I played Resident Evil on the Wii for the first time today and unfortunately for me it is likely to be the last time I play it. The reason has nothing to do the game itself, it is as promised full of cool features and has lots of zombies to kill. However after an hour of game play I started to feel very ill and soon had all the symptoms of motion sickness. Whilst I have played some games before that bring on a migraine the next day this is the first game that has ever made me physically sick. Cool as the game is I won’t be risking another go and will have to be content with watching my husband play instead. I would be interested to know if anyone else has experienced similar problems.

I came across this article about a multibird roast that costs £665 and feeds up to 125 people. It is made up of 12 birds making it one of the biggest multibird meals in the country. It consists of a turkey on the outside, goose, chicken, pheasant, three ducks, poussin, guinea fowl, partridge, pigeon squab and quail and is so heavy it takes two people to lift it. The roast would take around 10 hours to cook. It looks very nice but it might be a little too big to fit into my oven.

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.

I read this article about some scientists who have created mice with no fear of cats. The scientists from The Tokyo University developed the mice by shutting down receptors in their brain that process information about smells. Usually the receptors would induce panic when a mouse smells a cat but with them shut down the mouse loses its fear. That’s all very well but I thought mice were meant to be scared of cats. The cat used in this experiment shows no interest in eating the mouse but my cats would hunt it whether it showed fear or not.

Scientists in South Korea have cloned a cat that glows. The cat glows red when exposed to ultraviolet rays. Three Turkish Angora cats were born in January through cloning with a gene that produces a red fluorescent protein that makes them glow in the dark. Although one died at birth the other two survived. It is thought they could be used to develop cures for human diseases. That’s all very good but how cool is a glowing cat?

A few weeks ago my main bank account was compromised causing me quite a few problems. I am now pleased to report that I have a new working debit card again and that all the fraudulent transactions have now been refunded.

I started reading the Wheel of Time series a few months ago after a friend lent me the first book. I loved the first one so being a quick reader I immediately brought the rest of the series. Unfortunately, though the author Robert Jordan died in September after battling a rare blood disease called amyloidosis without completing the twelfth and final book. His wife and editor has now chosen writer Brandon Sanderson to complete the series. He will work from draft notes left by Jordan as well as working closely with the editor. Whilst I am still only on book number five it will be interesting to see the outcome.

Nintendo are likely to hold back its adverts for the Wii console until the New Year due to the fact that it can’t keep up with demand. Nintendo have said that holding back adverts until 2008 would be a “responsible move”. They are likely to use the existing advertising slots to advertise the DS console instead. On our shopping trip at the weekend I noticed that there seems to be a shortage not only of the Wii console but also of other leading consoles such as the PS3 which also seems to be selling out very quickly despite the price.

If you don’t know what to buy for Christmas and have a lot of spare cash you might want to treat your loved ones to this really expensive cocktail. With a price tag of £35,000 for just one glass it is the world’s most expensive cocktail. The cocktail consists of a large measure of Louis XII cognac, half a bottle of Cristal Rose champagne, some brown sugar, angostura bitters and a few flakes of 24-carat edible gold leaf. If you fancy trying it you can purchase it at The Movida nightclub in London.

An investigation has found that some major high street stores have been selling real fur labelled as acrylic. One mystery shopper brought a coat from TK Maxx which has a no fur policy. It was later found that the coat had a real fur collar trim. The RSPCA has urged shoppers to double check any items that have a fur trim. As a guide if skin or leather can be seen between the hairs at the base when they are pulled apart, the fur is real. If a weave, or material, can be seen at the base, then it is fake.

We went into Staines today and spent the afternoon doing some Christmas shopping. The idea was to try and get it all done in one afternoon. What we failed to take into account was that everyone else in the surrounding area seemed to have the same idea. I wanted to purchase some perfume from Boots but found it was hard to find the brands I wanted in the store. Although I knew exactly what I wanted to purchase none of the products were on display and I would need to wait in a very long queue to talk to a shop assistant. Whilst I appreciate certain products are under lock and key for security reasons, having more than two staff on the perfume counter might have been useful at a busy time. Eventually I gave up. When I got home I spent less than five minutes ordering the products online instead.

The answer to that question is £790m apparently, well that’s accordingly to this article. A survey of 4,500 workers found that would spend around two hours and 18 minutes staring into space as a result of a hangover. That amounts to around £790m in lost productivity. The same survey carried out by Travelodge found that 30% of adults have called in sick because of a hangover, which they have passed off as another illness.

Our new oven and hobs arrived last Monday and I am really glad to see the back of the old one. The only problem is I had got used to having to heat the old oven for an hour before using it and then having to cook everything on the highest temperature. Now I have an oven that works perfectly I am finding I have to be careful with cooking times and pay a bit more attention when I am cooking. We have had a few burnt offerings this week, but I think I am just starting to get the hang of it.

I read this article the other day about a cat toilet that actually fits onto a toilet. The idea is that you start off with an actual litter tray which fits into the toilet bowl and gradually replace it with a smaller and smaller tray until your cat uses the toilet without needing the tray. The article features a video which explains how to train your cat to use the device. It looks very interesting but personally I don’t think I would use it because of hygiene concerns.

I took this picture of Ollie the other day as he was checking for danger before coming through the cat flap.

A very large truffle has sold for £165,000 at an auction. The truffle weighs 1.5 kg and was discovered last week near Pisa, Italy. The price paid for this truffle makes it not only the biggest truffle of the century but also the most expensive.

My husband came home with a Tom Tom yesterday which he had purchased as an early Christmas present for himself. We tried it out on a short journey from Egham to Maidenhead and found it performed quite well. You can read more about it here on my husband’s blog. Personally I found the best feature of the device was that it warns you where all the speed cameras are before you reach them which is really useful and could stop you getting any fines.