Flaming Nora

It's beginning to smell a lot like Christmas. Since bah-humbugging in the blog here about it , I'm fianlly get into the Chrimbo vibe. I've bought presents. I've bought cards. I've bought train tickets up north. And this coming weekend the tree goes up and the fairy lights switched on in our kitchen.

Olive from On The Buses is haunting my thoughts. I won't say who it is (because I'm not cruel) but there's a woman on the telly who reads our weather and she looks just like OFOTB. And on the same day I thought that, I walked out of the tube station to find a poster for a panto starring the real life Olive. PS: If anyone can tell me why this blog's stat-counter is going into overdrive with hits to this Olive post, I'd love to find out. Leave a comment below, go on, you know you want to. And while you're here, why not take a look at my Coronation Street Blog - it's fab.

I've been writing Coronation Street weekly updates since 1995 and this week's Coronation Street update has just gone live here . This week the update comes complete with an incomplete Minnie Caldwell quote.

To one of my favourite London buildings this weekend for a study day examining one of my favourite topics . And when the ex-editor of Spare Rib turns up to give a lecture, well, Saturdays in November don't come much better. For my life in women's magazines, have a look here .

I've been writing Coronation Street weekly updates since 1995 and this week's Coronation Street update has just gone live here . This week the update comes with Cliff Richard.

For the first time in my life I bought some leather gloves for the winter. Not only do they make me feel very grown up but while wearing them I now like to pretend that I'm Emma Peel from The Avengers. It's great fun at the bus stop.

To the flicks this week to see the new James Bond film, Quatum of Solace . It wasn't great. My lovely man said he felt neither shaken nor stirred by the movie, and I felt it could have been improved if Daniel Craig had appeared in his pants again. As he didn't, here's a picture from his last James Bond film instead.

I've been writing Coronation Street weekly updates since 1995 and this week's Coronation Street update has just gone live here . This week the update comes with Corrie's cutest ever kid.

I'm not looking forward to Christmas. And in my grump, I remembered feeling exactly the same thing at exactly the same time last year. I even blogged about it . Maybe I just need to hear Slade to get me in the festive mood?

One of the many joys of watching Sky Sports 1 on a Saturday as the footy results come pouring in all afternoon, is lusting after Jeff Stelling. He looks like the sort of man who would wear expensive aftershave and smell nice. Did you know there's a Jeff Stelling fan club? There is .

Regular readers might remember I found this inside a book I bought in a charity shop earlier this year. I've just sold it on eBay for the princely sum of £1.71. It seems only fair that I take my riches and desposit them in the British Heart Foundation charity shop tin next time I'm in Harrogate. The charity circle will then be complete.

Isn't it about time Channel 4* had a Brookside night? They could have lots of clips from old episodes, chats with the writers and actors and input from fans. I miss Brookside. There, I've said it. *E4 would do. Really.

I'm now reading the book of the website of The Man Who Fell Asleep . So if you're travelling by tube and there's a woman sitting next to you stifling a guffaw, that's me. It's the funniest thing I've read in ages.

I've been writing Coronation Street weekly updates since 1995 and this week's Coronation Street update has just gone live here . This week the update comes with a chucky egg.

Planted over 100 bulbs, raked the leaves for compost, chased the squirrels and filled up the bird feeder. Glorious autumn days like this are few and far between and although the garden's dying down for the winter, there's bags of colour still.

Just finished reading my first Roddy Doyle book, The Woman Who Walked Into Doors . It wasn't the most comfortable of subjects to read about but it's a book I can highly recommend, all the same.