Under achieving

We've spent the entire day under-achieving! We slept through the morning. We must have been knackered. Waking up naturally at mid day is not an ordinary occurrence, even for us.

We spent the afternoon looking through contracts. Yawn. When you're not a solicitor, a contract can be a bewildering thing, so we literally had to go through it one line at a time to get a sense of what any of it meant. Fortunately we've had some help from solicitors at the MU, who took a look through it, but I am left wondering why on earth we need legalese. It strikes me that legal language is deliberately designed to trip us up and pull the wool over people's eyes. Why can't contracts simply be written in plain language? I'll tell you why... So that lawyers can charge a ludicrous fortune for their services! It's bonkers.

It started to get dark way too early for my liking today - I may well still have been in a dressing gown - although the sky did turn a rather fetching shade of lavender just before the heavenly lights went out, so there was a little hint of magic to get excited about. We had a quick stroll around the block to clear our head of nonsensical words before treating ourselves to a roast dinner at the Woodman pub opposite. They do a lovely veggie alternative over there, which comes with all the trimmings. The joy about roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding and all of that malarkey is that, baring the blob of meat on the side, everything is completely vegetarian, so why offer us a butternut squash risotto piled high with bitter rocket?

We came home and watched various results shows, wondering, in the case of the X Factor, whether we were actually listening to One Direction or one of those fabulous YouTube "shred" videos when people over-dub live performances of famous bands with terrifyingly bad vocals. The greatest shred, in my view, is Jessie J singing Bang Bang. But only watch this if you know the song and who she is, or you'll be insanely confused. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UlPsybmaNmA

Listening to Reggie and Bollie singing their "winning song" live was like having my teeth pulled out one by one without any form of anaesthetic. I'm writing this before knowing who has won the competition, by the way, so this is not a spoiler!

What I would say is that I have probably not seen a live event as badly staged managed as the X Factor final since the 1989 Brit Awards! And whoever choses these winning songs needs to be sacked! They always sound the same; their own genre of over-inflated mush with layers of synths, clearly designed to favour one contestant over the other! My favourite faux pas tonight was the all-white "gospel" choir, who, when the black lads sang, threw on red and white gospel gowns to give the reggae feel a special air of authenticity. Gah.