Fri 1: My monthly electricity bill arrived and it was an estimate, except that after several months of them assuming I'd used 40 kWh they'd suddenly decided I'd used 192 kWh. The bloke on the helpline couldn't explain the massive hike ("no, I don't have electric central heating"), but when I gave him an actual reading he cut the bill in half. Sat 2: Blimey it's cold outside, that raw arctic cold which chills your hands to the bone, and so early in the winter too. Sun 3: Way out in borderline Harrow, far from any infestation of chain coffee, the Eat Well Cafe was packed with pensioners enjoying a Sunday morning fry-up, and the wafting smell of bacon was divine. Mon 4: On my trips to the library I thought I'd start making an alphabetical selection of acclaimed authors I've never read before. Last month I picked Margaret Attwood and this time I picked Iain Banks. She's winning so far. Next time I get to pick a C (and it won't be Catherine Cookson). Tue 5: While I was in Hanwell I went round the Millennium Maze because I'd never found it empty of people before. It's a satisfying challenge without being overly difficult - three minutes to the tower in the middle and three minutes back out again.
Wed 6: The escalators at Hyde Park Corner station have been given a full-on advertising makeover - Pepsi this, Pepsi that, Pepsi everything - to catch the Winter Wonderland crowds, and I find it hard to believe any family has changed its fizzy habits as a result. Thu 7: Ten silver Rolls Royces sporting Irish flags, along with numerous other mourners vehicles', descended on Bow Road for a showy funeral and parked two abreast. The local traffic wardens were having an absolute field day. Fri 8: The new number 1 is Last Christmas by Wham, just ahead of that ubiquitous song by Mariah Carey. Three quarters of the Top 40 is Christmas records! But this is for the period 1st-7th December so either people have gone mad, no decent new music exists or the chart ranking system is intrinsically broken. Sat 9: Loved the last of the three Doctor Who specials which ticked all sorts of throwback boxes, peeved the blinkered sticklers and then spun wildly into a completely new future... in its pants. Sun 10: Today I've been on Twitter for 17 years, which means if they ever introduce age verification I logically shouldn't need it. I did not appreciate getting a notification saying "Do you remember when you joined X?" because that brand abomination isn't yet six months old. Mon 11: You don't expect to suddenly bump into a vlogger and a blogger in a zone 4 park, but we duly interrupted our schedules to put the world to rights in the local cafe, and only on the way out did I worry that the bloke with a laptop on the adjacent table was smiling too much. Tue 12: If you collect tube maps, it turns out the new one (with Brent Cross West) comes in two different versions - one with a TfL Go app ad on the back and one with a Santander bikes ad on the back.
Wed 13: The newsagent at Canary Wharf expressed genuine surprise when I offered to pay for my Christmas Double Issue Radio Times in cash. It's gone up 25p to £5.50 this year. Thu 14: I went drinking in north London for five hours and only hiccuped twice. If I were rating the four pubs I'd put the food-botherers at the bottom, the top hat and whiskers clientele at the top, and the horns and the bookshelves in the middle. Fri 15: Today the Mayor revealed the new Central line moquette and announced its name - Tuppeny - and I just wanted to point out that I told you this three weeks ago. Sat 16: I've become absorbed by a Wordle variant called Victordle which is essentially a battle against a player somewhere else in the world. I'm significantly better at the Duel option where you race against your opponent than the turn-by-turn version where I'm only winning half my games. Sun 17: Uh oh, that's the first time I've ever seen parakeets from my window, and I fear it won't be the last. I heard them before I saw them.
Mon 18: Normally I walk through Nunhead Cemetery but on this occasion I followed Brockley Footpath, a long securely-fenced alley up the side of allotments and a reservoir. Blimey it goes on a bit, over five minutes with no exit routes, and it felt oddly oppressive for zone 2. Tue 19: I am rubbish at wrapping Christmas presents, although admittedly circular tins of official Coronation shortbread are a tough shape to get right. Wed 20: I used to get three months-worth of tablets in one prescription, but at a check-up in 2017 a doctor I'd never seen before suddenly said "oh we should only be giving you two". I've been stumping up six times a year rather than four ever since. Now suddenly, without seeing anybody, the allocation is back up to three months again. Hurrah, I reckon that should save me £30. Thu 21: Counting my Christmas card tally it looks like I've received one for each two I sent out (although knowing the Royal Mail it'd be reasonable to expect late deliveries). Several senders report a less healthy year than last year. Fri 22: The iconic Army & Navy Stores in Manor Park, purveyors of hi-vis and donkey jackets to the masses, closed down exactly three months ago. It has already reopened as the SS Superstore, a ubiquitous groceries/off licence/tobacco dispensary, and that's a little more diversity quashed.
Sat 23: Chatting in the hallway, the insider Big Brother gossip is that the new production team don't sufficiently respect the previous non-ITV series. Sun 24: I've finished yesterday's special prize crossword. The high jinks left me in good spirits. Mon 25: Ten two-word Christmas TV reviews: The King: blandly formulaic. Strictly: oh, them. Doctor Who: jolly soap. Masked Singer: for fastforwarding. Pottery Throw Down: pointless celebbing. Ghosts: fitting finale. The Piano: empty filler. The 1% Club: nicely constructed. EastEnders: convoluted rug-pull. Caroline Aherne documentary: tragic comedy. Tue 26: I beat my nephew at Monopoly, and admittedly it was a special variant of Monopoly which had been heavily discounted in the run-up to Christmas, and admittedly it was mainly thanks to lucky dice throws, but this never normally happens and hurrah, nobody asked for a second game. Wed 27: Worse than a rail replacement bus - a rail replacement bus overflowing with post-Christmas luggage which ends up stuck in a slow-moving queue of traffic halfway round a rainswept bypass so misses the over-generous connection at the destination station. Thu 28: On Christmas Eve Fred pointed out that London does in fact have a Bethlehem Close, so today I went out to Perivale during a cloudburst and paced the joint. I have therefore removed dull old Bethlehem House from my 24th December post and replaced it with three considerably more interesting paragraphs.
