I hope you all managed to have a good Christmas. I have to say, I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed Christmas so much.

In recent years I have enjoyed it just as a nice day off with a big meal. But beyond that I didn’t enjoy them much more than a normal day of leisure. So maybe I’d watch my new DVDs, but I would probably spend a great deal of the day on the internet anyway.

Perhaps it is because I have had such a tough year (not emotionally tough, but physically and mentally). Maybe it was because last year my brother wasn’t here, but it was probably mostly because I have become older, jaded and cynical.

Of course, when you’re young, Christmas is probably the most exciting part of the year. All those presents! Unfortunately as you get older this wears off. One day you find that you have the responsibility to give presents as well, with all the shopping hell that entails. And soon enough you might be earning enough to buy pretty much all of the luxuries you want.

For that reason, I always tell my parents to try and surprise me. They still want me to write them a list of what I want, but that is rubbish. Normally if I want stuff I can just buy them anyway. So I find myself not buying things just so that I can put them on my Christmas list. What a load of old bum. What is the point of knowing what you are getting anyway?

So I was quite pleased when my parents decided to buy me a poker set, which I completely didn’t expect. I didn’t even realise the big box was meant to be for me, so I just left it at first.

Apparently my father didn’t really want to get me it in case it encourages me to gamble. I think that’s a bit rich coming from someone who spends £2 on the lottery every week, but there you go! I doubt I’d ever gamble myself. I am pretty risk-averse and the odds are always stacked against you.

I have kind of hinted at getting a poker set before, but only as a sort of “ooh, wouldn’t that be amusing” kind of thing. I wasn’t dead serious about getting one. But I found myself getting quite excited about it, and we all played a game later in the evening.

I had never played a game of poker before, and I knew very little about it. All I knew was whatever I gleaned from watching Late Night Poker back in the day, which was very little. I only ever watched that because there was nothing else on, and I was mesmerised by the amazing under-the-table cameras.

My brother led us all by the hand, explaining the rules as we went along. My parents were knocked out quickly, and it was just the young’uns — me, my brother and his girlfriend — left. Time flew by really quickly. Before we realised it, three hours had passed and it was after midnight.

And in the end, I won my first ever game of poker! Muhahah!

And this evening, I won at Scrabble. This is in stark contrast to my record on Facebook Scrabble (won 2, lost 8). This winning streak is unusual, because normally I am just one big loser. I should ride the wave and carry these optimistic feelings with me into 2008. It’s a big year, so being optimistic is probably the only way I can get things done from now on, even though it goes against my instincts.

What else did I get for Christmas? Well, most of the other stuff was on my list. A few books to add to the ever-growing pile of books I haven’t yet got round to reading. Jackie Stewart’s autobiography (very hefty looking and thorough — unlike Lewis Hamilton, Jackie Stewart has lived a life), The Long Tail and Dead Children Playing.

My brother got me Dead Children Playing, although I had already bought it for myself and had got it wrapped up. Amusingly, I bought it partly as a backup for my brother in case I couldn’t find him anything better (eventually I got him this). That we both got it for each other is a sign that it was a good present, I think. We are keeping a copy each.

I also got a few DVDs — the F1 season review, 30 Century Man (a documentary about Scott Walker) and Taking Liberties (a documentary about Tony Blair riding roughshod over the constitution).

I have just watched Taking Liberties and I can very much recommend it. It concisely documents what is happening to this country under the Labour government and why it matters. It demonstrates that this affects a wide range of people and includes interviews from critics of the government across the political spectrum, from all of the major parties. If you don’t recognise the loss of freedoms that is happening in this country, you should watch this film and you will soon enough understand.

The film looks as though it’s only half of the story as well, because taking a look at the list of DVD extras, there is lots more to get through.

Back to normal tomorrow I think. I decided — two days off: Christmas Day and Boxing Day. But deadlines loom. Back to writing essays and dissertations tomorrow.

