Christmas List

Christmas is over; how did it go?

- Presents. Ms T gave me a GPS that straps to your wrist and tells you where you are, where you've been and how quickly you've been getting to where you want to go! Then it plugs into the PC, and generates a friendly map showing how fast (slow) my meandering around the park has been. This could be a hit if I marry it to an OS map; we'll never get lost during a Time Out Country Walk again.

- Eating. My God, how we did eat. A whole ham was demolished on Boxing Day. But while delicious it was all very rich, and I started yearning for some spaghetti.

- Cats. Losing Harvey has been like eating grit. I hate that he's gone and I won't speak of it to Ms T because she'll get upset. The other two cats are fine, and apparently sanguine about his disappearance.

- TV. Quite good. Liked Gordon Ramsay's American Kitchen nightmares, Catherine Tate made me crease up but I fell asleep during To The Manor Born. Loads of movies were on, but I missed them all.

- Friends. Saw whole squads, and it was good. A surprising number of people didn't leave London this year, despite the evidence of the startlingly quiet streets. Ms T cooked till she dropped, then got up and cooked some more.

- Work. The newsroom was actually quite fun on the night of Christmas Eve. I shall say no more on this, lest my observations are passed to the Daily Mail or something.

- Books. Imperial Life in the Emerald City, by Rajiv Chandrasekaran; a gift from Ms T and a must-read for Iraqologists, ie me.

- Weather - scraping the ice off the car then suddenly all warm. Weird.