An entire packet of bacon in sandwich form, fried not grilled. Okay so I might not live long enough to get a telegram from King Harry (that would be hilarious and should be allowed to happen at least for a day) but at least I know how to enjoy a Saturday morning. I say morning, it was actually about half past one when I sat down with the above sandwich and a cup of tea. This came after walking Jack and so I made him a breakfast treat too using off-cuts of bacon and a boiled egg, who said I spoil my dog?

We had another lazy Saturday and eventually made our way to town to do some shopping and have a cup of coffee out, and when we got back I recorded this week's podcast while Mandi watched Strictly Come Dancing. I haven't paid much attention to this series for a few years, it was something that I used to watch with Emily when she was younger and I drift in and out of it by accident if I'm passing the television while a particularly good dance is taking place. Most of the time as soon as the dance is over and they run to the upstairs bit to talk to Claudia Winkleman I ask Mandi which one is the professional dancer and which one is the 'celebrity'. She usually tells me that the 'celebrity' is a cast member of Hollyoaks, which to my mind doesn't really count as being famous. 

As much as Bruce Forsyth isn't really someone you can really warm to, this was the sort of show he was pretty good at and Strictly isn't really the same without him. He was finding the live shows hard work and it was sadly too apparent that he was declining throughout his final episodes of the show. Brucie isn't in the best of health at the moment but has reportedly keen to make a guest appearance on the Christmas special this year. For someone so keen on the spotlight there is one way for Brucie to pull off the most spectacular stunt of all, he could be the final big name personality to die during 2016, the year of the celebrity death. If he really wants to steal the show he could leave it until Christmas Day, if he times it just right he could pass away quietly at home while the BBC broadcasts the Strictly Christmas special. Not that I want him to die of course because he hasn't done me any wrong, but I think this would be the ultimate showbiz goodbye.

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 This week's edition of The Sunday Alternative is here. 

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Today was one of those Saturdays where nothing seems to happen but the day runs away from you. Even though I like having a lie in and catching up with my sleep it pisses me off when I feel like I have wasted the day and won't get anything done. I like working hard but am also quite lazy and have blasts of both ends where I am extremely productive followed by my desire to go to bed and read a book. There are two books in my unread pile at the moment which is a worry because one of them is quite long (The Age of Bowie by Paul Morley, I'm about a quarter of the way through and Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division by Peter Hook which I haven't even read the back page blurb for). Even worse than that is that there are several unwatched DVDs in my collection (and some unwatched VHS tapes that I rescued from various charity shops) and even a couple of CDs that I haven't listened to. I just don't seem to have enough time these days even though I have managed to train my body to survive on just four hours sleep, which doesn't bother me until those evenings when my body and brain have a meeting and decide to have the evening off and throw the switch at around seven o'clock and send me into the deepest sleep imaginable. 

It took a while to do but I recorded this week's episode of The Sunday Alternative Podcast to put out tomorrow while Mandi was watching Strictly Come Dancing, a programme I can't watch - not because I don't like it but because I get sucked in to such a show and before I know it my podcast recording window has gone down the pictures. I had a brief spell of super organisation and found the ability to record several episodes at once to free up my time but ironically I haven't had the time to keep that up.

Amid all of this palava today, I only realised thanks to one of Mandi's Facebook memories popping up in my notifications (because I was tagged in it) that today is the anniversary of Jack coming into our lives. Three years ago Mandi adopted him from a foster home and brought him in against my wishes. It didn't take long of course for me to change my mind and now I can't imagine life without my boy. The best thing about today was taking him to the park and watching his enthusiasm for running for and bringing back his ball. We don't have a proper birthday for Jack but this is his special day.

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 This week's edition of The Sunday Alternative is here. 

Thank you in advance for donating using the PayPal button at the top of this page. It all goes towards creating podcasts, sketches, documentaries, films and more, all of which I will make available for free in return for your generosity.

