Dot Cotton is a harlot

I've started watching television again. I didn't mean to, it just happened - normally because I need something to occupy my time while tending to a home-related activity, like making sure the building doesn't become engulfed in a raging inferno caused by some overcooked chicken thighs.

I grew out of TV approximately three years ago because a) I left university and got a job and b) all the good-looking people left Neighbours and were replaced by sadists, smarmy besuited types or insanely talented 15 year-olds who could play the Crocodile Dundee theme tune on a didgeridoo while harpooning a sprinting kangaroo from 100 yards [it's just an image, OK? Jesus. To think you thought I didn't know harpoons are the preserve of fisherman. I actually wrote that particular Wikipedia page, so I suggest you go back and start enjoying that image of mindless kangaroo slaughter. Or, if that offends you, write to McDonald's and complain - they're the real bastards, not me].

An Indian adventure: On holiday with my mum

Hello and welcome to my first and almost certainly last travel blog. The trouble with reading about other people's adventures is that, at best, it's terrifically boring or, at worst, you're reminded of how mundane your life is and quickly fill up with resentment for the person showing off about how tantalising the cuisine was, how the cabin was divine until the waves got a bit choppy between St Lucia and Martinique, or how the natives were surprisingly friendly and civilised despite not possessing a smoothie maker or knowing how to operate nail clippers.

This collective resentment builds and builds until the travel writer is scared away from the public domain and takes self-imposed exile in the relatively safe confines of Stockport, a tourist-free zone south of Manchester and unchartered territory for approximately 99.9 per cent of Britons.