I’m reading an excellent history book at the moment: The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England. It is quite an unusual take on the history book genre in that it aims to explain what life was like for all the social strata of people living in the fourteenth century and how we, as modern people, would respond to life during that period. It covers everything from food to recreational activities, from the structure of towns to the effects of the great plague. It provides a lot of detail on aspects of life that most history books just would not contain. An example of this is the section on medieval humour, and I shall reproduce a medieval joke here:

Two merchants are having a chat and one of them says, “I’ve been married four times now, and each time my wife has hung herself from the oak tree in my garden.”

The second merchant replies, “Can I have a cutting from this noble tree?”

So you can tell medieval humour was not terribly sophisticated. The book is filled with fascinating details like this, and reading it gives a real sense of how the people and life was so different back then. Another example is the staggering misogyny in medieval England, no modern English woman would allow themselves to be treated as the distinctly inferior people that women were in the fourteenth century.

If you enjoy history and want a compelling and engaging book to read I can highly recommend this.

As my regular reader will know I have a bit of a thing for gadgets. I am tempted to buy a new one, the Toshiba TG01. There are a few things that tickle my fancy about this phone: a 4.1inch 800x480 screen, a 1GHz CPU, a whizzy GPU and an accelerometer plus all of the other features of my current Xperia X1. However, it does not have a keyboard, it has an onscreen one.

The partner has constantly been going on and on to me about how I should be buying an iPhone as he likes his so much. One of the reasons I’ve given is that I don’t like onscreen keyboards. I also think the screen on the iPhone has a pretty ropey resolution. When I had my Nokia N800 internet tablet the first accessory I got for it was a Bluetooth keyboard. I briefly had an HTC Touch Diamond and didn’t really like it as it had an onscreen keyboard and even the larger one it came with that was designed for its high resolution display was poor.

Before all of these I had an i-mate Jasjar (a rebranding of the HTC Universal). OK, it was a brick, but I loved its high resolution display and its keyboard. Why did I stop using it? Because I knackered it installing custom ROMs. Ah well…

So has technology moved on far enough for onscreen keyboards to be useful? Some people think so, maybe I should give them another try. One of the good things about the TG01 is that it has USB host capabilities and Bluetooth so if I really want to type a lot I can attach a keyboard.

One of the things that strikes me about phones like the TG01, and I would include the iPhone in that list, is that they are mature, convergent devices. They are phones, media players, gaming devices, internet tablets, navigation tools, cameras, PIMs and work tools. Little, connected computers in your pocket, basically. Speaking as a superannuated toddler I remember when such things were science fiction.

I really like the music of Neil Hannon, aka The Divine Comedy. He has just released another album, called The Duckworth Lewis Method, which is themed on cricket, which is timely as the England - Australia series, known as The Ashes, is currently underway. There are some good poppy songs, and a few which are quite funny. Well worth getting. Get mp3s here or buy the cd here.

For those who don’t know what the title, The Duckworth Lewis Method, means then allow me to enlighten you. Duckworth and Lewis were two statisticians who worked out a method of determining who wins a limited-overs cricket match when it is cut short (normally by rain).

This morning I was giving a briefing to an advertising company on behalf of a schizophrenia charity I am a media volunteer for. It went well. Since I was in the area I thought I would drop by one of my favourite galleries: Contemporary Applied Arts.

I walked in and popped downstairs, there was no one to be seen. Then my eyes drifted to a brilliant Rupert Spira bowl (although it was not as brilliant as ours) and I dropped into ‘art appreciation mode’. I groaned with pleasure and said, “Ooohhh beautiful thing, beautiful thing.”

A muffled laugh came from the dark depths where I know their store room is followed by a voice, “Hello David. Nice to know you approve of what we have on the shelves.”

Nice to be recognised, I suppose, especially if it is for being deeply appreciative.

It is worth dropping by there, they’ve got some top Rupert Spira stuff in and a few really deeply lovely Sarah-Jane Selwood bowls.

A month or so back I was talking to one of my psychotherapists about things that could distract me as I lie in bed and so not have obsessive thoughts. I said that being a wine and food type would lend me to being distracted by smells, and he suggested I try some incense.

Now, I’ve always thought incense is a bit crap. People who use it are… how can I put this?… not quite as ultra-rational as me. I’ve associated it with people who think sloppily. However, I thought I’d buy some and give it a go.

Much to my surprise, I love it! The incense I’ve purchased does smell surprisingly good and it has a positive effect on my mood. Last week I had twenty quid’s worth of the stuff delivered and I’ve been really enjoying the new aromas I got.

