Nothing screams festive spirit like a chocolate Dalek on candy cane stabilisers. It's Christmas tomorrow and I am yet to feel particularly merry about much but we seem to be making it through without killing each other. So far. Doctor Who though, and a huge dinner will probably change the way I feel sooner or later. This whole 'Christmas' thing would probably also explain why there is an enormous cardboard box next to my bed filled with more smaller boxes, newspaper and treats for Ruddles to enjoy tomorrow morning. It says something about the state of our family life when the cats are getting more lavish gifts than we are.

Laura's birthday last night was absolutely bloody brilliant. Muchos entertaining, thanks LauBla!

Ruddles in a shopping bag thanks you for your time.

Fa la la la laa la la la...fuck off*. Though perhaps not really.

Yes indeed people, it is exactly one week to Christmas and that means that it's one week until Doctor Who. If that's not something to be excited about, I don't know what is. Unfortunately the people I work with do not agree with me so when I saw that The Sun (I know, it's what the customers want) was giving away a free DVD of The End Of Time (parts 1 AND 2) and The Eleventh Hour, I pounced. I also took the free supplement magazine thing, ignoring the fact the front cover leads with the line DOCTOR LURVE and instead focusing on the dapper hunk of man that is Matt Smith. But I'm not here to talk about Doctor Who.

It snowed today and it snowed a lot. We shut at 3, an hour early, so the boss could go home to Luton without killing herself in the dark and this meant that I had to run around the shop like a total loon with the stales clip board counting how many sausage rolls we had left whilst people came in and continued to buy said sausage rolls. Why didn't you just wait until you'd locked up? You may be asking, and I shall tell you for why. Because we had 10 minutes to chuck, clean, mop and wash up the whole friggin' shop so we could all get out ASAP. Snow. Friggin' hell.

Anyway on Monday I have to go to town and do all the Christmas shopping (and some birthday shopping) that I've somehow managed to avoid doing until now. Fun times ahead. Sometimes I wonder what Christmas is like for the people who don't spend it simultaneously pretending to hate everything about it (oh God people want to be happy and merry, the sinning bastards) because everyone else does whilst also dreaming about the day she can put up her tree and decorate it with bags of festive crap, listening to crappy Christmas music and generally having a tacky but weirdly enjoyable holiday.

The highlight of today probably came when this foreign man came into work whilst the shop was packed and we were being worked off our little feet and just said "TWO BREAD" and my boss replied, rather quickly, "YOU'RE STANDING IN A BREAD SHOP, MATE". It's lost in the telling but at the time I was trying not to gigglesnort into some woman's Viennese Whirl.

*This is not a personal dig at Anne. I love Anne. I just thought it would be a trendy and witty way of beginning.

We are very small. Space is very, very, very big. The average distance between stars is over 30 million million kilometres. At the speed of light, it would take us seven hours to get to Pluto from Earth. Our nearest neighbour in the cosmos, Proxima Centauri, is 4.3 light years away or a hundred million times further than a trip to the moon. From Pluto, the Sun merely resembles yet another bright star.

I'm telling you this because I like space. I've always liked space and only recently have I started to re-immerse myself in the sheer awesomeness that is our universe. I don't know whether I like space because I used to watch The Clangers a lot or because the lunar travel bit of the Natural History Museum has real moon gloves and space food. My favourite planet has always been Jupiter because it's the biggest and it has a massive red spot and has the most moons. Yeah, I'm shallow.

Often, the opening titles of Star Trek would interest me more than the actual episode. Especially the titles of Star Trek Voyager. I loved the bit in Walking with Dinosaurs when the asteroid smashed into Earth and blew away the T-Rex. I'd love to go to NASA one day. I don't believe in 'aliens' in the way that the movies depict them but sooner or later we will find insect-style life out there, much like the life that evolved here and eventually became us.

This has been very non-sequitur but the point is, space is amazing and I just wanted to say so.

Anne and Laura have both recently been ill and have both recently blogged about being ill and for a little while I thought my hardened immune system (probably glowing an ominous green from all the yellow-stickered foods I've ever eaten) would hold out and I would not have to do a illness blog.

I was wrong. I am ill.

Dad bought me a tomato soup and said it broke his heart that he had to pay for something so expensive, just because of a brand name. He's being nice to me though, so that's good.

I am gross, tired, headachey, pukey ill. I hate cancelling things, and I've had to cancel two important things just today, and will have to, possibly, cancel two important things tomorrow. I'm supposed to have work on Saturday and Oxfam on Sunday.

I guess it's only when you're ill you realise how much you do as a person. I never thought I'd be one of those people who have lives busy enough that being stuck in bed all day is actually not a good thing. I love my bed. But when I'm supposed to be doing other important things, it's the last place I want to be.

Sad and ill Genie is sad and ill.

Because I can't think of anything to blog about that concerns me directly or is vaguely original, I'm simply going to add my opinions to Laura's Blog about being famous. I find it an interesting subject.

In my mind there a four kinds of fame/celebrity:

1. Old School - Old school celebrities include the likes of Brad Pitt, David Beckham, RDJ, Penelope Cruz etc. who have forged a career in the limelight over years and years of hard work. These people are talented but are unfortunately becoming a rarity. They are universally known, and accepted as the top of the fame/celebrity hierarchy.

