans causing trouble at a tube station further down the line, my train was delayed by 15 minutes, hence I only arrived in the nick of time and so didn’t get a program or a complementary glass of wine. At least I didn’t have to sit around for ages waiting for it to start. I was surprised by the size of the audience, I was expecting it to be quite a select and intimate gathering, but the room actually turned out to be full with several hundred people! Maybe Sister Wendy had a word with ‘im Upstairs or something.

As for the performance itself, well it seems like “rehearsed reading” means the participants basically read (and sing, it being a musical) the script out, including the stage directions, but in the manner they would when acting for real and speaking from memory. It seems to be a way of giving us a flavour of the show whilst it’s still very much a “work-in-progress”. It was very well executed, the songs were clever and witty and a lot of hard work had obviously gone into it. I don’t really know that much about Sister Wendy herself, but it sounded like she has had an interesting life (well, most nuns don’t end up with their own TV show for a start!) and therefore an appropriate choice of subject for a light-hearted, offbeat musical. Although at the time I didn’t really think it was my sort of thing, having thought about it on-and-off for the past few days, I’m now quite curious to see the finished show; not sure when it will be ready, but probably several months into next year.