No partner to argue with, off to my sisters for the day itself – will stay five hours tops, then down the pub boxing day – said no to going to my crazy uncle’s place, after which I will be off to a spa hotel with a bag of books to read for three nights.

Oh yeah and don’t have a bike with quick release wheels unless you can put the chain through the wheels too.

Had a bike stolen from local station a couple of years back. I made the mistake of only using the one lock – and not a very good one.
They did actually catch the stealer using CCTV and the British Transport Police were very good. He still owes me £200 by court order but I’ve not seen any of it.
Now I generally avoid leaving at stations overnight, but use two or three locks if I do leave it there during the day.

Listened lots to Van Morrison.

Nicholsons pubs are great, as are Sam Smiths. You can’t go wrong in them.
The Blind Beggar unfortunately, well, the cockney expression “things aint how they used to be” spring to mind.
Firmly on the tourist trail these days.
The Birdcage in Bethnal Green is quite fun.

GPs prefer to prescribe beta blockers than benzos as they are not addictive – you don’t get a high off them. But they knock you out and some people have reactions to them like inflamed lips. Best to talk to GP.

Faltering fullback is an irish boozer, not that I have an issue with that, as I love Irish pubs but not typically london pub.
Most proper london boozers have either shut down or gone down the gentrified hipster route.
There’s few good ones left – The cock tavern in somerstown behind kings cross is still proper london.

I’ve been suffering with some insomnia but mainly due to work related stress. It takes a couple of days to unwind. Also thinking of going away but I don’t have the energy for airports and travel, so just going to go to a hotel with a nice pool for a few nights after the big day itself.
I’ve been seeing a good therapist this year and it helps get a sense of perspective so maybe look into that as a resolution for next year.

Listening to Van Morrison at home. I popped into the pub on the way back and immediately felt sorry for the staff, it’s almost a full-moon and looked like there were a bunch of mad ones pre-loading for a big friday.

I built up an Ecommerce company about 12 years ago, and we sold it to another company partly because we had done so well on SEO – 80percent of our orders came via organic search on google. But those were the good old days
However, there are two major problems with SEO these days – 1 Google has a monopoly on search 2 the competition is a lot fiercer than 12 years back.
Yell as said above is to be avoided. SEM Rush is a useless tool – only Google Analytics will give you an accurate view about your website.
Ultimately, until Google’s monopoly is broken up – or the next wave of innovation disrupts their monopoly – it is going to be very difficult to make a return on SEO investment. Paid ads also don’t scale according to normal economies of scale because of the Google and FB monopoly. Hence why Ecom companies are now going to the wall along with the traditional bricks and mortars. Amazon has also been a massive factor here.
If you do want to give SEO a shot, I would just introduce a company blog, identify some long-tail keywords, and publish plenty of useful keyword optimised content. You can achieve just as much that way as you would spending a small fortune on digital marketing agencies. There may be some excellent ones out there, but you need to be budgeting at least £1k a month, long-term, with the right people.

Why young kids aren’t drinking is a bit of a mystery, I think a lot of it has to do with technology/gaming culture. If you pick up the habit of drinking with your mates as a teenager, it is hard to shift.
So maybe a temperance bar with a playstation would work.

I should also note – this strategy also works for non-family members.

How do I cope with family that refuse to change or listen?
I shun em. Avoid em. I cross to the other side of the road and they quickly get the message I want nothing to do with them.
It works wonders for me, but it would be different if it’s MiL/FiLs I guess.
People think if they give it one more year, they will change, but they won’t.

I like being alone and doing my own thing during the xmas break. I just go to my sisters on the day, for around 5 hours, and that’s enough xmas socialising for me. I also avoid pubs at this time of year and all the fake bonhomie.
If I lived on a marina like the OP, then I’m sure there will be other people in the same boat (hahahahahahaha). Why not organise a little shindig and take one of the boats for a ride out of port.

The thing is, you need to find something you enjoy – build a life you want to live – if you want to cut down the binge drinking. This is true of all forms of binging – people deep down aren’t very happy with their life, and hence compensate through binge drink/food/tv/work, whatever.
This is easier said than done of course!

Do the open-air bus. Book the Sistine chapel in advance. Everything else is easy to get into, but you just need to narrow it down. I go to the churches but that’s not most peoples cup of tea.