The stuff I got came from a leftist-shite online merchant, holisticshop.co.uk. I had been informed that Nippon brand incense was the stuff to go for. My favourite aromas have been ‘Comfortable time’ (lavender and rosemary) and ‘Calm night’ (vetiver and chamomile). The packets of incense come with a little ceramic holder for the burning stick, so buy a box or two and you are all ready to go. You might be surprised, I was.

Last night I read the Toybag Guide to Age Play. It is a quick read, but covers quite a lot. If you are new to age play, or want to explain it to someone, you could do worse than buy this.

My faithful old Chelsea boots have got huge hole in their soles. Bums. So, as it is my birthday soon my mother has kindly offered to buy me some replacements.

For general purpose wear I will get some Timberland Torrace Chelsea boots (pictured left). I like Chelsea boots. They are comfortable, sturdy and smart enough to wear when a level above slovenliness is required.

Because there was a sale on, and the price even including postage from the US was cheaper than anything similar I can get in the UK, I also scored these:

They are Cowboy boots, but look similar enough to clippy hunting boots for me to like them. I have a black leather trench-coat and I've always wanted some boots to match. At $59.99 these seemed a top purchase. I suppose those boots will also suit if I go for this look again:

Miffy the bunny rabbit is not only cute, but also a minimalist design classic. Some people think that Miffy has some relation to Hello Kitty stuff; the truth is Hello Kitty is a foul Japanese rip-off of a European children's icon. I've got some Miffy posters up in the flat, but this weekend's trip to Oxford has yielded something a bit more impressive. I was looking around the Inspires gallery and saw they had some limited edition Miffy prints. They are quite large and look very good in the white frames Inspires have put them in. They are a bit pricey, but for a large, high-quality, framed effort it was well-worth picking one up.

I like them so much I couldn't wait to take a picture. Here they are:

Zazzle has thousands of pictures and you can customise them or upload your own pictures. A good shop.

I've been purchased a t-shirt that celebrates the main side effect of Clozapine. I am told that being bought such a shirt is 'supportive'. Hmmmm... Anyway, this is it:

Apart from the drooling Clozapine is marvellous stuff. I admit I don't want to go out, but I am happy enough ticking along in my own little way at home.

I've just been prescribed an anti-sompting drug to take at night that moderates the jet of drool that fires from my mount, but during the day it is a case of slurping the drool back into my mouth when the volume leaking out gets too great.

The t-shirt comes from www.zazzle.com as have a few others that I'll try and post pictures of.

I'm not very good at the whole deferred pleasure-thing; when I want something I want it now. It was reasonably difficult waiting for my new phone to be released, but this was not so tough as it was at a nebulous, distant point in the future. This has been nowhere near as hard as I have found waiting for Zoo the teddy giraffe to be delivered. A new security object, especially a really cute one, is more interesting than a phone and what makes it particularly difficult is that he is only days away. He should be here tomorrow or Wednesday and the closeness of it all makes it even harder to wait. Every time the entry-phone goes over the next couple of days my pulse will race and I will hope that it is Zoo being delivered.

I picked up the trousers for my red cord suit today; it looks so sexy:

It is rather livid, I admit, but fits a treat and I think it looks great. I am off to the best restaurant in the world (l'Arnsbourg) in February and I shall be wearing it with one of my most lurid shirts. Hooray!

Today I finished off my christmas shopping; I feel I've achieved something. I got some pretty good stuff. Allow me to recommend a couple of galleries that are worth visiting if you are in London; beautiful things are nice to give people for christmas. Contemporary Applied Arts has some really top stuff in all kinds of media. At the moment they have some very affordable tableware by the great Rupert Spira, and loads of really top stuff by the extremely skilled, highly imaginative and reasonably hot Sarah-Jane Selwood. The Contemporary Ceramics Gallery has a worryingly high proportion of rubbish in it, but there is some good stuff. They also have some nice Sarah-Jane Selwood, plus Chris Keenan, Stanley Field, Emmanuel Cooper and many others. Both great places to browse should you be in London.

It is my birthday soon and I am being purchased what must be one of the coolest items of clothing imaginable, a red corduroy suit. I've got a chocolate brown one, which is really sexy, but a red cord suit... ah... imagine how fabulous it would be to own such a thing. It will continue to uphold my status as world's best dressed nutter. If you want to get some cord trousers you cannot go far wrong with Cording's offerings.