Aah, the reality check. How much is a pint of milk? Who’s murdered who in EastEnders? Who’s at number one in the singles chart? A politician’s career could hang on the balance of a question like this. If you get it wrong, you are deemed to be out of touch. BBC News Online reports on how the main party leaders in Scotland coped with this grilling.

But how many normal people could actually answer a question like this? I certainly could never tell you who had won the Grand National. That’s not because I’m out of touch. It’s just because I’m not a gambler and I’m not interested in horse racing.

Annabel Goldie might have been pleased to get Nicol Stephen’s question right. But, combined with the fact that she knew who is top of the SPL (a question that I probably would have got, although I don’t follow football that closely), it just looks as though she was just sitting in front of the television all Saturday.

I also would have probably correctly guessed who was at number one — but I wouldn’t have been certain and it would only have been because I blogged about it a couple of weeks ago. Most weeks I haven’t got the slightest clue who is at number one.

And then there is the price of a pint of milk. I am somewhat surprised that Jack McConnell didn’t get this correct. It is the classic ‘reality check’ question, and I would have thought that he would at least make sure he had a vague idea of the answer.

But it’s not as if I would know. Anyone who doesn’t do the shopping for their household (like me for instance) — or just doesn’t drink milk — would be scratching their heads at this one. But does that make me, or Jack McConnell or any politician who gets this question wrong, somehow less real than avid milk guzzlers?

Mr Angry has a story about his cabbie who is writing a book with a working title ‘How to win the lottery’, although he himself has never won the lottery.

This has confirmed my opinion that the Lottery is merely a tax on stupid people and those without a rudimentary understanding of mathematics or probability theory.

I have found lottery customers one of the most interesting things since I started working in a shop (there’s not much else to get excited about really). It’s not news that there are many people who play the lottery, but it never really sank in until I found myself on my very first shift — on a Saturday afternoon — where customer after customer came in and queued up for ages, for the sole reason to buy a lottery ticket.

I thought to myself, don’t these people realise that in the long run they will always lose out? I’m guess not many people are enticed by the big prize since there is something like a 1 in 14 million chance of winning. And it’s not just the fact that a ticket only costs £1 because I’ve served people who’ve bought about £40 worth of tickets at a time. Plus, there is the well-observed phenomenon of people winning a small amount on the lottery and spending all of their winnings on a scratchcard.

I don’t mind the people who play £1 per week or something. That is kind of reasonable. Anyway, that’s what my parents do (and my dad now reads this blog so I can’t slag off the lottery now). My parents made the mistake of having a regular set of numbers, so now they are stuck in that scary place where you just know that if you stopped playing, your numbers would appear the following week. For this reason, I’m amazed that Camelot ever introduced the concept of ‘Lucky Dip’.

The other thing about lottery players, which I never realised before I had to serve them, is the fact that the vast majority of them are old ladies. Beforehand I had just assumed that people of all backgrounds played the lottery. But nope, they are almost all at least 45.

This is particularly annoying because my till could hardly have made selling a lottery ticket more difficult, as it won’t let me do anything until I confirm that the customer is over 16. I don’t even need to ask them. I can tell by the impressive moustache. And that’s just the women.

One time this person wanted to buy a lottery ticket, and he was definitely young. But I could tell he probably wasn’t as young as 16. He had a good beard, although my beard was probably as good when I was 15. I would probably have sold this person a pair of scissors, or some superglue. But I was so shocked that he was buying a lottery ticket and wasn’t an old woman that I simply had to ask for ID.

He didn’t have any ID. Luckily for him, his friend (who had no facial hair but turned out to be 21) did. Mr Beard’s response was abusive: “For god’s sake, that’s fuckin’ ridiculous.” Yeah, doing my job — it’s just not on.

By this point, he was lucky he was only buying a lottery ticket. If this delinquent was trying to buy a pair of scissors I would have taken them off him. That was just an Asbo waiting to happen.

But I guess the moral of the story is: if they have a fine moustache, they are fine to play the lottery.

Update: Coincidentally, a post on little.red.boat about the lottery. [I'd better cover my back here] I doubt she has a moustache.