Brighton

I've had a slight cold this week. Which has been useful in that it's meant that I've been able to have a succession of days of mild lunchtime drinking (dunno why, but whenever I've got a cold, my body stops finding alcohol a struggle).

Yesterday I stomped around Brighton with friends, which was marvellous and a bit drunken and involved sitting in a bar working my way through the bespoke cocktail menu before getting on a train home. Why is Brighton so easy to get to but so hard to leave? Is there some kind of magnetic pull, or is it just that the trains are odd?

Anyway, brilliantly, I sat on the train back watching cluthing this:

It is, of course, wrong to assemble the Lego Christmas Toy Shop until December. But oh happy day!

Also on the train I watched the first episode of Fringe Series 2. By the end of Series 1, plucky Olivia Dunham still hadn't cracked a smile, lightened up, or done anything in the way of likeable or warm. She's got the screen presence of a wine cooler.

Without spoilers, series 2 opens with Olivia in hospital, and the regular cast getting on just fine without her. They've even got a new female FBI agent - she's perky, smart and sassy, is clearly fun to be around and likes the central heating on. She probably owns a shitload of cats.

By the end of the episode, it's clear that poor old Deadly Dull Dunham is on probation. When the rest of the cast catch up with her on hospital and deliver lines like "Oh it's great to see you're better" and "We really can't live without you" it's clear they're actually thinking the exact opposite. But will Agent Dunham learn her lesson quickly enough to save the show? Hmmn.