I love daytime TV. Trisha has just introduced a guest with the words "This is Angela. She says it was an accident that she set her 12 year old daughter's hair on fire". Apparently it had nothing to do with her being drunk and dancing around the living room with a lighter.

But burning issues aside, I think someone's noticed that I spend a lot of time in Brighton. I've received a card in today's post from Boots the Chemist, inviting me, a loyal Advantage Card holder, to a special Christmas shopping evening. Putting aside the fact that it's on October 20th, which isn't even in the same season as Christmas, the interesting thing is that they're inviting me to the one in North Street, Brighton. Which means, slightly scarily, that your loyalty card not only records what you buy, but where you buy it, and they've realised that I buy more deoderant in Brighton than I do in Ipswich. Frankly I smell when I'm at home.

The good news though is that I'm now in a position to get there - my car passed its MOT yesterday, in an inspirational triumph of workmanship over rust. It turns out that the rough clattering noise I've been experiencing over the past two weeks was because I had no brake pads. But hey, who needs 'em. I managed to slow down enough to stop at the garage, and that's all that matters.

The experience wasn't without a degree of suffering though. Seeing as I needed to leave home at half past nine, I naturally didn't start eating my breakfast until 9:25am, meaning I was forced to multitask (put on my shoes in between mouthfuls). So having tied my laces (I knew I should have gone for velcro), I was naturally delighted to turn around and see my cat on the table, lapping the milk from my bowl of muesli.

It was a bit of a dilemma - hunger versus the fact that I had to leave in two minutes and there was no time to fetch another bowl. Needless to say I took the only reasonable option: tried not to think where that tongue might have been, and shoveled it straight down.