I have always thought that clowns are scary so was not surprised when I came across this article. It suggests that hospitals should not decorate wards with pictures of clowns because children are upset by them. In fact a survey of more than 250 children showed that they all disliked clowns and even teenagers found them scary. The fear of clowns, known as coulrophobia, can cause panic attacks, shortness of breath, irregular heartbeat, sweating, nausea and feelings of dread. Clowns are Evil.

I read this article about a 56 year old toaster that was purchased in 1951 and surprisingly still works today. Mrs Lopes purchased the toaster as a present for her parent’s silver wedding anniversary for £4 4s. Since then it has been put to regular use and is still in perfect working order. It seems that appliances used to be built to last whereas these days items are often cheaply made and tend to only last a few years if you are lucky.

I read this article about a website that has been set up to reunite people with their lost gloves. The website was set up by Jennifer Gooch and so far has reunited four gloves with their owners. She is now working on four similar sites for other cities as well as a book which will show the gloves she has found.

We have just got back from Sevenoaks where we spent a few days with my family, hence the lack of blog posts. On Christmas day we met my Aunt Shelia, Uncle Les, my Mum and Dad, my brother Kevin, cousins Jeremy, Martin and Simon, Jeremy's wife Michelle and Simons fiancee Lucy at the Halfway House for a drink before going to Shelia’s for dinner. Dinner was a turkey and a ham with all the trimmings followed by Christmas pudding. As always I ate too much and left feeling rather fat. On Boxing Day my parents and my brother came to us and we cooked prawns with a chilli sauce, a lovely joint of lamb with mixed vegetables and a cake for dessert. It was really nice for me to spend Christmas with all my family this year as it has been about 9 years since my last big family Christmas. Being with family made this Christmas all the more special.

I find that the Christmas break is a good time to catch up on a lot of those of jobs that tend to get neglected. I have just spent most to the day working my way through a huge pile of documents that require shredding. It’s a very boring and time consuming task, especially when you let the documents build up. I have managed to do about half of it, despite the fact that my little shredder frequently overheats causing the motor to cut out. I think its time to purchase something a little more meaty.

I think I am just about ready for Christmas, I have brought all the presents and we had our first Christmas meal yesterday. Our good friend Panos was kind enough to invite us around to his house. He cooked an impressive meal of turkey, mashed potato, roasted parsnips, glazed carrots and prawn salad. We also had a selection of three different sorts of cake for dessert. Needless to say I ate far too much and still have a fat tummy today. In just a few days we will doing it all again with Christmas dinner at my Aunts house. In the meantime I will eating salad for the next few days to give my stomach a bit of a rest.

I read this article the other day that suggests the chicken you buy from the supermarket could actually be months old. It suggests that a lot of poultry sold in supermarkets is actually imported from places like Brazil and Thailand and can often be weeks or even months old. The article also suggests that meat in products like ready meals could have been thawed and frozen several times. I find this particularly worrying as I tend to buy meat and then freeze it to use later in the month. I am starting to wonder if I am putting my health at risk through relying on the supermarkets to provide me with food that is fresh. The Food and Farming Minister is now backing a campaign to clarify the labelling rules so that customers do not buy a product made from thawed meat that they think is fresh.

Despite my best efforts to be organised this year Christmas appears to have crept up on me. Last year I had already brought all of my Christmas presents as well as all the Christmas food long before hand. This year, however, I have been so busy with work that I am really only starting to but gifts now. Luckily most of the local shops are open late at night this week so I should have time to go out and get some last minute gifts although I can see me having to a Christmas Eve trip to Sainsbury's for the food.

The price of a bar of chocolate will rise next year because of a rise in the cost of raw materials. Cadbury Schweppes have warned that a 5-6% rise in the cost of raw materials including milk, oil and cocoa will mean they will need to pass the cost onto their customers. Some prices are likely to rise as much as 6% with others increasing by less.

We went to a Christmas party in London this weekend at The Landmark Hotel and decided we would stay in the hotel rather than try and make it back. We stayed in one of the executive rooms and were quite impressed with it.



The room was larger than I expected and included a two seat sofa and armchairs with a coffee table and king sized bed.


The bathroom also included a bath and walk in shower as well as two wash basins and a generous sized closet complete with bathrobes.


The meal we had at the Christmas party was really quite good, as was the wine and champagne. The only thing that I thought could be improved on was the breakfast the next morning. We had opted for the buffet style breakfast which included the usual selection of bacon, scrambled eggs, fruit, yogurts etc. Whilst adequate I thought it a little overpriced at nearly £30 a head. We also ordered some toast which took some time to arrive as the person who took the order forgot about us, not quite the service I expect from a five star hotel. In all though our stay was enjoyable, and I would definitely use this hotel again in the future although not too often at a cost of over £500 for the room.

I took this picture of Oscar the other day relaxing with his toy.