Firstly, a rather belated birthday wish to Nisha. It was her birthday on Thursday and she celebrated in a jolly fashion by drinking an awful lot of champagne and subsequently re-inventing the rules of Texas hold Em and licking my ear. I've never experienced a girl licking my ear before. It was moist but not entirely unpleasant. I've also never played no-rules poker before. It was moist but not entirely unpleasant. Happy Birthday.

Owing to the failure of my present financial planning system (once again I didn't win), I've been toying with the idea of spending less and earning more. To get some top tips I was looking last night at a website devoted to matters of personal finance. There's a bizarrely addictive forum where people write about their debt problems and how they've managed to save money. For some reason I find myself absolutely fascinated by reading people's spending diaries. "Monday. Food at work: £4.69, cigs: £4.05, TV guide: 49p".

That's not really interesting, is it? I do like reading shopping lists mind.

I tried the diary idea myself earlier in the year but I don't think I have the necessary levels of shame for it to work. "Monday: Taxi to work: £5.70, Booze at Sainsbury's: £22.50".

I have a little dead fish in a glass of water in my bedroom and I'm not sure what to do with it. Any suggestions?

Last night a man called Nev Clay (who is folky sort of singer man) told me that I should be a writer. I am going to take this as a tremendous compliment. . . although I suspect the fact that it swiftly followed on from my telling him what exactly I didn't like about his poetry may point towards it simply being an alternative way to say 'fuck off'.

Two things brought a tear to my eye today. First up was a lovely card at work from some little girls saying "thank you for looking after our daddy". My eyes were ever so slightly moist. Second up was Max on Neighbours saying that he didn't want Boyd to remain in a coma forever "he's my beautiful boy". I bubbled my eyes out. Just goes to show, eh?

Something that should have made me cry was the Fantastic Four movie last night. It was comically (no pun intended) bad. I rather got the impression that the character of The Thing was meant to be teaching us something about not judging people on their appearances. Once he'd been transformed into a hulking brute made out of stone, his wife ran away from him and people recoiled in terror. As luck would have it he met a blind girl who fell in love with him. Are spotty, overweight, and ugly teens all over the world now desperately searching for stunning, blind girlfriends? Ross questioned whether blind girls would like to rub against a block of sandstone. Which illustrates how little he knows about girls.

That reminds me of a documentary I saw about a boarding school for blind children. One of the pupils was saying that the nice thing about relationships between two blind people was that shallow ideas of beauty played no part in their relationship. 'Aw, that's so nice', I thought. . .then two seconds later: 'Christ! You could do better than him, pet!'

Sobriety stinks. . .

Wowser! What a bright and beautiful day! I'm full of it today. Absolutely full of it. All borne of the fact that this morning I decided to have a couple of weeks off the booze. Honestly, only hours later I can already feel the benefits. All you suckers devoted to the demon drink could learn a lot from my good example. So, say I last had a drink (although it was shandy - does that even count?)at 10.30 last night. . . that's nineteen hours and counting! And already I'm bursting with vitality!

Other, hopefully more interesting, news: last night Mercury Music Award nominees Maximo Park appeared in RPM music shop. It was class. They did a cracking little set and everyone sweated a lot. I might write a review of it. If the non-drinking results in the increase in productivity I like to think it might. Nice to see real life Newcastle superstars being, er, exactly the same as they were when they drank in the Head of Steam every Friday. 'Cept in sharper suits. . . nice Westwood tie there Smithster. Oh, and more revered, obviously.

Post-park entertainment came in the form of John Egdell's set at Camp David. A neat-o selection of cute covers. Only downside of this performance was that I felt quite sorry for the girl sitting behind me. When Jennie made a gag about it being her and John's first ever live performance behind-me-girl started shouting out all kinds of encouraging, sweet 'hey I think you're the best!' type things. Think she felt a bit of a div when John started shamelessly plugging his album (available in all good. . .).

Guess what I got through the post today? My lovely, lovely guitar strap from www.sparklecraft.com . The brown calico number in case you're wondering. Lush. Now I'm properly accessorised I may actually be able to learn a chord.