Well it's that time of year when two of my favourite shows start drawing to their inexorable close - Strictly Come Dancing and X Factor.
X Factor will finish tonight in a blaze of stage effects, judge's tears and testosterone now that it is down to Olly and Joe and for my part, I would love Olly to win. Entertaining, cheeky and gutsy...although it will be a fight to the end and in two hours time, the artist with the 'Christmas Number One' for 2009 will be announced...
But more than that, I loved this weekend's Strictly. All of those amazing, amazing performances and the most wicked Argentine Tango from Ricky and Natalie...I just so want them to win. So nothing pleased me more than to see them go through to next week's final.
So there it is - my votes for the winning performances. Saturday nights will just not be the same without them...
I am new to this whole Xbox thing...J has one hooked up to a flat screen tv that pretty much dominates his small living room and while I have developed a rather sporadic affection for A Kingdom for Keflings, my Xbox experience has been more opportunistic rather than particularly focussed...
...until now.
On a late night shopping expedition to Tesco or Asda (I can't remember which) a couple of weeks ago, J invested in Xbox Monopoly and it had its first foray into our world last weekend when we introduced J's son to its capitalistic delights. (And just so you know, I won...by a long way...aaaah I can hear my family groaning now!)
But last night, facing a chilly Saturday evening at home and without any pretense of 'oh how nice let's give this a try shall we', we let our most basic and fervent desires loose and submitted ourselves to this, the pinnacle of addictive power games. And after I had completely opened a serious can of 'whoop-ass' all over J, in our 1.30am rematch (he insisted - I was happy to rest on my laurels), he laughed smugly (I thought) as I managed the rather remarkable feat of landing on Park Lane and Mayfair (with buildings!) not only on successive turns but also on successive laps of the board. Game Two - Over!
At one game each, I can see that our future Saturday nights may now be dedicated to this bloody and brutal enterprise...
Let the games begin!