2. The Inspirational And Tirelessly Brilliant - This category is the one I think we appreciate most. In my mind, the people that fit in here include The League of Gentlemen, The Moff, Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, Simon Pegg etc. who have all come from humble beginnings, appreciate their fans and share many of the traits that us mere mortals do e.g. geekiness, crap in-jokes and the simple pleasure of M&S lunch deals. They are as normal as you can get in the position they are in.

3. The Talented Ones Who Came About Fame The 'Wrong' Way - You can't deny that singers like Leona Lewis and Alexandra Burke have amazing voices and have made considerable profits. Yes, they achieved fame through The X Factor but they do have a talent and do seem to be genuinely be thankful for what they are. JLS didn't win the competition, and they may not be my cup of tea, but I am yet to see an interview with them in which they badmouth other celebrities or come across as rude. Reality talent shows like The X Factor may make untalented people famous for 15 minutes but it also creates a life-changing (cringey cliche alert) opportunity for those who prove they have the talent and the confidence.

4. Reality Stars/Vapid Fame Hungry Whores - Jordan/Katie Price and her partner Whatshisface, Kerry Katona, Tila Tequila, the orange nobs on Jersey Shore, wannabe-WAGS, Katie Waissel, anyone on Big Brother, Vanessa Feltz, Gillian McKeith etc. the list goes on. The most common form of 'celebrity' and unfortunately the ones who get the most publicity. You know the types. The more the media feeds their desires to be front cover, page three or every page features, the longer their fifteen minutes continue, blocking any chance of the really talented and admirable to be noticed.

I'm not saying that the people in Category 4 are disgusting human beings. I'm sure they love their families and their friends and whatever. My problem lies with the fact that they are made out to be the most important things on the planet ever.

I'd never really sat down and watched The X Factor, but this year I can honestly say that Matt Cardle comes across as the most deserving and honest contestent that I've ever seen. I almost don't want him to win, so that he can carve out his career the way he wants rather than the way the recording/branding etc. bosses want him to be.

I also don't know where to put people like David Villa and Leo Messi, who are remarkably talented individuals, who inspire people all round the world and yet do not fit into Category 1 or Category 2. Is excellence in sport really less important than having big tits? Yes, I disagree with players being paid vast sums of money every week when nurses and firemen are being made redundant, but for their skill and the entertainment they provide with a ball, I certainly think they deserve more recognition than X's One Night Stand.

I think the moment I realised that people really saw on seperate levels the difference between talent and celebrity was after the Oscars earlier this year. In Media, we did a table of good role models and bad role models. When my teacher asked me who I thought was a good role model, I said Kathryn Bigelow. My teacher asked me "Who's she?" and I had to explain not just to her, but to the whole class that she is the first woman to win the Best Director Oscar. I didn't know how to feel after that.

I think I was, and still am, disappointed.

You know you're tired when your mother refers to armadillos as 'armadildos' for a whole day and you don't notice until it's time to go home. Fortunately, we were at ZSL London Zoo, not a children's puppet show.

It was very cold. I was hoping it would warm up a little bit but it really didn't. As a result, I had my hands shoved into my coat pockets all day unless they were wrapped round a coffee. This also meant that I didn't pet any baby goats in the children's farm, or stroke the lovely pigs. The Bearded Pigs, by the way, were definitely the stars of the show. They were our first feeding visit of the day, and they were very cute and snorty and generally loveable.

Mum wasn't keen on the Komodo Dragons but they are my favourite, so we watched a keeper sit with the biggest male and pick his skin and give him a massage (which was awesome) and was very envious. The Galapagos Turtles, which were huge, lazy and incredibly slow also made good viewing.

As to be expected, there were school groups but they ran around getting glimpses and moving on so I was glad we had a bit more time to watch animals like the lions and tigers. Who both sat and slept seemingly all day. We visited them twice, a little later on the second time when the big groups had gone and the tigers were obviously aware it was nearly tea time and one of them was up on its feet. Being face to face with him, if just for a moment, was pretty cool.

I was pretty jealous of the lizards, who were in tanks heated to about 27 degrees and looked toasty warm. I wonder what life is like for them. They live longer but they don't have the freedom. Do you think they know they are saving their own species as they just sit there? I wish I could be that valuable and yet that lazy.

It would certainly stop me feeling guilty about having a 'lie-in' until 8:45.

Hey Little World, coincidentally a song by The Hives. My favourite song by The Hives. The point still stands. Hello. I haven't blogged for a while because I've had nothing to say as nothing has happened. Nothing of 'interest' anyway.

I haven't seen Harry Potter yet, I'm not watching I'm A Celebrity, I saw Merlin on Sunday instead of Saturday (anarchy). My new PIN still hasn't arrived so I still don't have any access to my money. I have planned and know what I'm getting LAUBLA for her birthday, though Christmas is still a little fuzzy. I'm five chapters into Black Butterfly by Mark Gatiss, and loving it. My calendar for November remains remarkably empty, but that's probably because I haven't filled it in much. I'm trying to drink more water than I usually do. Was I paid for last week? I still don't know.

Oi, Mr Capello. Play Crouch as a starting forward, not an 84th minute substitute.

Matt Cardle is still on his way to winning The X Factor, by flaunting his glorious arms and beautiful voice. What a sexy bitch. UNF.

Sorry Laura.