... I may just revert to watching birds instead. Only the bastards still haven't finished off the bread I put out for them so I could steal their souls photograph them.

Today, my Grand Plan for the Watching of the Calories hit a massive stumbling block. It's Wednesday. The night of the Newton High Families' Group. And it was the Christmas Dinner.

This meant free food in abundance. And let's face it, it's hard to say no when you're constantly breathing the fumes of turkey, gravy and sprouts. When the food is unveiled and the cry goes out, 'come and get it!', it is apocalyptically difficult to keep ye olde arse in its seat.

Mind you, it could have been worse. I could have had a buggering big portion of chips for my dinner at work again. I had a 120-cal Cornish Pasty instead. And a triple chocolate chip muffin...

Christmas this year is a pain. Everyone's putting food in my face, nobody's telling me what they want (except one person) so I've only bought one person's presents this year. We still haven't got our decorations up... If you were to pull me up in the street and say 'you know, Kelza, it's Christmas?' I'd probably give you a very odd look and say, in genuine shock, 'really?'.

I don't know what to get for people. It's maddening. Especially since half of those people have already bought for me. I beg and I plead for answers as to what they want - even just a tiny hint - but everyone's just smiling and saying 'oh it doesn't matter. It's the thought that counts!'.

Fine! I'm going to buy everybody used underpants from the charity shop, that would normally just get chucked, and distribute them amongst said people! "Here you go, friends, it's the thought that counts!"

Zurie has been smart and saved herself by giving me a very specific present idea. So no used bloomers for her.

Rant over. How is life, in the realms of Kelza? Pretty good. I feel like I've been blogging non-stop lately about my war on my diet or my new voluntary job, so I should probably talk about something else. Something nice, and non-ranty.

Can you believe that the government are scrapping our CSI guys? How the bloody hell do they expect cases to be solved? I'm willing to bet that 75% of all cases are solved as a direct result of forensic evidence; the one kind of evidence you can't argue with. So, a fundamental part of the police force will be lost when their money runs out in January; meanwhile, all the other coppers have been reduced to pencil-pushers because of all these insane procedures they have to do.

Thank you, Tories, I feel so much safer knowing that you're spending money on things more urgent than the CSI. Because potential criminals aren't going to think that now Britain's forensics are going down the drain, they can go on crime sprees and get away with it.

While I'm at it, I might add that this government isn't a pissing coalition. It's a farce. It's blatantly obvious that it's a Conservative government, with the Lib Dems there as the smiley faces being used to pacify the little people. And even then it isn't working. I can't believe I supported Nick Clegg in the election. The things he promised would have been all well and good - had he actually stood up for himself and made those promises come true.

I can't help but feel that the only reason this government came to power was because people, blaming Labour for the credit crunch, voted Tories and Lib Dems for the reason that they weren't Labour. If so, then it's A) a stupid reason to vote for a party and B) it wasn't Labour, it was the bankers being pillocks with the world's money.

Okay, really, enough foaming from the mouth from me. Being relatively new to the whole work thing, I'm still settling into a morning routine, like the one I had with school and college, where I'd get in bang on time. Normally, when I walk into Earlestown, it isn't to get there for a certain time; I just go and get there whenever. As a result, I've either been cataclysmically late for work in the morning, or really early.

This morning, thankfully, it was the latter. I was fifteen minutes early, so to kill time I went and bought myself a notepad. The idea was to have something to work on during those rare, brief idle moments in the ExtraCare shop, such as when I'm waiting for the steamer to get going, the kettle to boil, during my lunch break, or nearing closing time when I'm working the till and customers are sparse.

This won't be a breakneck-speed project like 'The Chronicles of Stan' or 'The Great Couch Happening of '69'. I only did half a page on it today, in fact. It'll be written purely in work during those idle moments, and once I leave work (as, sadly, I will have to when I go back to Ireland) I'll just continue it as I would my normal novels.

It won't be overly long, either. As it happens, I'm quite good at 120 page novellas like 'Arcane Mathematics' and 'The Woes of Death'. This notepad is about 180 pages long so that's my goal. Preferably not exceeding, though if I have to while rounding it off, I'll just stick some extra pages in.

Curious about the plot? It's a prose piece, based on a certain script which I delighted you all with, earlier on in the year.

Amazon was being a pain recently. They probably haven't done anything wrong - this is probably more due to my impatience than anything else - but it felt like a few items I recently ordered were taking forever to arrive. Today, upon arriving at the Families' Group, the following exchange occurred...

DAD: Oh, by the way, a parcel arrived for you today.
KELZA: Oh?
DAD: Yeah - Vinyl Tap Records or something like that.
KELZA: (thinking it could still be a CD) Was it vinyl shaped?
DAD: Yeah, but it was only small. Like a single.

Turns out that what I thought was a fairly cheap copy of Caravan's album 'Better By Far' was a mildly overpriced album of the single featuring the songs Better By Far (Hastings) / Silver Strings (Richardson). But still, my first ever Caravan vinyl! Huzzah! I've been desperate to get my mitts on one for ages - be it single or album (though admittedly the albums would be preferred) - so here we have a start.

I think I need to get my arse onto eBay as well; it might broaden my vinyl shopping horizons somewhat. And clothes, too; I've seen some nifty, affordable vintage clothes on eBay.

Anyway, as far as Amazon is concerned, I'm satisfied... for now. I'll hopefully get the rest of my stuff over coming days, and then after Christmas is shifted it's saving time, baby! Money will be spent only on essentials. The rest will go towards getting to Ireland with all of my stuff.

God, I'd hate to have to go to Ireland without my belongings. I envision my stuff being fundamental to the whole settling in period of the move. Like if I'm feeling homesick, I can just read a book or stick on a CD or a vinyl and I'll feel more at home.

Ooh, one last thing before I go - I bought a cassette today. My first ever cassette, in fact. Barclay James Harvest, 'Turn of the Tide'. I believe Woolly Wolstenholme had left the band to pursue hiw solo projects by this point, but it's great to have another, albeit later, part of the BJH discography. Plus I get to give my cassette player, the up-til-now unused part of my record player, a whirl. Should be fun! I just hope the tape isn't damaged.