I am meeting my step-father for lunch at a rather nice establishment. This means baby clothes are right out and wearing one of my sexy suits is required. The good Mr. Paul Smith provided my incredibly brilliant chocolate-brown, needle cord suit:

The shirt is from Liberty and has a red rose print on it (I am an Englishman, after all). The cat print tie is from Dior. All of these clothes come to me via the handiness of sales and discount shops. With such assistance even a toddler can look like a reasonably dissolute adult.

I have to say that my dear mother warned me to take it easy with my step-father as apparently I am a bad influence on him. Brilliant! What more could one ask but to be a bad influence on people?

My mother purchased a pair of trousers for me. The way she described them on the telephone made them sound bloody awful, but now I see them I have to admit I am rather taken with them:

Yes, they are lurid red cords with ducks embroidered on them. Ho ho ho.

I really like red cords; they are effectively wine-trade uniform here in London and I do like to associate myself with wine. They have got me into trouble in the past, though. I was once travelling on a train through a deeply horrible part of London to the airport to go and visit a friend in Paris when a group of scum took offence at my red cords and smashed me over the head with a bottle of incredibly filthy sparkling wine. Blood was everywhere and I now have a very big scar on the back of my head. At least the dry cleaners managed to get the blood out of my tweed jacket.

I live in the outer reaches of darkness as far as London is concerned; this is also known as 'zone four'. Today I made the trek in to Town proper for the last time before Christmas to buy some wine. I got a rather special magnum of premier cru Pommard from one of my favourite producers, a couple of bottles of a more recent vintage of the same and some Champagne. The Champagne is to be consumed on 4th January which is the fifth anniversary of my partner and I moving in together. I enjoy shopping for wine.

My next trip will be on the 27th to go to the Liberty's sale. Sometimes even toddlers have to smarten themselves up and Liberty shirts are just great. Some of my best shirts have been purchased in previous sales. I'll be on the look out for discounts on flowery shirts.

We got our new huge television just before we went on holiday. Today the HD satellite box was installed and I can finally see what the fuss about HDTV is all about. I must say I am impressed, it looks so much better than regular television.

Our television went tits up last week; it has been somewhat vexing not to be able to watch the box. This is now all behind me as this huge beast has just been delivered:

It is a 42-inch wide screen HD-TV. Shame we have to wait two weeks to get our HD subscription active.

One of the most common side-effects of taking anti-psychotics is that one gets very hungry. With the last lot I was taking I ended up weighing over 110kg, far too much. None of my spiffy suits fitted and many of my baby clothes got too tight.

Oddly, even though I am on a very high dose of the current stuff, I am hardly hungry at all. I don't have lunch, don't eat much for dinner. This has resulted in me losing enough weight to fit into my clothes again. I am very pleased that my Oshkosh shortalls are now wearable.

I'll have to try on my two Paul Smith suits and see if they fit. They are incredibly smart and well-designed; I look like a serious adult when I wear them. I know it is hard to imagine that I might occasionally be a serious adult, but sometimes one has to go to wine-tastings, you know?

I admit this is more 'cricket umpire' than 'toddler', but I do quite like my new hat. I must practise wearing it at a rakish angle.

I ordered a body shaving kit from Amazon the other day. It is a bit slow but seems effective. Here you can see my legs half-way through trying it out.

This specifically claims not to cause a shaving rash. I hope their claim is accurate.

The anti-psychotics and anti-depressants I take at night are really powerfully sedating. This is great as it means I am getting a decent amount of sleep at the moment. A lovely lie-in is now a distinct possibility. The only problem this causes is when I am knocked-up early by someone on the telephone or at the door. This happened this morning.

I was not too annoyed to have my slumber disturbed as I knew it would be a delivery of wine. So I got out of bed in my new sleeper, making crinkly plastic noises with each step to open the door. The delivery person didn't seem to notice my sleep attire so wine was duly delivered.

One of the two bottles delivered was a magnum; a one and one half litre bottle, so double the normal bottle size. I really like magnums, they are such a happy size. They are good for two people at lunch or as part of a baroque feast at night.

As I sat cuddling Butter I had another happy call to tell me these were being dropped off:

Two magnums of brilliant Burgundy, three litres of pleasure in years to come. Hooray! Both the magnums are Pommard, which I admit isn't a very childish drink as it is quite tough and manly. However, after a decade in my cellar they'll become lovely, soft and charming. Just like me.

Well, some things are not always clean, but this lovely thing is:

Yes, it is an Apple keyboard on my Windows box. I may hate Apple's OS (awful to program multi-threaded applications, and hardly whizzy processors come to think of it) but they do design damned-sexy things. It is a nice keyboard, cheers Apple!