What an absolutely wonderful few days.

Her Katness texted me on Xmas day to say she was coming down so we could compose hit single number three. Yesterday we hit Wigan for an hour before her and Jenn had to attend a family do. We agreed that Tuesday would be hit single number 4 day. I didn't expect to see her until then.

In true Viz style, imagine my surprise when she texted me yesterday afternoon and said she was bored and that had nothing to do until the 30th. So her Katness and Jenn arrived yesterday evening.

Not only can her Katness play anything known to man, she can fix anything. In the few days I've known her, she's fixed my door, some skirting board, a floor rail and my blocked bathroom sink (apparently blocked by a dead mouse -- how the hell the mouse got in there I have no idea -- it must have been coming up not going down). If she stays any longer I will live in a palace. She's already made plans to make me some more storage space. She also wants to build a conservatory. The woman is mad in the best possible way.

I have to give Jenn some credit too for the bathroom sink. It would not be fair to say she didn't play a part in dislodging said 1 inch monstorous beast.

Her Katness will henceforth be known as "Babbles" -- in a very posh way of saying of bubbles.

I have to go pick up some cables from Wigwam tomorrow to hook up my guitar and Yamaha to the Mac. Oh, and a microphone. When Babbles and her Uncle have finished a song to our satisfaction, I will post it here.

Happy holidays everyone. I really hope you've had as much fun as I have, and am continuing to have.

Time to order curry.

As much as I hate to burst everyone's bubble, I feel I may have to. I know you're all sick of of happy Kenny mode, but I really am happy.

My parents dropped off my Xmas present yesterday evening, just after Sophie, Shez, Beckernator, The Vanquisher, Kat, Jen, Ben, Jen and Anthony had landed chez moi. To say I am in love with the present is to do it a dis-service. We are talking a Yahama YPT-210. It is sublime. I have never been so pleased with a gift before.

The really great news? Kat is an absolute musical genius and we spent most of the night writing songs. If there is an instrument in this world that Kat cannot play, it has yet to be invented. She plays piano, guitar, violin, trombone, drums. The woman is a walking legend. We started off with me on guitar and her on piano but quickly swapped.

It was clear from within about ten minutes that we were on the same wavelength. We were anticipating each others' chord changes from about ten miles so very quickly started to gel. We wrote two absolute winners in a couple of hours, just by jamming. The girl is amazing. She plays piano with three fingers yet can scale faster than I can with five. Cue \"lasses tinkling\" jokes.

Did I mention that the lass can sing like nothing on earth too? You all know the drill. Lass, keyboard and the voice of your proverbial angel -- guess where Kenny's head was.

When I finally got up from my hours sleep this morning, Sophie was in the middle of blitzing the house. The woman was possessed. My house is now pristine.

Were I not so tired I would elaborate further.

I've just had a text from Kat saying that we will be doing another night of music soon. I suggested that we may never be Simon and Garfunkel. Her response was that we could be Kat and her uncle. Witty bugger.

Well, the lads are due around in a while so I guess I should get another hours kip in. If I don't get chance before tomorrow, have yourselves a very, very nice Xmas. Uncle Kenny will be watching out for you, albeit in a red suit and a white beard.

Kenny is pleased to report that he has finally rebuilt his English social network. It's taken nearly six years but he thinks he now has a really top bunch of friends who do not live hundreds of miles away. Monday night was incredible. Beckernator, Sophie, Shez, The Vanquisher, Ben, Jen. Cards until 5am, then Sophie and I got our cook on. Of course the one thing I was supervising was a disaster but such is the price you pay when you let me loose in the kitchen. We did the present thing too. I got the Beckernator a pair of dungarees that she had been lusting after for quite a while and a couple of Vonnegut books. You should have seen the look on her face...priceless. I may post a picture of them at some point. She bought me the most amazing book -- I think I read most of it while they were here.

Yesterday morning was quite quite the wake-up call though. I have never seen anyone have an epileptic fit. Man, that is scary. I have to compliment the emergency services. To have someone at my door in under five minutes, given the weather, is amazing. This, America, is why I do not object to paying taxes in England. The NHS is worth every last penny/nickel. You will all be pleased to know that the person who suffered the attack was released from hospital about an hour later and that I will hopefully be seeing her later.

I awoke today to find that I have a nice LG slide phone and a Nokia. A bit of investigating led me to the fact one is the Beckernator's and one is Chris's so unfortunately you'll not be getting an upgrade to your cell phones from Kenny this Xmas. Also unfortunately, they will not be receiving calls or texts until I see them again.

--

Sweeping change of subject.

I have just listened to Obama's negation of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy in relation to the US military speech. For once, I was very impressed. All I can say is that it's about bloody time. Well done.

Well, there was an exceptional evening.

We (and by \"we\" I mean Chris, Anthony, Shez ans Sophie) hit the Tudor for an hour. The hour turned into several hours and then the snow came down like a Nazi blitzkrieg. We stood in a taxi rank for about two hours before we gave up and got a hotel.

I say \"hotel\". More like a refuge.

To put it into it's proper context, at 03:30 this morning I was arguing with a drunk Scotsman so he would leave some poor lass alone. And that was on the landing close to her room. Apparently I can be intimidating in the right circumstances. Chris and Anthony sat in the window, throwing snowballs at passers by.

