Should have posted this on Tuesday

I did so much this weekend, I must be in line for some award or something. I know you don't want to know, but here is a breakdown:

I left work early on Friday as it was the Friday before a bank holiday. This gave us time to take Dumpy to Space Adventure land in Swindon. I think he had fun. We bought pizza on the way home.

Sunday and Monday were looking bad weather wise, so we decided to make the most of Saturday in the garden. I planted out the lettuces and spinach. Put the Magnolia tree into it's final pot, which my mother bought for us, cut the grass, put the rest of the tomatoes in the garden, and went shopping at Tesco.

We went to the new B and Q superstore and bought a bench for the garden. Also made an appointment for Monday to talk about replacing the kitchen cabinets. More about that later.

Nipped into town and bought a shoe rack for the conservatory. Assembled it.

On Sunday...

Cleared out the conservatory. That was a nasty job.

Built the bench for the garden. Installed new shoe rack.

On Monday...

Installed new bench in the garden, looks very nice.

Made a new shelf for conservatory for plant life.

Went in loft to store junk and found my Chelsea boots and Diva video.

Cleared up downstairs. It was becoming a tip.

Went to B and Q again to arrange kitchen.

In addition to the above, I also made tuna salad for lunch on Saturday and Monday, roast chicken dinner on Saturday, chow mien dinner on Saturday, and risotto dinner on Monday.

OK, the kitchen; since we returned to the house after a 5 year absence in which it was rented out, the kitchen has become a bomb site. Doors are hanging off cabinets, the cooker hood doesn't work, the sink tap is falling off. Oh it's foul. So we need to do something about it. The quote we got for new cabinets, sink unit, and cooker, was good. It came to about £1,500. To have it fitted will cost another £2,500. That's 2 days work at the most and they want £2,500! That works out at about £180 per hour. Lets say it's 2 guys, that's £90 an hour. I think we'll buy the hardware and I'll do it myself. I'm slightly scared, but I'm fairly practical and I think I can do it. I might make a video diary.

OK, now I'm going to talk about reality tv. I'm not exactly against reality tv, but I have come to the conclusion that it is basically disgusting. The grandfather of reality tv is I suppose Big Brother. When it first came out, it was billed as a show in which 10 people live together in a house for 10 weeks, under constant surveillance. The product was close to the description. It was very much a show in which the public simply spied on the contestants. It appealed to the voyeur in all of us. The show is now several years old now however and the makers have found it necessary to add increasingly controversial elements each time. We've had fights, sex, racism, and now in Australia it seems that one contestant is currently locked in the house unaware that her father has died. I'm not a fan, but I look in occasionally. I even got quite into a celebrity BB a couple of years ago. I think however that the original concept, without the agro, was much more watchable.

The irony is that the reality is gone, replaced by something altogether far more surreal. The contestants are no longer people from the street. They deliberately pick flamboyant people with huge personalities, with the idea that they will clash and provide entertainment for us. They now interfere with the contestants in the hope that they can cause tension. They starve them, take away their clothes and belongings, make them do stupid things. I don't understand it.

Now the comapny that makes BB, Endemol, has come up with a new idea that is apparently going to air in Holland on Friday. It's yet another reality show of course, in which a terminally ill woman decides to whom she will donate her kidneys. Apparently there are to be three contestants, all of whom require a kidney transplant. Two of them will presumably die along with the terminally ill donor. This one really crosses the boudary and enters bad taste territory for me. And I don't shock easily.