Not so much a walled garden as a high security prison with barbed wire and electric fences.

I finally caved in and replaced a 15 year old Sony TV with a Panasonic 32″ LCD TV (TX32LXD700) for Christmas. Although the aging Sony still worked fine, it did cycle through Red/Green/Blue and took 5 minutes to fully warm up. Before taking the plunge, I read various reviews and looked at the televisions on my shortlist in shops. Most stores (understandably) use High Definition (HD) broadcasts or Blu-ray discs to show the digital technology at its best. Cartoons are another popular choice to demonstrate LCD TV’s displaying a very high quality picture. ...

Just placed a Christmas present under the tree. Had a sneaky look at the tag to see whether a shake, rattle and roll was necessary. I was very surprised and somewhat upset to read: ‘Happy Christmas to the best sister in the whole world (and quite a nice brother-in-law).’

January - Andy Murray reaches the quarter finals of the Australian Open but mysteriously withdraws citing a ‘bad hair day’. An inquiry is immediately launched into irregular gambling patterns preceding the match and his choice of shampoo. Manchester United triumph 7-4 in a thrilling FA cup-tie at Villa Park. February - England beat Switzerland 5-0 at Wembley in a friendly. Frank Lampard scores a goal that is not deflected. Fabio Capello is hailed as a footballing genius ...

…from Surrey Traffic Police. Unfortunately, my friends appear to have sent me a ‘Notice of Intended Prosecution’ instead of their customary Yuletide greetings card. I wrote and told them I had been a very good boy all year long. Well, a very good boy apart from my recent brush with their colleagues from the London branch. Assuming Surrey Traffic Police content themselves with another fixed penalty notice and 3 points, this is quite inconvenient for me as this takes my tally to 9 points so I will now have to drive like an old man wearing a trilby hat. This will last for a full seven months when my current points start to expire. ...