From start to finish. Christmas shopping all done. Being broke does have its plus points. Gone are the days when I’d start the master list in July, start shopping in August and be gift wrapping until for 12 hours until the wee hours of Christmas morning. Instead I took a single list, a small amount of cash and hit the shops with a three hour deadline.

Highlights of the afternoon:

• Finding cute-as-pie pyjamas for the granddaughters reduced to £3 a set in the pre Christmas sale.
• Being served coffee by the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Her smile lit up the room.
• Asking advice on finding a book suitable for a Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, etc. fan to find that the extremely helpful chap in Books Etc. was American, blog-aware and happy to point me to book I think he’ll love Eric Scholosser’s Reefer Madness.
• Racing back to the car at 16:24, sure that we’d overrun our three hour Pay & Display ticket, to find that it was valid until 16:24. Wheeee!

p.s. I had some Christmassy links saved up to share but the gremlins seem to have eaten them so I’ll point you instead to Graeme’s fine collection over at Lazy Laces.

how good television can be as a distraction or maybe it’s because a mini miracle occurred this week and there were two movies worth watching – Kinky Boots and In Her Shoes.

Kinky Boots is a lovely story, a little contrived in parts but well worth watching for a good script and excellent performances. In Her Shoes was quite a surprise – Cameron Diaz especially. But one up for the wrinklies – the best parts of the film are definitely those that take place in the residential home. Both films highly recommended for chill out time.

But it’s to the wireless I turn for hours of entertainment and there’s a huge amount of good programmes coming up this Christmas – so many that I’ll have to write a separate entry but in the meantime you might like the opportunity to listen again to We’ll Keep a Comic in the Hillside, a two parter in which “Welsh comedy writer Stephen Carver asks if there is such a thing as a distinctively Welsh sense of humour”. Part 1 is on at 23:30 GMT (about 40 minutes from the time stamp of this post), part 2 at the same time tomorrow night and both will be available for seven days on the Listen Again page.

The Afternoon Plays this week have also looked interesting so I’m saving them up for a bumper listen on Saturday while cleaning and packing to head home to Wales. Tuesday’s in particular – Martha My Dear by Annie McCartney – looks like good fun:

Martha has always been an agony aunt for her wayward friends, but the publication of a steamy bestseller casts doubt on dear Martha’s confidentiality.

I’m avoiding writing about the events this week, partly because I try and avoid four letter words used in anger (here at least) and a certain funeral parlour deserves a whole string of ‘em so I’m keeping it zipped to ponder. But dammit, the vultures!

How many times…

And in case you missed it earlier, Santa Takes the A Train, a lovely animation for kids of all ages. Via Kate at Cider Press Hill.

Death certificates, funeral homes and long journeys are on the agenda today, back later for some welcome distraction.

My mother-in-law died early this morning. More later.

The banners are here, number 1 to 11 and here’s the poll, courtesy PollDaddy

Go forth and vote!

p.s. If you’d like any of the banners customized for your site, let me know. I think my PhotoShop skills will stretch to resizing and text editing…

That the Christmas Banner Contest ends tonight at midnight - we’ve one more entry in (number 11) so there’s just enough time to squeeze one in before the bells start chiming.

There has been some muttering that the cd prize might contain (*sharp intake of breath*) tracks by the esteemed Ms Black and Mr Humperdinck.

Ah no. I’ve been studying your festive memes, particularly the favourite Christmas track question, so rest assured will be the epitome of Christmas good taste and cheer…

Meanwhile, a few Christmas links to hopefully get you in the mood for a little banner creation:

• Stock photos for Christmas at Stock Xchng.
• Elf Yourself – with a nifty crop, zoom and rotate toolset you too can add your own picture and create a dancing elf e-card for friends and family.
• From Flickr, Gustav the red-nosed weimareindeer.
• Conspiracy Carols lets you add a “secret” message to a Christmas carol. Hmm.
• The Joy of Baking Christmas collection. Yummy.

Update: I’ve now updated the page with the 11th banner. Stupid, stupid woman.

How about the fact that they were first and foremost women. Women with families and friends and loved ones. And since when did it become acceptable to broadcast the fact that the two (then) missing women were sex workers before their families knew of the missing girl’s secret?

I was just about to write about the media coverage of the recent murders in Suffolk I stopped after typing the title to do a quick blog check and saw that Gert has summed up just exactly what I was thinking and expressed it far better than I could so could I point you over there instead?

A commenter over at MetaChat has an interesting theory too:

If I was an investigator..and this is purely the work of a mind who reads too much…I would wonder about the recent prostitute murders in New Jersey, and a link to the England murders. Now, just follow me for a second…The murders in Jersey apparantly took place over a couple of months. The bodies were all located in close proximity. So what if the murderer took a flight from Atlantic City airport to England to escape the investigations? And could not help his mania, and killed the English girls in quick time before he returns to the USA? Sound plausible?

I don’t know if there are many similarities and to be honest, I don’t want to do the research to find out but it’s something to ponder.

There’s a website devoted to this already?

Go on, put me out of my misery, if you know the music used in this (cute) video, leave a comment on Tom’s blog. Pretty please?

From the much missed Open Brackets (especially for e):

Any editor or translator will tell you that the sensation of dread that descends when faced (once again) with having to proof someone else’s work, will be lightened immeasurably when the text on the dull topic of telecoms begins like this:

Penetration in the Belgium is one of the deepest and hardest in Europe.

Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if he or she were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness, and understanding you can muster, and do so with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.

– Og Mandino [More quotes by Mr Mandino.]