Long story short, I ended up sleeping between Chris and Anthony in a seedy hotel room. It was not one of my classier moments but it was fun. I'm not sure who got the worst deal in the hotel; the lights in our room didn't work and the girls didn't have any bog-roll. I've only just got my phone charged enough to receive the text from Sophie asking whether we had any. Sorry mi'ducks.

The Beckernator showed up for a while during the evening, with a lass who was amazing. Amazing but stoned. Her pupils were dilated beyond all reasonable metrics. Amazing beyond all reasonable metrics too. I'll not spill the whole beans here but let's just say that I'm not a greedy man so I'll just order two please.

Sorry. Very un-PC.

You can tell when it has been a classic night by whether you wake up with three guys singing Lancashire Hotpots songs or not. \"Where'm I goin't fert put Jean?\"

The really bad news? I have to go back there later to see THE Tudor Barmaid (capitalized out of utter respect). Sigh. Life's a bitch. You marry one (or two), divorce one (or two) and then you die.

I'm off for an hour's kip before we do the inevitable.

My boss is in town tomorrow and it's the Xmas party tomorrow night. Unfortunately I have some lurgy or another and there's a Met Office warning about the weather tomorrow. If I do traipse across the Pennines, it will only be for work, not the party. I can barely speak. The question then becomes if I do decide I am up to traveling, do I drive it or train it? Each is about as unreliable as the other in extreme weather.

I guess I will see how I feel and check the travel reports in the morning. I am not fancying my chances.

The good news from today, though, is that the Beckernator got her job. I am made up for her, although I am really not happy about her being away 8 months a year. She's too much fun to be deprived of.

The rest of the evening will be spent doing a damned spreadsheet I have been procrastinating about for the last couple of days.

Roll on Friday. I'm off for two weeks as of then. The prospect is beautiful. All I need to do is deliver some presents and those are my Xmas jobs pretty much done. It sounds like Xmas will be spent with a few carefully selected friends. Xmas Eve will be chez moi to avoid the masses. Xmas day will be spent à la Tudor. The rest of the holiday, I will be hibernating.

Sorry Waaarty, but I have to burst your bubble once more.

I have had another truly marvelous weekend.

Waaarty and I used to have a maths lecturer who was, to be brutally honest, a nut-job. He would wander into the class looking like hell and say things like "Whiskey, poker, wife kicked me out, slept in car. Turn to page 51, questions 3 to 9." and then lie down under the chalk-board. He told Waaarty that he would not live beyond 30. He told me I would never get a degree. We have both proved him wrong. If the guy knew that Waaarty had a PhD, he would go into anaphylactic shock from the taste of it.

The reason I tell you this is to frame the following:

Tokyo Season. Beef sashimi, sashimi boat. Bed at 10:00am.

Thankfully I have no wife to kick me out.

Bacon butty is required.

<rant>

To the bloke who was interviewed on the one o'clock news, let me explain a few things to you. You might have to read this twice because you're obviously not educated above lettuce level.

The Shotspotter system is a network of sensors triggered by very loud noise. If three sensors pick up a very loud noise (i.e. gun shot), they triangulate the source of the noise and let the emergency services know where the shot came from. Are you still following me? Thought not. I'll draw you a diagram sometime.

They will not, you will be glad to know (since you are so worried about it), eavesdrop on everyone's conversations so the man knows that you prefer Hovis to Warburtons bread. [Could I add \"you vacuous waste of oxygen, conspiracy-theory feckwit\" please?].

In the interests of winding you up and fueling your paranoia, let me tell you a few much easier ways to listen to others' conversations and how to keep yourself safe from the man. Incidentally, these are actually physically possible:

-- Someone may be stood/sat next to you. If they are not the same ethnicity as you, why not try garroting them before you say hello to your wife.

-- Someone may be in the next room. If they are, keep your voice down as you order your kebab for delivery.

-- Someone may have a TV camera on you, interviewing you about privacy. If so, refuse to talk to the BBC by simply shaking your head.

-- Someone may be bugging your house/car/shop/office. If so, remain silent unless you are in the middle of Hampstead Heath.

-- Someone may be tapping your phone. If so, simply drive to Hampstead Heath to meet the person you wish to speak with.

Dear God. You know where I'm going here don't you? What kind of news editor allows such moronic interviews with Joe Public? I'm not for censorship of the average wazzock in the street, but there are mediums for them to state their breath-takingly ignorant views. They're called the local paper, Sun, Star, Mirror or the Daily Mail.

I would continue but I have things to do and I have just lost 20 mins of my day in an orgy of WTF'edness.

</rant>

Apologies. I promise I will blog soon, but this had me in hysterics...

The weather outside is frightful but the company has been delightful.

My house looks like a family of Bulgarian immigrants have moved in, but I do not have the energy to clear up today. The Vanquisher is upstairs, away with the fairies. He took over from Sophie and Shez when they got up. We've had a phenomenal weekend.

There was a random text on Friday evening that sparked off a weekend of what can only be described as carnage.

I swore, when I moved in here, that I would never do Xmas decorations. Hmmm. Fail. As we came home on Friday night, we called at the all-night Asda. A tree was purchased. The Vanquisher, Chris and I decorated it. It looked exactly like how you would imagine three straight guys decorating a tree would look. Truly awful. Thankfully Shez turned up and rectified our crimes against aesthetics: