My pod

I've owned an iPod for about a year and three months and it has worked for a total of one of those months. It's not really the iPod's fault - first of all I had to find a computer fast enough to cope with the software (i.e. not my one, which was hewn out of twigs, string and scarecrow spit in the middle ages, is powered by a panicking sparrow in box and will no longer talk to the internet because we've upgraded to broadband).

Unfortunately, the computer I eventually cosied in on was dropped and broken, leaving me with just 103 of my favouritist ever tracks - all of which I now loathe. I moved house and lost my charger, the battery ran out. I got a new charger for my birthday. It doesn't work. The iPod has been living behind my bookcase in a child's sock since the summer.

Over Christmas, my technically capable little brother took the luckless pod into his care, hand-fed it electricity and backed its files up onto his computer. In the process of resurrecting it he somehow managed to merge our music, meaning he's now got my 103 tracks on his shiny new Nano or whatever it is, and I suddenly have 536 of his. Which seems a little unfair, as quite a lot of mine sound like this: mmm-tch, mmm-tch, mmm-tch, mmm-tch, douf, douf, douf, douf. They're all dance music classics, but I imagine they'd be pretty difficult to appreciate without nearly a decade of 'aving it experience. Mind you, he has been listening to them with a bemused grin on his face, perhaps we'll have him big-fish-little-fish-cardboard-boxing it on a podium yet.

I'm quite enjoying riffling though his record collection, so to speak. After years and YEARS of wandering into his bedroom to find my long-lost favourite albums (including the precious signed ones) cowering under a dirty sock/leaky biro/ashtray/beer can, it feels karmically correct that I should suddenly acquire a great number of his tunes. I listened to the whole Lilly Allen album on the way to work, I see what everyone has been going on about now. She is quite good, isn't she, the gobby little brat. I don't know who or what most of the others artists and albums are, so I'm just going to stick it on shuffle and see what happens. Hopefully I'll get though them all before the battery conks out again.

It was an unusually musical Christmas in the Catt household. My mum recently decided that she wants to get down with the kids by updating her music "collection" (which stood at at two pan pipe tapes). It was her 60th birthday yesterday, she has a new DVD/CD player so asked for lots of music and none of that "old people stuff - I want the Scissor Sisters". I got her their first album, as well as Alright Still, Robbie's greatest hits (for those not-so-edgy days) and Amy Winehouse. I know that most of these druggie, boozy, hedonistic artists write some rather racy songs but after a great deal of consideration, I've realised that you can't protect them forever. She's old enough to listen and judge for herself. I just hope I'm not there the first time she listens to Tits On The Radio.

All the chair's a stage

Quote of the day from my friend Amy, who has taken voluntary redundancy and had her leaving do last night. She clambered onto a chair then couldn't think of anything to say, so made us all sing Kumbaya (and came in at twenty past THREE this afternoon):

Amy: "Were you there last night?"
Me: "Yes darling, I was holding onto you when you were giving your 'speech' so you didn't fall off the chair."
Amy: "Ah! It was a chair! I did remember wondering why the stage was so small."

Nights down at the Walrus aren't going to be quite the same without her.

Merry Christmas

On the first day of Christmas
Binge drinking brought to me
Shame at the office party

On the second day of Christmas
A hangover brought me
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

On the third day of Christmas
Laziness brought me
No gifts bought
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

On the forth day of Christmas
My flatmate brought to me
Four mince pies
No gifts bought
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

On the fifth day of Christmas
The last train brought to me
Five lunging drunks
Four mince pies
No gifts bought
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

On the sixth day of Christmas
The nightbus gave to me
Six chavs-a-spewing
Five lunging drunks
Four mince pies
No gifts bought
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

On the seventh day of Christmas
My doctor gave to me
Seven lovely valium
Six chavs-a-spewing
Five lunging drunks
Four mince pies
No gifts bought
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

On the eighth day of Christmas
Ocado brought to me
Eight tins of roses
Seven lovely valium
Six chavs-a-spewing
Five lunging drunks
Four mince pies
No gifts bought
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

On the ninth day of Christmas
The high street gave to me
Nine crackheads busking
Eight tins of roses
Seven lovely valium
Six chavs-a-spewing
Five lunging drunks
Four mince pies
No gifts bought
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

On the tenth day of Christmas
Pavement rage gave me
Ten rants-a-swearing
Nine crackheads busking
Eight tins of roses
Seven lovely valium
Six chavs-a-spewing
Five lunging drunks
Four mince pies
No gifts bought
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

On the eleventh day of Christmas
Panic bought for me
Eleven rush-bought vouchers
Ten rants-a-swearing
Nine crackheads busking
Eight tins of roses
Seven lovely valium
Six chavs-a-spewing
Five lunging drunks
Four mince pies
No gifts bought
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

On the twelfth day of Christmas
My mother brought to me
Twelve turkey helpings
Eleven rush-bought vouchers
Ten rants-a-swearing
Nine crackheads busking
Eight tins of roses
Seven lovely valium
Six chavs-a-spewing
Five lunging drunks
Four mince pies
No gifts bought
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

Barcelona

Aside from Clinique-swiping airport Nazis and an attempt on the world record for prolonged sexual moaning in the room next to ours, my trip to Barcelona with my mum was great. We went to celebrate our 90th birthday - her 60th and my 30th. I'm still quite startled that we actually made it - in my family, we have a tendency to come up with these brilliant ideas, fail to do anything about it and then feel guilty for years.

