Neither snow, nor rain

After the bright mornings of recent days, it was back to the darkness and cold rain again. I don't mind the cold, but cold and damp together is a dispiriting combination. Yuk.

Knackered now, from a trip straight from work to Ikea to buy a new bed and various other bits and pieces for Jamie's room. It was a reasonably pain free trip round and it wasn't too busy, so we had some fish and chips in the restaurant for tea. Yum.

Telly last night was the last, final, final bit of the X Factor which seemed more strung out than a kite in a force 10 gale. I didn't see any of the songs and just turned on for the final result but even that seemed to take more than half an hour. Neither of the finalists are particularly inspiring, but then again I don't tend to listen to music for the quality of someone's voice. Give me a Tom Waits or a John Otway any day who will belt out a song with gusto and emotion, rather than somebody who can warble a bland song with the notes in the right order. Last year's winner Leona Lewis is increasingly looking like the exception that proves the rule of X Factor mediocrity.

Much better was the final episode of the Thick of It with both camps preparing for an election battle with a stirring call to arms. The true irony is that politics, at least as portrayed on this programme, boils down to sticking one on the opposition, regardless of party, rather than any ideological conviction. We still have no idea of whether the governing party in the show is from the left or the right, and there is no way of telling either from their policies or their rhetoric. It's a cynical view, but it's probably an accurate one.