In the Burrow

• The douche is leaking. I discover this when I notice water seeping out under the bathroom wall onto the landing. I put a towel under where the valve is leaking, then forget to change it later. So, once the towel is soaked through, the water resumes its seepage out to the landing.

• Mr Coypu is not happy. I am not happy.

• The douche may be more trouble than it's worth.

OOoh look! I'm risen incorruptible…

• I go to the Coliseum - I love the Coliseum for its stunning acoustics – for Deborah Warner's take on Handel's Messiah, accompanied by a friend.

• As one would expect of the ENO, the singing is breathtaking (esp Sophie Bevan & Brindley Sherratt), so is the orchestra.

• What the staging lacks in subtlety it makes up for in fake blood. My companion was disappointed that the Hallelujah chorus was a tad underpowered & that it looked like a corporate golfing weekend. I thought it was more like a Barmitzvah, what with everyone shaking hands and, apparently, congratulating each other.

• Some people came out moved to tears, but I wasn't the only one giggling when, to the lyric ' The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised, the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed ' Ms Bevan got up from the hospital bed, where she had recently died (she had a drip and a sheet over her face), looked around, and someone came over & gave her some flowers & a cardi. And all the rest of the chorus got up from the perspex plinths on which they'd being lying (dead), with expressions on their faces that clearly read 'Oooh! Look at me. I'm risen incorruptible.'

• Meanwhile, Ms Bevan put her cardi over her hospital gown. And lo. She was changed!

In the Burrow

• I return home to a Coypette who's completed her maths homework unsupervised, practised the piano &, sporting an apron, is leading a small team (consisting of herself & Mr Coypu) cooking delicious fish pie. Suspect I've stumbled into an alternate reality.

Delicious fish pie (& broccoli). I e' aw o' it.

• The builders return to relocate the TV & some furniture as per our incomplete instructions. The TV & sofa are now on opposite sides of the dining table: also there's a stray kitchen unit in the midst of the living room.

stray kitchen cabinet trying to look indispensible

• In case you're wondering, the stray kitchen cabinet is wearing a sky+ box & a DVD player, a DVD & a dustbuster. It is obviously trying to charm us out of freecycling it. We will not be manipulated in this manner.

• If anyone out there needs or wants a passive aggressive kitchen cabinet (its drawers are cream in real life) please let me know…

In the Burrow

• The Wise Old Coypu comes to visit before heading off on his travels. Mr Coypu cooks what he claims is soup, but looks & tastes suspiciously like stew.

• Over lunch, the subject of Christmas tea comes up, along with the possibility that the Dowager Lady Coypu might join us. Remembering the DLC's love of vols aux vent (sp? vol au vents?), the WOC suggests that if she is coming, we might get some in, specially.

'I can't remember the last time I saw a vol au vent,' remarks the WOC pensively.

'No… Perhaps they went out with the dildos,' suggests Mr Coypu, confusing extinct birds with sex toys.

Laugh if you like, but that dodo fucking hurts.

Beyond the Burrow

• I leave the burrow illegitimately early & cycle to the RCA Secret sale. I queue from 6.30am to 10.45am & chat with 2 civil servants, 1 Bank of England Auditor, 1 civil servant's daughter, a man who does accounts for a computer games company, a junior doctor fresh from operating on the gangrenous toes of diabetics & a butler (clarification: I chat with a butler: he is not, as far as I know, fresh from being operated on by the jnr dr).

• I have lots of fun, learn a little about visual art & buy these.

Chris Mercier

I choose this for its precision, subversive humour & ambiguity: does it say 'Cake' or 'Caka'? I think both.

Sophia Malig

I choose this for its cleanliness, its disorder within order & the potential for sprouting wildness & unpredictability fenced into those bourgeois little (Pandora-ish) boxes

Olenna Mokliak

I choose this for its delicate, feathery beauty.

• Later, I take them to be framed & show the man in the frame shop (Thou Art in Hampstead) how to use his phone.

• Then I buy a new cat flap.

In the Burrow

• The Coypette has forgotten her maths homework. She is tearfully contrite. We will leave for school obscenely early tomorrow morning so no-one notices the halo slippage.

• The builders (allegedly) fix the douche, but according to Mr Coypu – who is not happy – it still only functions in Icelandic geyser mode.

• The builders finish – except for re-positioning the telly. Mr Coypu had them take it off the wall ready to be refixed on a different bit of wall. It is now snuggled coyly into the sofa. It will stay there until we get the arm to fix it to the different piece of wall & the builders come back to fix it (& do a couple of other finishing tasks). I suggest (gently) that it might have been better to leave it on the wall until we were ready to move it to the different wall.

We can sit on the floor.

• There is now a lot of stuff to put into/onto the new cupboards & bookshelves. The bookshelves are beautifully sorted, but only in my head.

• Today. I am near the Grumpy end of the Sneezy — Grumpy continuum.

