December 19 (Sunday): This morning I wake up late and cold (9.30). Other than that though, TODAY FEELS LIKE CHRISTMAS!

Mum doesn’t bother to phone me about meeting up to go Christmas shopping in the end, which is half a blessing in disguise because shopping with her is a fucking embarrassment sometimes.

Almost immediately though, I pull myself together and head out for a bit of Christmas shopping myself, my first bout of Christmas shopping this year (until now it has all been a bridge too far). I fly straight into town and set about looking for the Band Of Brothers DVD boxset for dad. This looks likely to cost big bucks but at least it is something I might want to watch myself (ho ho). After a couple of false hopes, I hit paydirt as I find it already in the HMV for £34.99 reduced for £60. Ha ha, that gift will look extravagant when I remove the sale sticker. From there, now high and getting weary from too many moronic fellow shoppers, I look for a new coat for me but they all really suck and then I bump into Dan from Dead Rat Orchestra/Mutebox who says “hi” when generally he doesn’t. It cheers me up, especially when I had been skulking around town with my head down hoping not to see anybody I knew/know.

From there I head over to Asda to get some bad health food to cheer me up and give me a bit of go (I appear to be comfort eating in these times of apparent turmoil). I drive over to Asda thinking just what a cool name for a band Dead Rat Orchestra is and ironically I bump into Jo from Dead Rat Orchestra (and also Calaco) in Asda. He makes comment that I look the happiest and least stressed that I have done in months. I guess my “break” is agreeing with me.

With further smiles on the brew, I head over to PC World. It appears when I do Christmas shopping I work on the “one for you, one for me” concept and I go to PC World with the intention of perhaps buying the most basic of digital cameras. And indeed I get one as some poor late middle aged man in a silly baseball cap charms me into buying an HP camera for £100 (straight onto the credit card baby!). For £100 though, it looks pretty good. Retail therapy gets well and truly accomplished and works wonders with my psyche.

The Stanway Tollgate (where PC World is) also lays home to a McDonalds and I find myself really tempted to get myself a Happy Meal or something as some kind of perverse treat but I make the best/wise decision of opting out, more for monetary reasons rather than health. McDonalds grub isn’t that unhealthy really anyway.

I return to the flat pretty much popping but unfortunately someone (some arsehole) has parked in my (allocated) parking spot. My buzz gets hampered briefly but I shy away from taking my golf club and smashing in their lights, which is what I usually do to cars parked in my space (joking).

I get inside and flip on the TV and Jingle All The Way is on TV. I actually really like (enjoy) this film but this is the first time I realise that the kid in it is Anakin Skywalker from the first Phantom Menace. Duh! Also the late great Phil Hartman (Lionel Hutz, Troy McClure) is in it, so it’s a goer.

I make a phonecall home to see what’s what and I get dad on the line. Seems he has finally come out of his room and that mum went out shopping somewhere this morning. Me and him talk/chat at length and we don’t skirt around the shit. He sounds genuinely down as opposed to pissed off and angry. Crazy situation.

Today Millwall play away at Leeds. I was really hoping this game would be on Sky but no dice, its just on a Sunday to prevent crimes. By the sounds of it however it fails to do so as trouble occurs late, after the game when Jody Morris steps up and scores a late penalty (another late goal!) to equalise and make the final score 1-1. Morris being an ex-Leeds player really doesn’t help goodwill to say the least. And he isn’t Millwall’s usual penalty taker (Harris is but he can currently be found in Cardiff, where he scored yesterday). Really could have done with a win though.

TV only improves as it reaches car crash proportions with the surprisingly, incredibly watchable Scrooge/Christmas Carol TV remakeover starring Ross Kemp as Scrooge. And Scrooge is now a debt collector/loan shark. Its pretty hilarious for all the wrong reasons. And Warren Mitchell (Alf Garnett) pops up in it as his Dad and the apple of his eye is the fit blonde bird from The Commitments (back in the day) now looking pretty ordinary. This is Christmas TV par excellence, making the most out of very little at its disposal (ha ha).

I phone home once more and this time get mother. Seems she went to Ipswich, thinking I was too fucked off to join her in Christmas shopping (to be honest though, I think I did better off on my own, I got a digital camera!). The latest news from home is now that there boiler has packed up and their heating with it. At least however it sounds like some kind of truce there has occurred.

TV continues to score this evening when LA Confidential is on BBC2. It seems really short in comparison to previous times and I find myself not wholly interested/captivated by the movie despite understanding it and its politics and corruptions more than ever before.

Instead, I spend a lot of the evening running searches on Google to see where and how my Blogs appear in search engines. And it is very low. Now I begin to wonder and become suspicious about the ins and outs of my dismissal apparently due to the discovery of one of our client’s names typed into a search engine revealing my website. Performing this little exercise however makes that sound kind of unlikely and once more I begin to suspect that someone actually blew the whistle on me at the firm, especially in the light of my ex-employers failing to actually produce a report for the hearing and/or reveal their sources. I begin to feel even more victimised than ever over the whole incident, especially in the light of the Christmas season and Scrooge concept (ho ho).

Tonight, I can’t sleep. I worry about things and find myself still awake at 6AM after a few restless attempts at sleep. I attempt to watch Garden State again and do so and yet again it fails to float my boat, coming over like a good idea that did/does not reach fruition or even completion.

np: The Go! Team - Ladyflash