I've just answered the door to a small figure in a strange costume asking for money. I thought it was a trick-or-treater for a moment, but it turned out to be a woman from the British Legion. So I gave her 50p for a poppy, whereupon she came over all faint (possibly from the shock of my overwhelming generosity), made a grab for the handrail, and looked like she was going to topple over and roll down my steps. All of which turned out to be a cunning ruse to talk to me about her vertigo and tinnitus (possibly the result of shelling) for half an hour. Well ok, it wasn't half an hour, but it seemed like it. I'd have had less trouble from a trick-or-treater.

Anyhoo, it's Thursday, and Lorraine left for New York at 6am this morning, so I'm off to Brighton to lock her cats in the garage for three days. But before I go, here's a pretty picture, courtesy of this website, which I came across last night whilst looking for something else entirely.

It may look like a very dull webpage, but enter some text into the little box and you get things like this...


... which is enough to entertain someone like me. A word of warning though - don't start clicking on the individual letters. You'll be there all day in a pointless and ultimately unsatisfying quest for alphabet perfection, and end up wishing you'd stuck with the big McDonalds 'M' when you had the chance.

Talking of which, according to The Guardian, 69% of British three-year-olds can identify the McDonalds golden arches, while only 50% of four-year-olds know their own name.

Which is why I'm going to call my first child McFlurry.