Not really, but that would be good if it was. Anyway, I spent Hogmanay and its surrounding hours in the beautiful seaside town of Anstruther and as a result may have forgotten the finer details of my pledge for the past few days.

This just shows how much of a jolly time I had over this past weekend or so; the gentle folk of Fife welcomed me into their Kingdom with such open arms that I quite forgot to make mental notes of it all. However, a special mention goes to the conversation I unwillingly became part of, in the wee hours of the 1st, which detailed the sex lives of two or three pensioner ladies – no amount of mulled wine could remove that one from my memory. I think there was a toast to a bed in the house which had concieved and given birth to three generations of the owner’s family. “It’s not the same mattress, mind…”
HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Today I spoke to several people at a friend’s birthday party. One person who sticks out in particular was Erin who had recently moved to Glasgow from the US of A to be with her boyfriend. I was touched by this success story of international romance and think her and her man seem like a genuinely lovely couple. It was nice to see that two people could make it work, despite the distance, and without all that drama stuff which usually comes along with relationships. It’s a Christmas miracle*!

*[I should mention she's been here for around half a year. It's a July miracle!]

“got to love Glasgow. Some girl in a bar points out that I look like Joe off the X Factor, gets someone to take a photo of us and then proceeds to adopt a Cheryl Cole accent and tells me stuff like, “ahh, well Joe, what an excellent song choice” etc.”

HE LOOKED LIKE JOE MCELDERRY. However, I was so drunk I forgot he wasn’t actually Joe and I wasn’t Cheryl Cole. What I’m saying is, later in the night I punched a toilet attendant.

Day 15 I spent largely hungover on my friends’ couch, but later in the evening we ventured out to buy me a toothbrush and a pair of knickers from Tesco. I got into a pants conversation with the checkout girl – literally. She asked if I wanted the hanger, I declined. I said I didn’t normally hang up my pants and she agreed. She says her pant storing preference is folded in a drawer. Interesting. What’s your panty preference?

On Day 16 I spoke to a man in Curries Digital about my MP3 Player. Apparently he hasn’t even heard of the brand. Luddite.

On Day 17 I spoke to my inner glutton. MERRY JESUS DAY.

On Day 18 my true love sent to me a big fat tummy to fondle.

On Day 19 I slept for twelve hours straight and met my inner sloth.

On Day 20 I told a man he’d ‘catch his death’ ’cause he was outside a pub in nothing more than a t-shirt. This comment accompanied a day of making several old lady type clichés. I should befriend an old lady soon. Definitely.

On Day Nine, aka Thursday, I spent the day busily crafting and sending homemade cards (quantity: 2) to friends. All two of them. That meant that that evening I had to make an extra special effort to appear sociable at the PodCart Christmas party at the 13th Note that evening – yay! Luckily several friends were in attendance, Kid Canaveral being one of the bands on the bill, and so the lovely Lloyd of Peenko music blog fame introduced me to the brains behind a fellow popular musical blog, AyeTunes. I managed to forget his name a couple of times, but let’s call him John and mention that he’s from Paisley.

On Day Ten I had an appointment at my local gym to talk about membership. I spoke to a lovely young man called Martin who was sporting a Mod type hairstyle – in a good way. I’m actually convinced enough about the programme to risk possible veruccas or bumping into old school ‘mates’ and will join at the beginning January when I’m nice and plump. We bitched about the employees at a local leisure centre, specifically one who let me take part in an OAP aerobics class. Whatabitch.

Day Eleven I met up with my friend Jessica and we made our way up to Castlemilk to put some backing vocals on a track for Kid Canaveral’s impending album. Our part mainly consisted of the word ‘la’ which somehow proved quite difficult to master. Luckily ‘Gal’ was at hand to tweak any duff parts. Here is a picture of all the ladies who took part, as posted to Kid Canaveral’s Twitter:

On Day Twelve Jessica and I braved a snowy Westend and browsed through a few shops for last-minute Christmas inspiration. As she’s a fellow craft enthusiast I took her to The Maisonette for a browse. We ended up looking all over the stores in DeCourcey’s Arcade and spoke to a girl in one of the independent designer shops. I say ‘spoke to’, we made conversation after she overheard me talking about the Bondage Club I had been invited to the previous evening. (To which, by the way, by initial reaction was ‘OH GOD NO’, but I have since decided that 2010 is the year of the PVC Tiger.)

On Day Thirteen I huddled myself away from the cold and frozen snow outside and so only spoke to a woman from the Barclay’s bank Recruitment Line. I have nothing to report from her; she made beige conversation.

On Tuesday I spent the whole day in my house documenting my own slow demise.

On Wednesday I fared slightly better, telling a stranger he still had a ‘Large’ sticker attached to his joggies and engaging in generic Christmas banter with a shop employee.
On the train home I shared some worried glances with my fellow passengers as some crazed Bam behind me stopped his hysterical laughter for long enough to shout: ‘HUMAN BEINGS? Motherf***ers; I’ll kill youse all!’. Lovely.
Day 8 I did not depress anybody (although joggies/sticker man may have felt slightly embarrassed.)

On Sunday I returned to my town and joined my father and grandfather in their Sunday tradition of a few pints before dinner. I met some of my Dad’s pub friends – a terrifying experience to say the least. These people probably know more about me than I do: they’ve been charting my progress every weekend for the past seventeen years. They’re like a social height-chart. They remember stories about nappies. NAPPIES. (I don’t know why they know these stories: we only moved to the area when I was five – not in nappies might I add.)
Anyway, I spoke to my father’s friend Kevin who had had several pints. He gave me pub influenced life ‘advice’. Enlightening. We left just in time before the Irish rebel songs began.
I wish I HAD spoken to the congregation of deaf guys in the corner: they were signing to each other all through the football and I was sure one was lip-reading everything I said. One looked a bit like Nick Griffin. I bet they were making huge racist comments all through the day and nobody realised. Today I learned to be more wary of deaf members of the community: must hone up on BSL.

Anyway, I did manage to speak to a lovely lady who wants to sign me up to her recruitment company: re-sult. She phoned me this morning, thus giving me no real need to properly leave yesterday’s copy of The Guardian or my pyjamas all day. Pledge requirements: met.
Her name was Insa which is strange and exotic. I think it’s most likely a Scandinavian name. I will ask on Monday when I meet her in person.
Hopefully I will have a more exciting weekend from which to report. I’m also back on New York time due to ill person naps. Darn.

Today my new person was my Job Centre Advisor, Mark. He was nice. He guided me through my rapid reclaim after my trip to NYC (where, indeed, I spoke to all sorts of brand new people: go me!). He made a bad joke where he advised me not to change my signature in case it confused the DWP. At least…I think it was a joke. I laughed awkwardly anyway. Today I learnt how to laugh at jokes in the face of benefits advisors.