"One thing that is lacking in that game is the ability to tip the board over in a childish tantrum and the computer doesn't feel it necessary to buy you an ice cream to stop you from crying."

I should never have installed electronic Scrabble on my laptop. I think there will be many, many, many nights of aggressive wordplay and screaming at the injustice of my computer opponent once again defeating me with "bi", "tai" and "de" whilst I am not allowed to put down "nu" or "ew".

Bastards. I was beaten by 3 points in my final, eye-watering, tooth-grinding game of the weekend but couldn't start a rematch as the sky was beginning to get light and I remembered I had work to go to.

In other news, we had a lovely, lovely evening with Devukha, whiling away the Saturday evening with gin, takeaway curries, (real) Scrabble and a kerr-razy board game about dictatorship called Junta, which we played with an impromptu Carry On style smutty commentary. I had the Marines and the First Battalion under me at one stage. They were both rubbish.

And then the next evening, we were off to North London for rabbit pie and blender goodies, with our fellow smug almost-married friends - good food, nice wine and excellent company to round off a really rather nice weekend.

Oh, and... Madrid. I hear it's quite nice.

"Women are like ginger: the older they get, the hotter they are." - my current favourite Chinese saying

1) whilst paying for tea and biscuits for work this morning, I asked for £10.00 cashback. According to the till receipt it was 8.51am and neither myself nor the cashier were "awake" as I wasn't handed the money and I didn't think about it until I got into the office and thought to myself "my already very lightweight wallet feels distinctly lighter than I would expect it to feel after a trip to Tesco that involved asking for cashback..." I called the store immediately and am now looking forward to a potentially stressful and unpleasant "conversation" with the store manager on my way home.

2) I really, really, really, REALLY hate having my (real life) name shortened. The new girl at work started to do it when she first arrived, and I tried to nip it in the bud but I think it had already become an unconscious habit for her and she still uses my shortened name every now and then. And I fucking hate it.

3) I use an old Ericsson mobile phone handset, non-colour screen, no camera, no predictive texting, no fancy frills or fripperies... I've used it for years and would not swap it for any of the latest models even if I was paid to do so. This morning, whilst sending a text message, I realised I could key in numbers by just holding down the relevant key instead of scrolling through all the options attached to it. This discovery has actually really cheered me up: seriously, I thought I knew everything about this phone but the precious thing still delights and surprises me...

4) It's my birthday next week.