Happy 2010

I hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Year. I've approximately doubled in weight over the past two weeks. Luckily the house is now running out of free chocolate and beer so I'll soon be able to restore vitamin levels. I began today with a breakfast of Shredded Wheat and a glass of apple juice, which left me feeling rather pleased with myself, so I for lunch I had two mince pies, three slices of chocolate log and a bundle of chocolate fingers.

It was supposed to snow in the 'Grove between Christmas and New Year, but it didn't, which was annoying because it seems every other postcode in the country got snow, even too much snow, and poor Kim the Dog was deprived of her yuletide frolic.

For New Year I drove up to see moogdroog, who decided that it would be more fun to spend the last night of 2009 staying in to watch surrealist Czech short films than going into town. She was actually right because town was probably full of people, and people are filthy and annoying.

Personally, I think New Year TV programming should consist of wall-to-wall Jan Svankmajer reinterpretations of It's a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol.

Over the break I watched three movies at the flicks, but none of them made much of an impression. The Coen Brothers' A Serious Man was good but nowhere near as interesting as The Man Who Wasn't There, as funny as The Big Lebowski or as gripping as No Country For Old Men. Avatar was basically the souped-up body of a Ferrari hiding the engine of an Austin Allegro, but you don't realise until you're half an hour into your journey and by then it's too late to turn back. Sherlock Holmes was most fun of the three, and gets points for being the first Guy Ritchie movie since Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels that doesn't make me want to stab Guy Ritchie.

I also read Ian McEwan's newest book, On Chesil Beach, which Dad got for Christmas and I temporarily stole. It was very very good and made me sad.

Back to Vienna next Tuesday. What larks, eh Pip, what larks!