It's Sharon's birthday soon. Dave bought her a necklace last year. He says she never takes it off. We can only hope, in the interests of hygiene, that the same won't be said for the knickers he's got her this year.

I just got back from the cornerstore. Checkout girl didn't serve me because she was busy talking to a new member of staff. His name is Anthony. Ant for short. I don't like him. He wears one of those bluetooth headsets. I suspect it makes him feel more superior than he actually is.

I may return later for the evening newspaper. I've asked gran if I can borrow her hearing aid. 'Ant for short' isn't the only one around here who can spout self-aggrandising claptrap to an unseen subordinate.

Dad says I'm being ridiculous and that checkout girl will know I'm just talking to myself. He forgets that acting is in my blood. At school I was once cast as the lead in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

On this occasion I've chosen to ignore mum's inquiry regarding how one goes about successfully playing the part of a coat.

Yesterday I heard that the Police are to document attacks on Goths, Emos and Punks as hate crimes. Mum says I should either grow a Mohican or start wearing eyeliner. She says that any protection is better than none. Dad agrees. He says attacks against geeks are unlikely to be logged by the authorities as anything other than predictable.

I may opt for eyeliner. Pulling a tank-top over a Mohican strikes me as troublesome.

I'm in the living room with dad. I just asked him where gran is. He says he last saw her having a lemon drizzle in the kitchen. I hope that's some form of cake and not a euphemism.

Our Internet connection went down earlier. Gran was quick to apportion blame, insisting that North Korea were very likely behind the attack. They weren't. Mum had simply unplugged the router so she could vacuum behind the tele.

Gran always holds totalitarian dictatorships responsible for Internet related problems. Other, more mundane faults of a domestic nature are promptly attributed to David Cameron. She still holds the Prime Minister responsible for our boiler woes. Dad says it's best not to question gran's speculations. He says the boiler was intermittently malfunctioning long before Mr. Cameron came into office, "...so it couldn't possibly have been his doing."

The total lack of logic inherent in both of their ridiculous statements can only be attributed to some kind of mutant gene. Mum agrees, adding that the synthetic agents responsible for such mutations can travel many, many miles. "Totalitarian dictatorships and chemical weaponry," she says whilst plugging the router back into the wall-socket, "have a lot to answer for."

Sometimes, even when amongst family... I feel so desperately alone.

I'm at the breakfast table with dad. Mum, as usual, is hovering around the place with a duster. It's rare to see mum without a duster. Dad says she's always been the same. Apparently, on their wedding day she halted the service because of a dusty alter.  Mum refuses to confirm this. Which probably means it's true.

It's their wedding anniversary today. It's given them both cause to reminisce about the 70's. Mum says she misses the 70's. Dad, unbeknown to mum has hatched a plan. Later, when she goes shopping for various cleaning solutions, he wants me to help manoeuvre a dozen-or-so rubbish filled bin liners from the shed to the street outside. He's also mentioned something about temporarilly shutting-off our electricity supply. Blackouts and uncollected refuge were à la mode back then, according to gran.

Perhaps I'm missing some glaringly obvious point here, but I can't for the life of me percieve anything remotely glamorous about the Glam Rock era. Still, so long as it makes mum happy...

Sharon's here. She's talking to mum about babies. She says if she ever has a baby boy she's going to name him Lasagne. Gran says it's ridiculous. I agree. Lasagne's quite obviously a girl's name.