Meenzer

Sam has their dad's work e-mail I think, but he wants to just give them a tenner in a card and be done with it because he's a grouch like that. But yeah, that's the fallback, obviously. I think a Gadget Shop knock-off clone has popped up in the local shopping centre for the month so I might nip in and see if they have any random cool useless stuff...

Ouch

Christmas shopping for the rellies is mainly all sorted - having some fairly adventurous readers and music fans in the family tends to make things easy - but I still need to get something for the kids of the Aussie wing of the in-laws who are over for one of their occasional visits. A 13-year-old boy and a 10-year-old girl whom I've met twice, three years ago, and about whose current likes and dislikes I have pretty much no idea.

http://fallondfloor.com/

I imagine he's used to it.

Worth looking around for Groupon deals, we got a bunch of Odeon tickets for £4 each recently. The very latest releases tend to be excluded for the first week or two but then I'm always slow to get to things anyway (only just saw Interstellar on Monday for example).

Flights for May, which is looking like being mental. Two weddings, one in London and one in Edinburgh, then flying from Edinburgh to Eurovision for some rehearsal blogging and snazzy Belarusian delegation partays, then from there to somewhere on the Costa del Sol for Eurovision week proper. The randomness of a Bratislava to Malaga flight pleases me greatly. If only it wasn't with Ryanair.

"Tinks", surely?

Thought this might be of use:

Charlie's been on the sauce again. Hang on... Charles Kennedy... Kennedy...

Besides which, I would hardly say that athletics is generally scared of banning high-profile names, just look at the recent history of doping bans in the sport. Obviously there's a credibility gap because they're then free to come back and compete despite (like Gatlin) clearly still being dodgy as fuck, but that's a different matter... Possibly different standards in distance (non-stadium/-Olympic) running though, dunno?

I wouldn't call Jeptoo a "little fish" from a world athletics POV

Still, we had our fun.

I don't mind the Small Foods On Big Plates approach if the small food is actually good. It wasn't.

"Bring him... hooooooooooooooome"

Very nearly got a kebab on the way back from ours. Mainly because the courses were things like this:

Excellent work all round if so.

There's your mistake right there

Oops. Belatedly fixed!

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/cheesy-sprout-fondue Anyone tempted?

I'd happily work Christmas Day if it meant escaping the mother-in-law's cooking.