THURSDAY DECEMBER 14TH, ABOUT 9:00 AM....

Oh dear god is it morning already? Please y'honour, may I be excused from taking part in the world today? - I have a note from my liver....

What did I do last night? Got damned drunk and bought loads of stuff online that I really shouldn't have, eh? Mmm-hmm? Uh-huh.

Well on the plus side I should have a rather nifty (and excellently priced) replica of the Zatoichi (Blind Swordsman) sword, carbon steel and everything, on its way to me via the glories of our next-day postal courier network. Chances are I'll have it by January 8th or thereabouts, then

I should have bought it for someone else in a Christmas-generosity stylee, in all probability. Unfortunately for `someone else` however, I have a very finely tuned sense of what I like, and there ain't no way no-how that I'm gonna be agonising about all these presents for everyone else, and then leave the most important person right out of the picture!

No, if I find anything on my present procurement perambulations that's just too cool then someone else is gonna have to go without this year I can always duplicate the gift my Dad received from his loving & grateful son last year - a lump of coal, gift-wrapped (with shaking hands, mostly from laughing. No I'm not joking. Yes, it was quite the amusing spectacle, especially when he got coal dust all over his clothes and everything. Am I a bast***? Well yes, but its an acquired skill.).

On the note of Christmas, especially Dad's at Christmas, I feel the need to ask exactly why it is that they are so bloody hard to find presents for??!!? What is it that Dads sign up to upon becoming Fathers that totally nulls their ability to want anything halfway reasonable, interesting or tangible? There's probably a form somewhere that forces them to become intractable bastards about this time every year. Those of you (chaps) with children know what I'm talking about; you are the reason your families get stressed at this time of year!! hehehe

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Mothers are easy; Mothers have interests and hobbies, and they want new stuff for which to use within said hobbies and interests. Dads, well, Dads have everything they bloody need already and whatever they actually think they want is far too specific and tailored for anyone else to actually guess it right, and perish the thought that they could leave a discreet little list somewhere around the place so we'd all f***ing know!!

Old gits, they do it on purpose you know, its kind of like the reverse of how women test men all the time; this one is based on men testing their families all throughout the Christmas season, trying to keep us on our toes to see if we actually give a s*** about them enough to find something decent. Or to see if we've just been paying attenion actually its not the reverse at all its exactly the same as what women do ...

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Now there is a gripe among some people that the last-ditch book buying is the refuge of the ill-prepared and the unimaginative, and well, yes its true that books are an easy way out as long as you know people's interests and hobbies.

Thing is though, there aint no goddamned way I'm gonna even be able to get any time off work for real-life shopping with high streets and suchlike, being as I work 6 days a week, climb, dance and read or write for a whole evening after work as well, and have to fit a skirmish into my Sundays then I really have no time to shop anywhere but t'internet!

Lets hope everyone is gonna be happy with some illegally downloaded music, pornography, and toy guns this year

THURSDAY DECEMBER 21ST, AGAIN, ABOUT 9:00 AM....

Hey check it out, you've been time-travelling in my blog, how badass am I eh? Eh? Well I dunno 'bout that, but I'm a little bit less of a bas**** than I thought because I haven't resorted to wrapping any more lumps of coal up this year, and I now have presents for everyone which I think is amazing!

I also have 2, count 'em: 1, 2; Zatoichi swords one for my mate Dan and one for me - yup, they are that good. I'm chuffed to buggery with 'em, and Dan is gonna be over the moon.

I managed to find something for my Dad totally by accident as well; I pre-ordered the 25th anniversary edition of The Secret Policeman's Ball, a comedy event that ran in the 70's and 80's with every comedy giant of the time and a bunch of other famous faces too (Rowan Atkinson, Michael Palin, John Cleese, Tommy Cooper, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore et al even bleedin' Sting and Eric Clapton were involved!) and I did that months ago, totally forgot about it, and now it arrived on Monday and its the *perfect* thing for Father dearest.

That, and a few bottles of exceedingly fine Chianti, make his Christmas a pretty merry one, I reckon

Mother has books on Yoga, good books that I researched carefully. And some wine of her own, because we all appreciate a good ######-up at our place, even if it is only once a year

My friends made the real score this year though, Dan is getting a sword (I mean come on, he's not even expecting a christmas card and he's gonna be better off to the tune of one fine-*albatross* blade this year; yeah, I rock) the girls I go climbing with are each getting a Powerball which should help them out loads in improving finger strength and easing tendon aches, and half a dozen other people are getting books of varying degrees of sickness, practicality, and literary interest.

And Claire, who does my hair, is getting a David Hasselhof calendar. Its a long-running joke and she actually will put it up at work, I know it, so in essence I've forced a whole office full of people at B&Q headquarters to stare the 'Hoff right in his hairy pecs for the next entire year -

Christmas spirit? - my work here is done