You were lucky. Heavy drinking with work colleagues is a definite no-no in my book. I went to my work’s xmas do, had a couple of small glasses of white wine, and left. I heard the next day a couple of people got blind drunk and had to be carried out by colleagues (another benefit to leaving early).
Another good friend was a chronic binge drinker who had no off-switch. I get to a point where I know I’ve had enough and jump in a taxi. This guy would just keep on drinking and end up in A and E at least once a year.
Is there not a local mountain bike club you can join? I used to hang around with a small group but changed groups after I realised they were more interested in session drinking in the pub afterwards then the riding.

They won’t serve you before 9am in my spoons. That’s when the rush is.

Drank two pints of Guiness, a Fosters, a Red Stripe, a Fosters shandy, and a shot of sambuca whilst recovering from a cold. It may have helped or hindered, not sure as yet.

Football like anything goes through cycles and I think we are approaching the end of a “boom” period. With rising interest rates, and the fact young people seem to be more interested in E-sports than football, the cycle that was started around 1990 (Paul Gascoigne in Italia 90) feels like it is slowing down.

Tottenham have been getting their timing wrong. In many ways they were years ahead of their time in the 80s, when they started signing international players like Ardilles, and Irvine Scholar realised football had big business potential. But they over-extended and were unable to invest in the 1990s, when the most recent boom began with the Sky Sports/Premier League era.

I now believe they are too late to the party, investing too much, too late, when the cycle will start to reward prudent management of finances (which in fairness Daniel Levy used to specialise in – before he went mental with the new stadium).

I say this with regret as I like Spurs. I hope I’m wrong. But the debt (which is on the club, not the owners) is half a billion quid and unless you have an owner like Man City, that is still a hefty amount of cash.

There was a revealing investigation by The Guardian into ENIC, the club’s owners, setting up lots of shell companies to benefit from the “gentrification” of the Tottenham area (also known as social cleansing). Ultimately the club is on the hook for the debt, not ENIC, and I can well foresee another late 1980s scenario in which the club is close to bankrupcy.

Unfortunately matchday revenue is a tiny percentage of a big football clubs overall turnover. There are also signs attendances are falling as the economy slows especially in London and the South East.

Chelsea had an absolutely awful day vs Spurs, I think a team like Huddersfield could have taken them that day, look how they let Son run through them.

Spurs were fortunate to beat Inter Milan as Inter sat back so much, but there was zero fluency to Tottenham’s game and there hasn’t been for a while.

I hope you are right and they can sign some new players and add a new dimension to their game, but Spurs look like they peaked last year. Crucially I think Pochettino only knows one style of play and other sides are now learning how to counteract this – like Arsenal, by playing with the same intensity and high press, but with more fluency in the final third.

I wouldn’t be so concerned were it not for the fact that the new stadium means they have more debt as a club than Man United.

Fury’s “comeback” was after getting decked with two fairly soft knockdowns.

Iron Mike would have peekaboo’d him three foot into the canvas. If he came back from that, then I would applaud accordingly.

It says a lot about the state of modern boxing that this diluted excuse for a fight will be re-run with each so called fighter pocketing 25 big ones for a light night’s work.

AJ is the exception to the rule and has the potential to be a great fighter, but there is no-one around good enough to force him to that level.

Big result for Arsenal, and a very bad result for Spurs.

Arsenal are looking a very good team as time goes on, with a very good manager. I expect to see them pushing for second towards the end of the season.

Tottenham are looking increasingly one dimensional. I fear for their future if they cannot retain champs league this season, with the massive debt that has been loaded on the club with the ridiculous new stadium. The manager and Kane will leave at some point and Spurs could well end up with a half empty stadium, Europa League, and a decidedly average squad.

Poch is a good all round manager but tactically he is not in the top group of managers. The stadium is far too expensive and complex, they should have gone for a nice 45,000 seater like Juventus for £350million, not the one billion monstrosity they are currently building.

In other news, I think Everton will get a result against Liverpool.

The real Tyson would eat these two for breakfast.  Fury is a lump of lard and Wilder a one-shot wonder. Not a golden age for heavyweight boxing.

Good for you, I think surgery is the best option, I wish I had pushed for it many moons ago. The NHS are generally too reticent to operate

Im off to a pub quiz tonight where a nice teacher caught my eye last month. She is a regular at the quiz apparently so im hoping she is there tonight.

Lived in nz 18 months over 10 years ago. As with canada i think nz is a better option for raising a family than the uk. Kiwis are great for the most part and the scenary stunning. I did however know a few families who moved back as they missed friends and family in the uk. It can all change when you get the call that so and so only has xx months to live. If only nz was a four hour flight i think we would all be living there now.

I must be doing something wrong as ive spent half my waking life in pubs and am still single.

