December 30 (Thursday): Bogey! Bad daze, I wake up at 7.15 with the mother of all headaches/migraine/tumours. I look at MSN and Sara is online, I am officially avoiding her, too much hassle.

Looking at the BBC website and a blog story has finally appeared and unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) I have/do not get a mention in it. I guess my fifteen minutes are still out there waiting.

Today is about buying a new coat. For some reason mum insisted on giving me a oner (£100) for Christmas to buy a new coat and right now I can’t find one I like to save myself. As a creature of habit, I want exactly the same coat that I have now, only without the holes and with a lining (ho ho). The plan for today is to check out the Gap in Ipswich for the real size of the coat that I saw yesterday. And failing that, a trip to Chelmsford may have to occur.

I try to leave early, I really do but everything holds me and I just find myself moving really slow this morning but eventually I get out and go.

Ipswich is a funny place, it sends chills down my spine and memories can surging back of good times and bad. I used to come here with a lot of regularity, especially for the four seasons when me and Dad had a season to Ipswich Town Football Club. Then enough was enough.

Today I immediately head for the Gap, strongly avoiding Portman Road. I go into the Gap and it is pretty different to the Colchester branch. Who says corporate chains all look the same? Sadly however, this poxy shop doesn’t have any of those coats I like. Not small, not large, not XXXLLLL. Nothing.

Discovery however, I find some bookends in WH Smiths, the ones that are sold out in Colchester. Bang bang!

Things seem to be better in Ipswich. The girls are prettier and I head to the HMV and the sales are better. Catching my eye (and into my car) go Fight Club double disc, Biggie And Tupac and the Animal Factory for £20.

Feeling guilt, I continue looking for a coat, first going in the “cool” shops and then winding up in the “desperate” shops such as Littlewoods. And that is the shop I find myself in when Chris phones me up on my cellphone asking me if I am going to Ipswich or Chelmsford today. Too late. Suggestions get made about me maybe still going to Chelmsford but by now I find myself thoroughly fed up with shopping, expressing on the phone that “I feel I’m about hit to start punching people”, prompting a fearful/weirdo look from a little old lady.

Eventually I wind up at the Buttermarket, which is Ipswich’s mall but not quite full of mallrats. Here I think I hit gold when I discover the Ipswich TK Maxx, its not all gash in there you know. Except today it just is. I leave the store giving up on finding a coat today but happen across a rather to do store called Addlers. Wow, never been in here before and its quite the store for fuddies. I go to the posh bit and come across the big coats and find some in the sales. In order to appease Mother, I buy a coat in the sale, £99 apparently reduced from £200, just the kind of coat Mother will like. Am I turning into Norman Bates coat purchaser?

I leave Ipswich coat in bag/hand and exit this time via Portman Road. I take some pictures of Ipswich with my digital camera whilst driving and head home to my parents, stopping off at the Ipswich Tesco on the way.

I get home to Clacton/Holland in the best time and upon arrival Christmas appears in full swing and everyone remains relatively relaxed and happy. When I get home, Empire Strikes Back is on TV and watching some of that turns out to be a must do. And with Sky in da house, I find myself sitting down to watch the Wrestling Channel and a Shoot Interview on it with the Road Warriors/Legion Of Doom. Very productive, very mature.

Eventually I get into some writing before having a hot dinner, my first since I was last around my parents. Afterwards I get back into writing while the old man watches Porridge the movie on TV and it turns out that it was filmed at the Chelmsford prison. Small world.

Tonight is the Christmas TV I have been most anticipating, the Peter Cook and Dudley Moore biopic “Not Only But Always”. And it turns out to be fantastic, not too sentimental and not too overblown or dramatic, it seems to capture the correct pitch with which to be effective and believable. The guy playing Peter Cook is the drippy (cheesy) Welsh bloke from Notting Hill but he puts in a fantastic performance. Before hand I had been told the film may not be so good because it portrayed Peter Cook is such a bad light but being an audience knowing what to expect and still being in his corner/on his side, a certain understanding is lent to these actions and a blind eye taken in the process. I watch it and realise that I already know this story quite well, I have seen it a number of times before in a number of documentaries (always essential viewing) and I do question whether it is required to delve any further in the story now but we’ll see, anything that gets Peter Cook back on TV has to be a good thing. Strangely (wrongly) the thing that freaks me out most about the movie is how much the guy playing Blake Edwards looks (and acts) like William Shatner. Surely not intentional.

I experience a really bad night sleeping on the sofa, after some sleep I awaken at 3.30AM mulling things over, never to really get back to sleep again, throwing in the towel when mum starts moving around the house at 6AM next morning. A bear with a sore head day looks ahead of me for the New Year.

np: America – Horse With No Name