1. I keep being told how exciting it is that Cheryl Cole is apparently going to Los Angeles. I’m not excited. I would be relieved if she was going, having promised to make no further contributions to British public life, with the possible exception of an apology, but not especially excited.
2. At least two dozen people died at the weekend when a mudslide buried a village in Colombia. Precisely nobody real died or was even injured in a faked tram accident on all-good-things-must-come-to-an-end-but-soap-operas-go-on-forever Coronation Street. Which do you suppose has got the most attention from the British media?
3. I keep having to mute the TV whenever the adverts come on in case I should happen to see one for Iceland. Have the Estate of Marc Bolan taken leave of their senses? Do they honestly think Bolan himself, were he still with us, would be cool with one of the greatest guitar riffs to come out of glam rock being used to sell Yorkshire puddings and cocktail sausages?
4. TV Christmas advertising in general. (Except for the trailers for A Christmas Carol, obviously – BBC1, 6pm Christmas Day, in case you hadn’t heard.)
5. Machete is still not showing in Oxford. And hardly anywhere else now, either, dammit. This is a movie featuring Michelle Rodriguez, in which Danny Trejo and Steven Seagal have a sword fight. (It’s a Steven Seagal movie that’s actually got a theatrical release, come to that.) Don’t tell me there’s no demand for it. How can there only be about eight prints in the whole of the UK? Surely the googolplexes can cut down Harry Potter to only fifteen showings a day and allow a few other films a chance?
6. Ann Widdecombe voted off Strictly. Yes, I know this is probably the only time in my entire life I’ll ever want a Tory to win the popular vote, but even so. I even found myself agreeing with the Daily Mail the other day when it said ‘when five boring old decent dancers appear next weekend I’ll feel a bit of a pang’. Damn straight.
7. This rant doesn’t seem to be doing much to shift my writer’s block, which just makes me even more annoyed.