Beyond the Burrow

I venture out with the Coypette & friends to watch Disney's A Christmas Carol.

Despite its sheer beauty – there's extraordinary art in the detailed rendering of faces & 19th century London scenes, & the kookiness of casting Gary Oldman as the voice of Tiny Tim – it leaves me colder than Bob Cratchit's fingers.

First, a confession. I don't like Dickens that much*. Yep, he is, undoubtedly, one of the greatest storytellers ever. But the moral & philosophical signposting is too directive & I can't bear being told what to think & feel.

So, not a good start for a film that – scriptwise – is faithful to the original. But it's the velocity of the piece – & the focus on speed & distances covered that irritates most. Too much Scrooge dragged sweeping round the London streets & over the skyline by spirits behaving like the Snowman on speed… Or running through drainpipes miniaturised and pursued by the Reaperish Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come & his team of red-eyed shadow-horses.

With all that going on, when & how can Scrooge have time to catch his breath, let alone manage a change of heart?

2.5 biscuits out of 5.



* OK, I've only read Oliver Twist, Martin Chuzzlewit, Nicholas Nickleby & A Christmas Carol…

On the Coypod

Not, you may be surprised to learn, Muskrat Love…



(… despite the unexpected involvement of Henry Kissinger)

but

Mika's exuberantly lush second album, The Boy Who Knew Too Much.

Is it only me who'd love to hear Mika collaborate with Django Bates? Almost certainly…

In the Burrow

• The Coypette's former teacher is due for tea at 4.30pm. The Coypette claims to be nervous, because her ex-teacher is 'scary'. Not, apparently, if you're one of 30 kids in front of her, but IF IT"S JUST YOU AND EVERYONE ELSE IS AN ADULT.

• Mr Coypu has trouble with the douche he was so desperate to have installed. It is mostly operator error, although the builder hasn't installed the bit that controls the speed, which is why we only have the Icelandic geyser setting. Still, I manage, while he needs to change his clothes a lot.

Rodent Joke

Q: What did the mouse say when it saw a bat?

A: Look - an angel!

In the Burrow

• I'm rumbled by the Coypette.

Coypette: [squealingly] It's you. You're the Tooth Fairy!

Me: [disingenuosly] Don't be silly. How could I get round to everyone who loses a tooth?

Coypette: [patiently] Not everyone's Tooth Fairy. My Tooth Fairy.

Me: [calmly] That's ridiculous. I'm far too big.

Coypette: [challengingly] Well, how could she carry a whole £1? It's too heavy.

Me: [evasively] Don't forget she's magic!

Coypette: [explainingly] Yes, but she needs her wand to carry the note.

Exits triumphantly.

• The douche is now fully functioning.



According to Mr Coypu, it has a 3 speed water-jet. I've only found the Icelandic geyser setting. It's an interesting experience & I may need counselling.

In the Burrow

• It takes 4 attempts, but eventually Mr Coypu makes it onto the road & down to visit the Dowager Lady Coypu at the seaside.

• I explain to the Coypette about the Berlin Wall coming down 20 years ago today & show her these: the bits of it that the first Mr Coypu brought home for me.


• She says, "That's not very long ago. Things had already started moderning, hadn't they?"

I say, "Moderning?"

She says, "You know, like mobile phones."

In the Burrow

• Mr Coypu sets off on a visit to the Dowager Lady Coypu, leaving me to a healthy diet of vegetables & chocolate fingers & enough peace & quiet to clear a large chunk of work.

• He returns an hour later. There was an accident blocking the motorway. Luckily, I've already scoffed the chocolate fingers. He is now watching football, while I wrestle with a college assignment.

• It is unnatural for a rodent to devote this much energy to granular synthesis.

• Mr Coypu says 'I wondered what had happened to the fucking chocolate fingers.'

Beyond the Burrow

• Mr Coypu & I laughed & our way through Kwame Kwei-Armah's fast-paced, funny meditation on identity politics & prejudice, lurve & respect, Seize the Day, at the Tricycle Theatre on Friday. Only criticism is that 2 of the 4 female characters were a tad cipherous. Also, in the front of the back of the stalls there's nowhere to put your feet. Just air.

4 biscuits out of 5

• Experience of the week was The Turn of the Screw at the Coliseum. The singing was sine-wave pure, the musicianship diamond-precise and the Joesph Wright of Derby-style lighting spooky as fuck. The fur on the back of my neck is still erect.

A top-class 5 biscuits out of 5

In the Burrow

• Mr Coypu is thrilled by arrival of douche which will ensure clean Coypu arses, reduce toilet paper consumption & give the Coypette something to mess with when her rowdier friends visit.

• The Coypette's science homework provides groundbreaking insights into the lifecycle of Homo Sapiens. (NB: unedited version awaiting peer review)



• Slovenly Burrow development works in progress. There is now less wall. Soon there'll be more storage.