The trouble with pandas is that they're just too damn endangered. In Toys R Us they're practically extinct. Having scoured the cuddly toy aisle for a good twenty minutes, we did find one possibility, but frankly it put the word 'giant' back into Giant Panda, and would have smothered a baby quicker than Chloe.

So we p-p-p-picked up a penguin instead. It's not strictly black and white, but I can always colour in the yellow bits with marker pen.

More successful than our animal wrangling, however, was our attempt to buy a Top 'n' Tail Bowl, which is something I'd never heard of, but which Lisa assures me we need. Possibly because one of her friends has just informed us that he dreamt she gave birth to a cat. (Is it my imagination, or am I basing this entire blog post on Lisa's last comment?)

Anyhoo, if you're wondering why we rushed to Toys R Us last night, instead of crossing town at our leisure in the mid-afternoon sunshine, it's because Brighton's currently in the grip of Fatboy fever. As we speak, twenty thousand people are standing in the road, five minutes walk from my flat, warming up for the musical highlight of the year. That's if you like watching someone press the start button on a record player. So having popped out to Asda at 8am this morning, I'm keeping hold of my parking place til tomorrow.

I did walk down to the beach this afternoon to see what was happening, but they'd fenced off the entire pavement on the seafront side of the road, to stop people like me getting free entertainment. Mind you, judging by the sounds emanating from Madeira Drive, I wasn't missing much.

Anyhoo, my chances of seeing Fatboy might have been Slim, but I did spot some people having a good time...


If they keep partying that hard, someone's going to put their back out.