Be careful what you wish for! There I was complaining about the huge beast of a car the garage lent me so I decided to ask them for something smaller. "No problem!" they said, although I think they may be taking the piss out of me slightly because they've given me an orange Twingo. Twingo? What kind of name is that for a car? And orange?! It's more than a little bit gay...

It's been a wasted kind of day. I spent so much time this week just thinking about cars and stuff that I forgot to think about the weekend. So I've done nothing useful and even went back to bed for a bit of a sulk. Stupid boy! Anyway, things are about to get a bit better: I'm off to worship the lovely Teddy Thompson!

Welcome to the weekend!

I finished work at lunchtime today so I'm already several hours into mine, although that doesn't mean I'm drunk or getting ready to go out, no such excitement here! What I do have is a belly full of ice cream and the overwhelming urge to sleep. Woo, rock 'n' roll!

I nipped into town for a haircut and ended up exchanging shop gossip with the barber. There's talk of Primark coming to town, which may excite some people but not me, I still wish Woolworths would come back. It's all looking a bit sorry for itself, so many empty shops. And when I was in the Post Office people were cashing giros, which I haven't seen in years. Perhaps now the government has decided we're officially in recession they've come out in the daylight to cash them?

I nipped into the bank to pay in a cheque - how old fashioned does that sound? - and the cashier asked, "have you had a letter about your account?" I assumed she meant about last week's fraud and said so, but apparently she was talking more generally. "Don't worry", she said, "it happens a lot. Take care of your card more! Not that I do, 'cos I know they'll just pay it back." Someone needs to go on a training course, and I need to think about changing bank again!

Other than that I'm a bit short on news. There's so much going round my head at the minute that I was awake at 5am, which was no fun and explains why I'm ready for bed now. I've been so preoccupied with the week that I forgot to plan things for the weekend, which was stupid of me but not really surprising. Something will come up I'm sure....

Welcome back to car corner!

I was at work before 8am this morning. Not because I love it there or have lots on, but because the only way I could park the big beast of a car is to get in before there were any other cars in the car park! I was hoping to explain it away with an "I'm so busy" comment, but one of my colleagues saw through it immediately, damn him!

Meanwhile progress is being made with my car. Finally the garage know what's wrong with it: it needs a new turbo. Damn. I was hoping it might be a cheaper fault. In fact practically anything would have been cheaper! I'm lucky enough to be able to afford to run a frivolous little car but even I was in shock when the garage told me how much it would cost. Oh well, it has to be done, it'll just mean beans on toast more often for a few weeks.

Thank goodness it's Friday tomorrow!

The car has been back at the garage today so they can have a second attempt at making it run better. The Service Manager phoned me at 4.30 and lost me as soon as he said "air mass meter". By the time he got to "flash codes" all I was hearing was "blah blah blah". They've kept it over night but it should be back tomorrow.

In the meantime I'm driving a Nissan Qashqai which not only has a stupid name but is ridiculously large! So big in fact that I'm scared to go anywhere in case I have to park it, because judging by the fiasco in the driveway earlier I won't be able to!

So I'm at home for the evening but stupidly forgot to buy a bottle of wine. Damn.

Before you go can you just take a look at the poll on the right hand side of the screen and tick some boxes. Thanks! xx

If yesterday was Blue Monday then today must be have been Have a Married Man round to play in your Lunch Break Tuesday. I had promised myself I was going to give this kind of think up but apparently I don't have the willpower...

It was also Face your DIY fear Tuesday because the three remaining pictures that needed to go up in the bedroom are up. Inevitably they're not quite level but I must be getting better at it as the first three took one-and-a-half plays of a Kylie CD to put up whereas these took half a Teddy Thompson CD, the CD being the official measure of time for DIY activities in this house.

Anyway, here are pictures of the pictures:



That's Montgomery Clift, from Red River if I'm recalling the drunken birthday meal conversation correctly.



Liberace - do you think I might be gay?

This one is my favourite:



The colours, the image, the subject matter, it's genius! They were all taken by Richard Heeps who is so talented I may have to stalk him. They were a gift from Jan, Barry, Ema & Alan - thank you all, they're gorgeous! xxx I think I may have run out of space for Art now, I wonder if it's time to start filling the garden with sculpture?...

And finally, today is also Jan's birthday: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! XXX

By the time I got to work this morning I felt inexplicably fed up. There was no reason to, it hasn't been a bad day, but I felt like that all the same. Well it turns out I had good reason after all - today is Blue Monday, officially the most depressing day of the year! Apparently there's an equation to prove it, although I can't find it online anymore, not that I'd be able to understand it even if I did...

Anyway, to celebrate - and to distract you from the fact that I have literally no news - I was going to leave you with New Order's Blue Monday, but that seems a tad obvious, so instead here's The Smiths:

I finally managed to hang the lovely pictures I bought in October:



It took more than an hour and by the time I was finished I was a nervous wreck! Of course they're not straight, but then neither is the house: the ceiling isn't parallel to the floor, the walls aren't parallel to each other, and the wall isn't even flat! So I picked a line that was pleasing to the eye and got as close to it as I was able. So not very then.

There are three more to go up on the opposite wall but I need a lie down and a drink before I can even think about those!

Yesterday was my first trip to London of the year, and also my first cultural thing: I went to see La Cage aux Folles.

I've seen the film it was based on, and if truth be told didn't really like it, but the musical is rarely performed here so I've never had chance to see it. This production had been very well reviewed and the cast was just about to change with Graham Norton taking one of the leading roles, but I wanted to see it with the original cast.

I'm glad I did because it was absolutely amazing! I expected it to be all glittery and full of feathers, and knew it was essentially a farce, but what I didn't expect was how sad it would be. One of the songs even made me cry.

You must know the story but if you don't here's the gist of it: two gay men run a nightclub in the south of France, one of them performing in drag every night whilst the other is the MC. The MC has a son, who the drag queen has essentially been a mother to, who announces he's getting married to the daughter of a very right wing politician, who is coming to visit. The son wants the drag queen to vanish for the visit so his Dad can pretend he's straight, with the help of his real mother, but she fails to materialise and the drag queen pretends to be her instead. Amongst all this there are dancers from their club performing fabulous musical numbers and a very camp maid.

The drag queen was played by Douglas Hodge, a proper serious actor who's done proper serious things and is straight. To be honest I was worried I'd not be able to get past the idea that he's a man in a dress and not get into it, but he's magnificent and you totally believe the character, who has far more depth to him than I imagined. I shouldn't have been surprised though as it turns out he was in Guys & Dolls when I saw that and was great in that too.

His partner was played by Denis Lawson, who it turns out has a really great voice! The rest of the cast were great too, particularly the dancers! They're an interesting bunch, all dancing in corsets and wigs, but they're clearly not trying to fool anyone into thinking they're women, there are no fake breasts and they're quite muscly, which is a really interesting way of doing drag. And boy can they dance!

What I didn't realise was that the song I am what I am came from this show - I always just assumed it was a big, gay Shirley Bassey number, but apparently not. Well of course it is, but it didn't start life that way. It keeps going round in my head and I'm sure I'll be singing it for days!

There's so much more I could say about this but I'll just go on for days and get boring, so go and see it for yourself, you'll be glad you did!