My Saturday or Come on! Let’s Boogey to the Elf Dance!

I’ve enjoyed today. I decided not to go to the Gloucester/Bath rugby football match in the Anglo-Welsh competition as, effectively, it represented a dead rubber (that is the expression I’m looking for isn’t it?) and I simply lacked motivation to attend. Instead, I spent an hour or so in Oxfam sorting out the bookshelves and merrily blasting out Bob Dylan’s Desire album on the stereo in the warehouse as I worked. A bit of Christmas shopping followed and I bought the Sufjan Stevens Songs for Christmas box set too. Basically there are 42 Christmas songs, some traditional, some self-penned, on the five CDs that come in the box. There are also a booklet, a poster, some stickers and a comic strip included in the package as well as the usual dollop of genius and life-affirming energy that comes with any Sufjan Stevens release. Have a look and a listen. He’s my favourite. I needed a new book to read so I visited the wondrous Gloucester library and borrowed a pair of tomes, The Autograph Man and Fruit of the Lemon by writers I had enjoyed over the summer, Zadie Smith and Andrea Levy. I got a pair of guide books about Rome out too as I’m quite keen to visit that particular city. Perhaps it is the Marco effect! I picked up a brace of tickets to see Boy Kill Boy at the Gloucester Guildhall tomorrow night with A, got a Guardian from WH Smith and strolled jauntily around the city streets for a while. This afternoon I did the weekly shop listening to a slightly dodgy rap album that has become a recent secret and guilty pleasure on my headphones. Tonight I cooked a huge chilli which we ate during Robin Hood and I’m now comfortably sated and tapping in these words listening to the Burning Spear album I bought last weekend. A good day.

It’s my birthday quite soon so time to share a piece of personal trivia I have discovered over the past twelve months. Which musical legend and member of celebrated punk outfit is exactly, exactly ten years older than me? The answer is here if you are curious, bored or giddy with excitement. Ebullient horse-jockey Frankie Dettori is exactly, exactly five years younger than me. Wow.