Cinderella, you will go to the ball ! I know, hyperbole and Archimedes go hand in glove. We're like Siamese twins. The pudding can never be under-egged where I'm concerned. But, I do feel pretty good.

Today, I was expecting a long night at home, listening to New Year sounds off-stage; the traditional barrage of fireworks, singing, shouting, exuberance (mostly irrational), and occasional fighting.

That's all changed. Been invited to a party. How moods can change on the spin of a text message.

To the small, hardy band of people who visit my blog, here's wishing you a great 2011.

Archimedes.

A busy thread running amongst my Facebook virtual friends this evening on the topic of " Why can't you order a normal coffee in Starbucks". I can answer that simply (and have already on Facebook).

It's a badly run boutique coffee shop; too much on the shelves, too much to choose from, too gimmicky. Result: everyone confused.

Costa, on the other hand, remains the true home of sensible coffee. Comfortably the best chain for good old fashioned coffee. And their loyalty card ain't too bad either. Am I sounding like a corporate shill now?

The days between Boxing Day and New Year's Eve always have a muffled, wrapped in cotton wool feel about them. The world is at half speed, dank, and grey, but there are atoms of excitement around. Like right now. Radio 2 is broadcasting a two hour special hosted by Slash on his guitar heroes.

Slash. Radio 2. Fifteen years ago, these two words would never have fitted, not even with the deftest of shoe horns into the same sentence, but today, there's literally no hipper station.

Once the indomitable dowager duchess of easy listening, wall-paper music; today, if there's a musical boundary they've either broken through it, or pushing at the edges.

Me genetically decoded; first, there's this, which I definitely have - the travelling gene. Then, and this is where Science has finally become interesting, there's this - the chocolate gene unravelled. I'm heavily over-represented in both. No deficiency.

Wonder if I'm going to be the first recorded case of feline flu jumping species. The cat, who's wandering over the keyboard, sneezed at the same time as I did.

To avoid coronary hardening after patiently scoffing a slab of Brie and an oozing Roquefort, I took to the still iron hard footpaths of Chiswick House, skin puckering from the sinking temperature, slipping and sliding, back to the place where I saw yesterday's conclave of very hungry birds, competing for bread balls, or in the case of the Heron, dominating the cocktail sausage field.

A much less cosmopolitan scene this afternoon; mostly, Coots gingerly stepping or occasionally skating across the frozen lake, with a solitrary Mallard at anchor.

In the midst of all this was a Coot wrestling with a loaf of bread at least one and half times it's size. Be like me trying to tuck into a life size bar of chocolate.

This is the quietest day I've had all year, possibly for a number of years; other than responding to a hurried "good morning" from an old man as I was taking a short cut through the Chiswick Old Cemetery (he was alive by the way, not a resident), I've not said a word to a soul.

As I've said to numerous people over the years, and continue to, solitude holds no particular terrors for me. I can dwell on my own resources without discomfit. Being an only child, it's an instinct.

My great excitement - albeit a silent one in a still frozen world, (so cold even at lunchtime, can't have been higher than zero) - was for the first time ever seeing a Heron catch and eat something. Just by the Lilliputian hump backed bridge spanning the Chiswick House lake, which has the iron hard tenor of the Bering Sea in Winter, inch thick ice, were two Chinese women throwing bread and unbelievably, cocktail sausages, to a mewling motley of gulls, mallards, mandarin ducks, scrabbling pigeons, and an aristocratic looking Heron.

The smaller birds harried each other for the small balls of bread; Senor Heron concentrated solely on spearing every cocktail sausage with that gimlet of a beak, then dipping it in the margins of the lake that were n't icebound.

Thanks to the very excitable little boy stood next to me, shouting to his father, I know why they do this: lubricating a catch makes it easier to swallow.

Christmas on your own, uneventful, dull ? No, not at all.

Another great satellite photo from the University of Dundee of the British Isles covered in snow. That huge, frothing cloud of white over the southern half of the country, the eastern tail is slap bang over where I live.

Marmite Chocolate. Can't believe it. The fusion of my two favourite foods.

Chocolate I view as virtually medicine - all life's healing resides in cocoa; and Marmite occupies the same place as nectar does for the Gods.

This is what Christmas is all about: pushing back culinary frontiers.

Tastes nice too, and on sale in off all places, Robert Dyas Hardware shops.

Christmas Angel, you have come early.

Uncovered by a compliment. I found a copy of an out of print book for a relative last week, and the bouquets were thrown about my "Sherlockian Sleuthing Skills".

Yes, it's one my Superhero powers. I am BookMan. Defender of the lowly paperback, protector of the humble hardback. Pledged to the rescue of bookshops everywhere

I keep very quiet about it. My alter ego is as a mild mannered middle manager.

Now you know my secret...

I'm adapting something I heard David Sedaris say during the question period of his appearance at Piccadilly Waterstones this evening. It was actually a joke he made about his home country, but it suits the UK to a tee. Unfortunately.

Here we go: one in three English people weighs the same as the other two. It's true too; we are the fattest nation in Europe, according to the results of a survey released this morning. What an awful accolade.

The toaster still has n't ejected a thought, so I've gone for a ready meal for this post: someone else's thoughts.

This morning I jotted Susan Hill's delightful description of the power of a book - not an e-book, but a true book, covers, font, pages, margin scribbles, dog-eared pages, the earthiness of a book, it's essence - as I burrowed into her book about her year long adventure to read only the books she had on her shelves, and not buy any new.

Think giving up smoking is hard? Try not buying a book when you're a confirmed bibliophile. A hard road to walk. Calvary

For her " A book which is left on the shelf is a dead thing, but it is also a chrysalis, an inanimate object packed with the potential to burst into life"

How perfect an image. My shelves laden with chrysalises waiting for that moment when they'll flex and fly again.

Occasionally I have blank periods when I can't think of anything to write. Like now. Nothing in the tank. Toaster's pressed down and won't pop up. Even the student demo in the centre of town can't get me thinking.

Sleep on it. See if tomorrow will get my neurons cycling.

Just three weeks ago, I was sat in a a small hotel room, with the window thrown open, listening to the mixed noises of evening time Melacca: there was the rush of mynah birds to reach their roost, the kerfuffle and agitation of thousands of wings; the gorgeous, unearthly call of the muezzin calling people to prayer, mixed in with the sturdy chimes of the local Anglican church tolling the hourly bell, and further away the drums and cymbals of a Hindu temple, and nearer than all of these was the hubbub of the Chinatown night market.

Tonight, I'm at home listening to the occasional Christmas song curl out of the radio and braced against the prospect of an intensely cold night.

This is so moving. An orphan with HIV. The strength of character of this young woman is amazing; she's courageous and utterly inspiring.