I’m experiencing a downward slide towards Christmas, a carefree, lazy slump which is assisting me in failing to get anything done whatsoever. “It doesn’t matter,” I think to myself, “it’s nearly Christmas.” Whether that’s because I’m convinced that the people I’m supposed to be doing work for will be so full of yuletide cheer that they won’t give me a bollocking I don’t know. Maybe I’ve got seasonally affected disorder; I spent about 20 minutes yesterday blubbing like a child for no reason. “What’s wrong,” asked Jenny. “I don’t know,” I said, which is obviously a bad thing to say, as it sounds as if it conceals something far more serious, but Jenny knows me better than that. In retrospect, I think it was probably Sunday Affected Disorder, which affects just about everyone.

The good news is that BBC4 are showing Cradock Cooks For Christmas, which is something of a weight off my mind, as I don’t know how I’d have managed it through the festive season without seeing green sponges, or incongruously placed fruit in otherwise savoury dishes, you know the kind of thing, banana bolognese and so on. The other good news is that I successfully did my Christmas shopping in about 45 minutes from the relative comfort of my office chair, which isn’t that comfortable, to tell you the truth, but it’s a darn sight more relaxing than being manhandled by strangers in Selfridges.

I went to see Mitchell & Webb perform comedy fun at Brighton Dome on Friday night. I love Robert Webb, and I love David Mitchell even more so – something about the fact that he could bitterly humiliate me with his savage wit at a dinner party – but the theatrical experience felt a bit underwhelming. Maybe because I’d seen a lot of the sketches on their TV series already? I’m not sure. Actually, I don’t know what I’m moaning about, Robert Webb’s “unhelpful literary agent” skit had me hooting, and Mitchell’s monologue in the style of a Sky Sports football announcer made me weep with pleasure. AND the whole night was a birthday present. What an ungrateful bastard I am, to be sure.

Things that aren’t so good:

a) Zara Phillips winning Sports Personality Of The Year, managing somehow to combine the votes of undiscerning, salivating teenage boys with ardent middle-class royalists to beat the poor golfer whose wife died of cancer. It would be outrageous, if I actually gave a hoot.

b) I’m writing a thing about the internet stars of 2006, and was advised to check out this photo, which apparently had people smacking the floor with laughter through much of the summer, and probably forced one of the chaps, if not all of them, into hiding.

c) Apparently, the recently deceased General Pinochet was placed under house arrest in 1973, the charges relating to his “Caravan of Death”. They say it was a military operation to remove the opponents of his rule, but I think the Keatons bought it off him, and ended up travelling around Europe in it while we were on tour in 1991.