For some reason, I thought that the city centre would be quiet this afternoon so close to Christmas. My logic dictated that everybody would have finished their shopping by now and that an air of calm will have enveloped the town. I had a little bit of work to do this morning so hid away in the office while Mandi went food shopping and got caught up with a few bits of admin before compiling the Christmas tunes I have selected for the Christmas edition of The Sunday Alternative. The Strictly Come Dancing final is on tonight and Mandi has been following it this year which has given me time to record the podcast (in theory) while it is on downstairs. Sunday is going to be busy this week so I won’t have time to record the podcast in the morning unless I get up earlier, which is never going to happen on a Sunday morning. Mandi has decided she wants to go to a Christmas carol service tomorrow, despite us both being atheists, so we need to be at my dad’s earlier so we can get there without rushing.

Once my work was done I took Jack to the park and spent an hour playing with his ball while I came up with another idea for a different version of A Christmas Carol. While Jack was sniffing around and going to the toilet in the bushes I wrote the idea down in my notebook and wondered just how many different takes on a 171 year old story I can come up with. Maybe I should give up on all my other ideas for various projects and just turn myself into a one man production line of ideas and bring out a different version of A Christmas Carol every year. I still fancy the idea of performing readings of the version that Dickens himself wrote especially for his public reading work, but I never remember it until it is too late. It is good that the audio books are still selling reasonably well and I am really proud to be a part of the canon.

My prediction about town being quiet turned out to be wrong, although I was lulled into a false sense of security due to the tram being almost empty. As usual the place was a nightmare not helped by the fact that I had to disappear off on my own to buy another gift for Mandi. Although I knew what I wanted I wasn’t sure where I should go to buy it and more importantly get the best version of it. While buying her present I was appalled at the behaviour of the customers in John Lewis. If you go in a nicer shop you expect the shopping experience to be more relaxed which is why I was disgusted to see people behaving as if they were in somewhere like Primark or TK Maxx fighting over items and pushing through each other to throw money around. My consolation is that it’ll all be over soon and we’ll be trying to find the best price on Easter eggs.

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Sunday 20th October

Yesterday was a total waste of a day as I managed to stay in bed until five o’clock. I remember waking up and Mandi was still in bed with me and her telling me it was two o’clock, so I assumed we weren’t bothering to go out for breakfast. Looking out of the window I realised that as it was pissing it down I was probably in the right place. I had said to Mandi that we should stay in and have a film day if neither of us wanted to go out, and that I would make us a plateful of fried egg sandwiches instead of getting cold and wet. Mandi was downstairs when I eventually rose from the best sleep I have had in ages, (even better than my three o’clock lay in on Thursday), and I did feel a bit guilty about wasting another whole day. Even if we didn’t go out it would have been nice to spend the day together without work getting in the way. Even if I wanted work to get in the way a little bit (catching up with the blog or uploading with my laptop on my knee while Mandi watches a film I’m not too keen on for example), it was too late in the day and I couldn’t really be arsed.

The fried egg sandwiches were also off the menu as Mandi had started to prepare dinner, so I had a shower and two cups of tea to wake myself up. For some reason I found myself watching Strictly Come Dancing with dinner, before we watched a film.

We watched Miss Potter, about the life of Beatrix Potter. It was an interesting enough story about perseverance and not compromising your work for the sake of selling out, but I must confess that Potter’s world of anthropomorphic rabbits and ducks means very little to me. Despite my marathon sleep-in I was still heavy of eye at around one o’clock this morning; I finished reading 24 Hour Party People by Tony Wilson and attempted to start reading Dead Famous by Ben Elton. I’ve never read any of Elton’s books before, but I spotted this as part of an offer when there wasn’t another decent book to be had which is how they get you with these offers of course but I wasn’t going to give up. How bad could it be? Ben Elton wrote The Young Ones, Blackadder and Filthy Rich and Catflap, so he has some goodwill left in the bank doesn’t he? A few bars left on his battery? I know he also created The Thin Blue Line and that absolutely fuck-awful The Wright Way but I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt when it came to the books. The blurb looked promising enough; a spoof of the whole Big Brother phenomenon in which a murder is committed in the house, it was written long enough ago to pre-date today’s celebrity ridiculousness in which everyone becomes famous simply for appearing on these programmes. However, I put the thing down and fell asleep so now I’ll never know. The luxury of reading time is something I rarely get at the moment so I’m afraid Ben will have to wait on my bedside table until I have some free time on my hands.

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