The start of the trip on Thursday night was an absolute disaster - freak storms, overturned lorries and gridlock around Heathrow meant a 20 minute car journey took nearly an hour and a half. My dad can't help himself from micro-managing everything and had checked us in online without asking, thank god, but we had every intention of waving him off then chucking our little cases in the hold. Bugger carrying heavy bags around an airport, shuffling up apologetically though the plane and wrestling the bloody things in and out of overhead lockers, that's what baggage handlers are for. Clue's in the name.

But by the time we got there, the check-in queue was too long, and the moronic, dipshit, retard, petty, nylon-wearing bureaucratic BASTARDS at Heathrow are STILL girling around like tits in a trance with the fucking security. When it comes to hand luggage, you can now take enough (utterly pointless) 100ml bottles to fill the world's smallest polybag, handed out by a sweaty little fuckwad who will then throw away anything not in a 100ml container - even if there is hardly anything in it. As the traffic was so bad and the endless security line so desperately, horridly mismanaged - half of the checkpoints weren't even open, despite the fact that the queue snaked back all the way through T2 - we had no choice but go straight though and bin almost everything in our washbags. This includes all the lovely things my mum had bought as a treat for herself that afternoon - she wanted nice, new products because her hair is finally growing back nicely after chemo, her skin isn't irritable anymore and she was really looking forward to a proper break after three really bloody awful years. So I hope that the evil, unsympathetic little twat who had a go at her and made her cry as he took all her lovely new things off her and hurled them into the bin after such a hideous journey gets eaten alive by maggots, then set on fire and kicked to death by particularly vindictive Shetland ponies. Wanker.

Heathrow is only a few miles from my parents house and should be convenient. But I am officially never flying from there again - unless it is on a very big aeroplane that will take me away from the UK for at least six months. My brother tells me the liquid allowances are a nonsense anyway - and the best bit is, nobody even asked to look at our passports until we got to Spain. Makes me want to blow things up. Like BAA's HQ.

We finally cleared security an hour and ten minutes after we arrived at the airport, and five minutes after the flight was due to leave. Luckily, it was delayed and we got on it, although at that point I would rather have stuck pins in my eyes and watched re-runs of Doctors for a week than carry on trying to have a holiday.

Thankfully, they do things rather differently in Barcelona. The weather was gorgeous, the city spotless, there was no traffic, cabs were everywhere, the hotel was lovely and all the food we had was absolutely delicious. My only complaints were that people walk soooooooooo slowly, in formation. It's not even walking, it's promenading. Everywhere. And in the shops - gah. I didn't know it was possible to drag a sale out for that long. Then break off for a little chat. Then carry on like a great big snail sales assistant of slowness.

But apart from that - wonderful. The Picasso museum is extensive - oh my god, is it extensive. It was like being trapped inside a particularly in-depth BBC Four programme where you daren't go to the toilet in case you miss something, but secretly are just praying it will end soon because you can't upload any more information and want to watch EastEnders. Brilliant though. We kind of hated all the Gaudi stuff and had to leave the Parc Guell because we couldn't stop laughing, but it was beautifully sunny and at least we got a picture of that sodding lizard.

I spunked stacks of cash I don't have in the shops in a bid to look like a trendy Spanish person, then did it again in the swish new-ish bit down by the harbour on Sunday. Our hotel, the Gran Via, used to be a posh house and had a terribly glamorous breakfast room and salon. The only problem was the uber-thin walls in the bedrooms - I really could have done without the overly-vigorous man next door attempting to pile-drive his wailing girlfriend, their bed and the metal bedhead through the wall and into our room between 3am and 5am on the first night. I think mum missed most of it, thank god, it's not really the sort of thing you want to listen to with your mother.

It was a bit of a crushing disappointment to arrive back in London last night, which is odd for me because I'm usually thrilled to be home - even if it's dark, rainy and cold and I've had a lovely time. I sort of hate London at the moment. I clearly couldn't put up with the slow walkers in Barcelona, and nearly kissed the girl in WHSmiths when she speedily flogged me the Sunday tabloids. But oh my god, it was good to get away. Hope it's for a hell of a lot longer next time.