What a year it’s been, eh? For most people, really pretty rubbish. Bad year. Bold 2009. Go and sit on the Naughty Step of Time and think about what you’ve done.

Yippee! I’m off to Dublin on Friday. It’s for a couple of meetings, so  not strictly a pleasure trip, but that night I’m staying with a very lovely friend of mine and her new puppy. I mean, come on: that’s too much fun in a bun right there. I haven’t seen her in ages and [...]

I’ve lost my voice. Well, not all of it, but I have misplaced a lot of it. The bit I haven’t lost I’m not using, for fear of losing it. It’s called full vocal rest; you might know it from off of the X Factor. It is the most boring thing that can happen to [...]

I never get sick. I don’t believe in it. So the last week has been a real eye-opener. I’ve had no energy, achy joints, a croaky voice and a strong desire to crawl into the dog’s bed and lick myself self-pityingly. (Maybe not the last bit. Well, maybe. It seems to work wonders for him.)

It’s a miracle. A little, silver miracle. Hard to imagine that something that can be delivered in the post could be so wondrous. It is new fangled and shiny and a technological breakthrough and it works. Wait! Let me describe the miracle; it is shaped, for all the world, like some kind of squat jug. [...]