Surely being part of a group helps? Most women I see in pubs on their own are either alcoholics, just out of the mental hospital or on the game (and sometimes all three).

It looks like she may be leaving asap. I think it was a bad decision and the TV company bears quite a bit of responsibility. I hope she can get home soon and make a quick recovery and be back where she belongs, owning contestants on the chase.

Yeah agree with what someone said above re collective over reaction.

Brexit is a major issue but it is now the emotions of anger, hate and fear which poses the grestest threat. These are threatening to get out of control which means things could turn nasty eg major civil strife. These have been building for a long time and the main challenge facing the country is the lack of inclusive economic growth thats plagued us since the 70s.

Theresa Mays brexit deal is actually a great unifier. Everyone in parliament is united against it. But peoplr do need to take a step back, get some pespective, this isnt helped be a headline grabbing media and some reckless behaviour by MPs.

@danw yes it was indeed a big achievement by ireland not just on the field but tactically too.

The ABs undoubtedly do not want to peak too early with a world cup round the corner. Yet they have the expectation to win every game. It is a problem which has always plagued them and as shrewd as Hanson is I think the ABs may now be on a downward slope going into the world cup. I thought England chucked it against them last week.

Crucially Ireland have found a gameplan to contain the ABs which the other teams will replicate. But i think that cagey way of playing can always be beaten in a world cup by a very expansive style of play which is why i think Scotland could win it if the ABs are knocked out by someone else. Apologies for the essay

A very solid Ireland performance with Sexton excellent again.

I thought the ref was ok but the game naturally balanced itself out in terms of infringements.

The ABs look like they need a rest as its a lot of travel as well as rugby. They left it too late to respond and that along with their errors is indicative of fatigue.

Hertfordshire. Not so much these days as it increasingly turns into a suburb of London.

I’m thinking of making the move to Norwich, where I used to live. Otherwise I may do 6 months in UK and 6 months in Italy. Knee surgery first though, and if that is successful, I can get back to mucking around in the countryside.

Re moving out or not, the main factor is the size of the mortgage, and how much of it has been paid off. If there is still a long way to go then the house tends to have to be sold anyway so it isn’t a major issue moving out. The people I know who’ve regretted moving out had either paid off the mortgage or were close to doing so, and consequently the other half was given the “family home” and they got very little in return.

A lot of people are staying together (separate beds/rooms) these days rather than divorcing as the mortgage is too big and they can’t afford separate places given how expensive the property market is. People like Sir Paul Coleridge instead think it’s because marriage as an institution is getting stronger – but it isn’t, it’s just too expensive to divorce for many.

My friend is a postie. It seems to be a good job if you have kids, as he will come home after his round, fall asleep, then be able to pick up the kids from school for 3pm.

Christmas is manic. The round you get makes a big difference – the older troopers jealously guard their routes I’m told. There seems to be a lot of banter and almost a postie code where they look after each other.

I also thought Farrell’s challenge last week was a penalty; I’ve not seen the Cipriani one.

It’s a shame things are going this way but it was predicted back in the 90s before the game went pro.

Players would get too big and powerful, contact would be increasingly damaging, and then either the authorities would have to get very tough on any dodgy challenges, or introduce limits over the size of players. They won’t do the latter so the refs have to get tough to protect the well being of the players.

The Ozzie is out of control, he could say I was going for the ball, but even if he had arrived a second earlier, and got the ball, he still would have completely flattened the kicker.

The rules have to adapt to the new conditions of the professional game, i.e. the players are bloody huge now.

I think it has to be a card given how big, fast and powerful the average player now is – Kerevi is a Centre after all, not a forward. If the authorities don’t police this side of the game they are going to end up with ever more head injuries and perhaps a broken neck or fatality.

Considering how badly halfpenny was kicking yesterday, the Ozzie did Wales a favour by putting him out of the game. I thought it deserved a yellow.

This is the weakest All Blacks side for ten years or so as they rebuild, struggle with injuries and too many games, they were there for the taking. I expect Ireland to beat them nxt weekend.

With all the changes in the lead up to the world cup, I think Eddie Jones may have over-estimated how much strength in depth there is in the England ranks. Jamie George being a case in point.

Eddie Jones perhaps should have retained the services of some older heads like Mike Brown. I’m not sure how firmly the door is shut in the lead up to the world cup.

As above, I would take whatever she now says with a big pinch of salt, especially about her leaving the house in the future and her not seeing this man again. The opposite could be the truth.

Keep your belongings in the house, if you are unable to move back in.