Still ankle-deep in it in the Leicestershire Peak District. Max, the ageing Spaniel, approves.

Had a fancy city centre haircut today and she blow dried my barely-damp hair like I was Engelburt Humperdinck. It was like a walk of shame going back to work.

It is hilarious* that UK gov ministers are insisting they need to keep posting on X - a platform run by a far-right warmongerer that enables the mass production of child sex abuse material and industrial harassment of women - because they're nostalgic for their Blue Tick Twitter days *not hilarious

I’ve had a grim day after a week of grim days and tonight I took my dog for a walk in the snow and he’s got diarrhoea like minestrone soup. So how’s your night?

Day after day of this. It’s making me genuinely a bit twitchy.

@theoldbatsman.bsky.social Hello. I’ve got a new phone. I’m trying to download old podcasts from The Nightwatchman podcast - but I can’t. They’re still there - I can see them on Apple podcast - but I can’t download or play them. Any idea?

I’m sure I say this every year but I can’t help but think all these fireworks are a dreadful waste of money. Happy New Year though, eh?

I'm about to bring an end to a cheery Xmas by sitting in the freezing cold at the King Power to watch Leicester lose to Derby. Smashing. 🦊

We need more Christmas Stilton after some inconsiderate greedy bastard* ate all the Christmas Stilton. * me. No regrets.

This Royal Variety Performance - it’s not for me, thanks.

Aw I can see good people on here calling drinks "cheeky" and it's taking every fibre of my being not to say something. Drinks are not "cheeky". Nandos is not cheeky. Only monkeys, schoolboys and bastards are cheeky.

What is he wearing?

This is obscene. Why can't other politicians say that? The 25 richest families are collectively $358.7 billion richer than a year ago, with a combined fortune totaling $2.9 trillion.

End-of-year dentist trip today. Me: I better book in for the hygienist, too. Receptionist: That’s £105 now. Is that ok? Jesus Christ, no. No it’s not. So I’ll be seeing you in 2026 with Nigel Farage’s piss-stained booze teeth.

I’ve caught my traditional pre-Christmas head cold which is going to ruin all my festive boozing.

You won’t see a better goal this season than Abdul Fatawu’s for Leicester vs Ipswich this afternoon.

On the bus today - grim, as always, but Xmas beers tonight - and I stood up to give my seat to an old lady. Then a man in his 20s stood up and offered me his seat. So a merry Xmas from all at the Pensioners’ Alliance.

“I’ve got a plan, boss: Let’s trash our brand, make the website virtually unusable, piss off all our readers - and then start charging them to read our (much reduced) offering.”

The annual thrill of the Leicester eye. * * There’s no-one in it.

In today’s lesson teaching 19 and 20-year-olds about journalism and life: “But, Lee, who are Take That?” How to make your still-young-and-with-it lecturer *cough* feel ancient.

I’m Xmas shopping. It’s all go.

No to this.

People bragging about their: Food Travel Nails Hair Xmas tree None of that for me, thanks ✋

BBC Sports editor Dan Roan there, absolutely trying his best to normalise the Alan Partridge-esque World Cup draw. #bbcnews

Jesus 🙄

No regrets, thanks Spotify.

In this week's episode of Lee Marlow's Clown Car life, my boiler exploded, spraying water all over the landing carpet, leaking through the ceiling. No heating and no hot water until Friday. And naturally, the boiler is what the plumber described as "proper fucked, mate" and it's £2,500 for a new one

I quit Twitter a year ago because it was an industrial scale piss factory and I didn’t want to give Musk a single penny - but I’ve just read another thread on here that was so deliberately pretentious and awful it nearly made me vomit.

Jesus Christ, it just gets worse. #lcfc

Given my old winter coat to a homeless man in Leicester.

Arguably the worst crisps ever made. Hideous.

Interesting to see so many great British patriots right now begging an American president to bankrupt one of Britain’s last remaining truly national institutions.

Full story: pages 4,5, 6,7. 🙄

Aw, I loved Rachel Cooke and I regularly use her features to inspire our student feature writers. Lovely piece here by @timadamswrites.bsky.social observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

Had to go to Volkswagen yesterday to fix a broken air vent pipe. Vw: We need £115 to ID the problem. Me: it’s there, look. You can see the pipe is broken. Vw: No, we need our mechanic to do it. It’s £115. Then the part. Then the repair. And this is why my local garage is now doing it.

Imagine GB News staging a debate on one of its shit talk shows called: Can we trust GB News? It wouldn’t do it. That’s (partly) the difference.

I’ve been re-writing errant feature intros all day. Come home. Eat tea. Quick look what’s on tonight. I feel like I’m back at work.

I’m ready #traitors

Even I thought this was one of mine!

This makes me sound like a dusty old dinosaur but when I started at the Leicester Mercury in ‘96 there were 140 editorial staff, working from 7am to 10pm, covering every court, every council meeting. It sold 126k copies a day. Today - a dozen staff? Sells 4k copies a day.

M1 closed both ways. I think I might be quicker walking into Leicester this morning.

I’m watching Liverpool vs Villa and it’s almost like a different sport to the Leicester vs Blackburn game I saw earlier.

Too much of the challenge and Claudia’s hair and not enough Round Table tonight. #Traitors

I’m generally unmoved by all this right wing Stop The Boats anti-immigrant nonsense but this stuff like this makes me want to paint the St George flag on a mini-roundabout.

I spent my extra hour in bed listening to a male Tawny Owl furiously too-whit-a-wooing outside my bedroom window at 4am.

No.

The finest soundtrack for your Saturday morning hangover. youtu.be/BYyRLTveFJQ?...

News tonight: Prince Andrew stripped of everything. Also news tonight: “We go live to the 30-room-mansion in Windsor where Andrew lives.” 🤷