polkadots and moonbeams

To Bafta on Friday to see all the winning and shortlisted shorts and animations from this year's awards. Like all these showcase-y things it was a really mixed bag which confirmed my opinion that like websites, short films are usually more fun to make than to watch... Yet one has haunted me for the whole weekend - Corinna Faith's almost unbearably moving drama Care . Small, simple, totally true and uncompromising it features an extraordinary performance by Peter Vaughan. Even in his chiselled old age he has an air of menace about him. Brilliant.

Watching telly last night I was struck by Mandy's close resemblance to the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz... and we all know what his problem was...

I'm too old, too wasp, too middle-class and just too busy to understand what motivates graffiti artists to risk life and limb in pursuit of their thing... but I often love their work and (yes, yes, I know it's illegal) it so often makes a dull place interesting. I used to pass this one at Vauxhall every day on my way to work and it's still as striking as the first day I saw it. Whoever created it I just want them to know that I really appreciate this free gift and I'm glad the London Transport Police haven't been able to get their bleach on it. Can't get Jamie Lidell's Multiply out of my head today. He deserves to be a big star.

...since that lovely day in Brighton that Brian has just recalled on his blog. It was a perfect day out and the pay off was being able to sit in a comfy bar on the pier watching the starlings doing their thing for nearly an hour. I don't really remember what the music was playing in the bar but now, of course, whenever I see starlings I think of lager and Hard-Fi's Living for the Weekend. So what on earth have I done with the whole year that's gone by since that day? Not much clearly - Venice, Spain, a bit of blogging, grown lemons and olives, family things, driving, worrying.... but nothing much really to show for 365 days. i could get all gloomy about futility and the passing of time but I think I shall go and watch telly instead. I wonder if Bill Oddie's on?

On the R4 show Genius a member of the audience had the troooly genius idea of genetically engineering very small elephants so that people could have them as pets. Tiny herds of these splendid creatures could then march elegantly across the plains of our sitting room carpets, grazing on very small plants along the way. Marvellous. I haven't told the cats yet, but if anybody does manage to breed very small elephants I should be the first in the queue...

My home is now wireless. It's very exciting. Of course there are now quite a lot more wires around the place than ever before and, for health and safety reasons, I now need a circuit breaker on the adapter in the office which looks like a miniature version of Clapham Junction but hey, I can now check my ebay bids from the kitchen. This has to be a Good Thing. There are several neighbours who've done the same but they've all chosen weird names (like Mr Holy NetGear) so I have no idea who they are if we meet in the street. It's taken a while to sort out (hence the lack of blogging) and then of course I forgot all my passwords for everything. But today it is all fixed and tidy... and I am listening to Jim Moray .

gawd bless him and all who sail with him. He looks so very lost in the Big Brother house.

We don't have them in London any more... or at least there aren't any round my way and I really didn't notice until they had gone. In Venice they were everywhere. I spotted three hopping cheerfully into a cafe. Am reminded of Barbara Windsor singing something along the lines of 'ain't it a shame sparrers can't sing' and wondering if she will ever do an updated version.

The Venetians really know how to make New Year's Eve worth celebrating....

Fortnum's window. Wonderland indeed.

Surprised to find myself in the Crystallised Fruit Centre of the Universe at the weekend. Every fruit imaginable had been drenched in and dusted with sugar and joyfully wrapped for Christmas. One shop had a river of fruit running through it. It all looked so lovely but, let's face it, crystallised fruit never lives up to the promise. The texture is always a bit weird and the sweetness too sweet. Gimme a packet of Fruit Pastilles any day.

...takes two or three days to prepare. It involves using a dyson, several plastic bags, a cocktail shaker, paint rollers and trays, an aerosol spray, lots of banging things on counters and sweat. This homage to Seventies kitsch cooking takes so much effort to make that you would actually lose weight just making it. However, I think Heston is missing a trick here. All the layers in his gateau have a perfectly acceptable, ready made, authentically 1970s equivalent which means you could knock together a Blumenthaley-stylee-gateau in about ten minutes and save a load of money. So here is my alternative recipe: For the biscuit base - use two or four Jaffa Cakes (this saves you having to make the apricot compote) Place a bar of milk chocolate Aero on the top of the base Add a layer of chocolate Instant Whip Add some cherries (glace or tinned) Add a good thick slice of chocolate Swiss Roll which has been soaked in kirsch Add another Aero (optional) Add another layer of Instant Whip Add some...

Brian's been blogging about funny foreign stuff so here's my contribution! The coffee is from Spain and is just the thing for a post-prandial pick-me-up, while the can of "refreshing water' was purchased in Japan. My all-time fave was a bar of chocolate I bought in France called Crap! ah - le plaisir de crapsiller. I ate it and it was indeed a plaisir. I should have kept the wrapper. There also used to be some French Lemonade called Shittt but they've stopped making that now which is a pity.

...than they used to be. In Days of Yore a cold was an excuse to snuggle down on the sofa with the cats, a pot of tea and High Society. Today, feeling coldy and unwanted at the various social things I had lined up I have spent the afternoon in the study with my credit card, Amazon, iTunes and Britart. I will not end this month (or the next) in credit.... The telly beckons now but I'm not sure I can face Planet Earth as apparently the Polar Bear dies. I still haven't quite recovered from the grieving elephants on BBC Two last week and am certainly too low on tissues to risk too much more Natural Cruelty. At least I still have the one millionth episode of The Archers on Tuesday to look forward to.

Mildly Diverting pointed this out to me today (in true Mildly Diverting manner) and, as ads go, it's mustard. Unlike the Budweiser ad mentioned elsewhere in this little blogiverse, this ad is aimed at me! Woo!

so far all my Archers predictions have been right. David has made a fool of himself. Ruth has fallen into the arms of Sam I Am. Kirsty has yet to find out the Awful Truth (heralding a long overdue cat fight in The Bull in which Jolene might have to intervene). No sex has taken place. I should have put on a spread bet at Ladbrokes. Meanwhile I am listening to the band with the fabbest name in the world, Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly and wishing I'd thought of it. With a name like that it wouldn't matter if all their songs were rubbish, but actually they're not bad and they've really cheered me up on this wet and rainy Sunday. They remind me a little of Pale Fountains - whatever happened to them?

...if everybody (and particularly those in public life) wore shoes like these.

I've been harvesting this year's chilli crop and there's a mini-Festival of Chillies going on in the kitchen. The purple ones which look like baby aubergines are really evil . If they were bagged in a supermarket they would need at least five chillies to symbolise how hot they are and as far as I know the scale only goes up to three. I haven't actually tried them myself but I tested them on a friend last night... he's still alive I think and his cold has gone, but I doubt he will be able to actually taste anything until 2007.

Sophie's back! So David is going to make a fool of himself and "aw naw" Ruth is going to fall into the muscular and welcoming arms of Sam. There'll be a cat fight at the Bull with Kirsty and somebody will leave Ambridge forever. There will not, obviously, be any actual sex.

in a rush this evening and bought lots of slightly wrong things - beef and heart cat food (instead of chicken and rabbit) and smooth instead of crunchy peanut butter. Bother. On the other hand, I did catch a glimpse of the Queen Mother's sprightly ghost in the ice cream department. Meanwhile, try as I might, I just can't seem to care about Nectar points. Am I alone in this?