Well, its been a relatively abstentious Christmas break, thanks to the intervention of Tesco.
A couple of their Cold Relief capsules on top of an empty stomach on Christmas morning saw to that. Empty that is aside from the remnants of Christmas Eve's Speckled Hen and Bomber County swilling around my gastric pits.
Still, a clamped-up stomach's an effective way of stopping one eating and drinking too much. Ugh.
Hope that you all had a good one too.
And with that, may I offer you a personal digest of the televisual treats which on offer over the festive season, as Christmas is a time for children and for the BBC.
Eastenders - I missed Pauline Fowler's departure from this world, which is a shame, as I very much wanted to see the back of the old goat. Eastenders always gets very surreal over Christmas, with freak weather patterns, dreamlike theatrics, and bizarre characterisation, which makes it all the more fun.
Doctor Who - again, I missed the Christmas special, though my nephew has told me all about it. It was good, apparently. [I know that this festive review's not going too well, but hopefully it'll pick up soon when I get to something I've seen]
The Ruby In The Smoke - well, I missed Doctor Who, but I saw the Beeb's adaptation of Philip Pullman's novel starring Rose Tyler Billie Piper. Found it difficulting switching off from her Roseness, though, not helped by her appalling put-on accent making it sound as if Rose had gone back in time and was attempting to fit in, badly. Not to say that she was bad, just bad accented. Very much enjoyed it, though, even if my stupidity meant that I had to keep rewinding to remind myself what the hell was going on.
Dracula - another top BBC adaptation, but again slightly tainted by my inability to remove the key character (Count Dracula) from the actor playing him - this time, Marc Warren from Hustle, whom I spent the whole running time thinking he was Neil Stuke from 1990s flat-share sitcom Game On, and as such kept expecting him to start ranting about "ginger tosser Martin".
Torchwood - hmmm, the festively-dressed episode happened a few weeks back now, and closer to Christmas all of the Xmas decorations had disappeared. Must be something to do with time travel. Or the fact that "there's something in the darkness" coming for Captain Jack... [Jack Harkness... Justin Hawkins... The Darkness... there must be a connection...]
And that's that. And after that I tet you're so looking forward to my festive Film and Music Annual Review...