Alcohol is undoubtedly a wonderful thing. Eight months ago I wrote an interesting and informative article about a lady called Lesley, who I described (lovingly, I might add) as "a neurotic incompetent with a drink problem". Now, taken out of context, that almost sounds like an insult, but this is where the alcohol comes in...

I checked my Telly Critic e-mails yesterday evening for the first time in a week, and found one from Lesley herself, sent at 2:56am last Saturday night. Naturally when I realised who it was from, my first thought was to panic, gather my belongings, and change my address fast, but fortunately I was doing all of that anyway, so I just read on instead. And as it turns out, Lesley isn't after my blood at all.

I won't reproduce her entire e-mail here for legal reasons, but suffice it to say that she refers to herself as "almost a natural blonde", admits to being "half cut at 2:40am", complains that the film crew wouldn't talk to her (can you blame them?), then says "we are pleased that you have shown us to be just normal folks" and talks about nurturing her dreams, before finishing with "Thanks for your honest review which showed the inaccuracy of the media which can twist the nature of reality from the falsehood of fiction". Which is the kind of thing you can only write when you're pissed.

So at 3am, with a few glasses of wine inside her, Lesley could see that my entire article was written in support of her and her husband, and wanted to thank me for it. Like I say, alcohol is a wonderful thing.

But anyhoo, it's 7am, and I have slept my last night in Shotley Gate. That's if you can call 5 hours 'a night'. My brother's arriving at 6:30pm with a van (transit, not Morrison), we're overnighting at my parents' in Chelmsford, then first thing in the morning it's down to Brighton for the rest of my life. Unless I can't get my bed through the front door, in which case I'm coming straight back here.