Merry Christmas to everyone who reads my blog! Hope you have a lovely day whether you celebrate the festive season or not.
I’ve had a rather wonderful Christmas Eve. Firstly I recieved the Kreativ Blogger Award from Katie McCullough (I’ll follow up with a post on it after Christmas). Secondly I was made up to hear my friend proposed to my other friend! They met at my Birthday party two and a half years ago and though we knew that he’d pop the question sooner or later it’s no less exciting!!! …

This seemed to fit in with the theme I was going for and as I seem to have missed out a day in my planning my ‘Five…‘ I decided to steal this idea from a Facebook post going around at the moment and add my own twist at the end!
Top 5 Books of 2009
My literary highlight of the year was meeting David Nicholls and Nick Hornby during the Durham Book Festival and telling David that he’d made me cry!
1. One Day by David Nicholls
2. Goodnight Beautiful by Dorothy Koomson
3. Against …

I am an excitable person but tonight has been almost too exciting! And I thought I would share my buzz as I’m too excited to go to sleep.
It was always going to be a fantastic night as it’s the Strictly Come Dancing final. I’m just a bit obsessed with Strictly! In week one I wanted Chris to be out as early as possible, I wouldn’t have believed it if you would have told me I’d be voting for him multiple times in the final. Chris went from novice to being …

Continuing with the ‘Five…‘ theme today I decided to highligh five of the blogs I’ve written this year. I don’t think I’ll ever stop getting a buzz when people tell me they enjoy reading what I write. This year I’ve written about lots of different things, some better than others and some more popular from others. Even if I had no readers I would write, but it’s nice to know that people keep coming back… even my mum!
My blog moved to helenthornber.com on 15th March 2009. Since then I’ve had …

Between now and the new year I’ve decided to do a daily blog of five things I’d like to share with you, alternating between my favourite links of the past few months and bite sized chunks of my usual style of blogging.
I’ll start with ‘Five… things I learned from the internet’. Back in August I finally discovered Google Reader as a way to keep up with all the blogs and websites in the past I’ve wanted to follow but always forgot to check. Most of these links have come via …

I have just been watching Panorama’s report on Royal Mail. It’s now over a year since I left the company, but it seems it will take a lot longer for me to leave it completely behind. People still stop me to tell me about their bad experiences. I also get asked questions on postal services (and am very aware that soon any advice I may give will be completely outdated!). And I continue to be interested in what’s going on.
Though I know some of the many problems and how frustrating it …

Room 101, penned by Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four, is the place where you are subjected to the worst things in the world. It seemed that Blog 101 might be an appropriate place to store all the things that I find unpleasant in this world. Unfortunately the BBC wouldn’t lend me Paul Merton, but in the style of Room 101 hopefully I can keep you entertained for the next couple of minutes with the things that I despise…
Parsnips

There are a few food items I can’t abide, including Marmite, but nothing offends …

I used to watch lots of TV. I’ve watched all the soaps at some point or another. I must have spent well over a decade watching Saturday morning, and then Sunday morning, television. I remember the days of Going Live with @Schofe, and then Live & Kicking with @xxandip (The two wikipedia pages just brought back floods of memories… John Barrowman presenting ‘Electric Circus’!). T4 saw me through my hangover years. I’m not quite sure how many times I’ve seen each single episode of Friends.

But nowadays my viewing is much …

Normally the most I venture into Radio is listening to Chris Moyles for an hour on a weekday morning. My parents however are avid Radio 4 listeners with speakers in the lounge, front room and dining room all hooked up to the stereo. Whenever I’m home I can’t help noticing the radio, but am also very practised in tuning out, especially when I hear the first bars of The Archers theme tune.
So it surprised me this evening when I found myself, in my tuned out state, tuning back in. I …

If you could do anything in the world for a job what would it be?
Writing.
If you were given £10 million tomorrow would you still want to do it?
Yes.
I started writing because it was a release. I have kept diaries on and off throughout the years. Until fairly recently, when I started seriously thinking of moving into a career in writing, the writing came easiest when I was anxious or depressed.
I think too much. I am well known for over thinking and anyone who’s made the mistake of asking me ‘why’ …

I’m really enjoying Torchwood this week. Watching it along with thousands of fellow viewers whilst commenting on Twitter has been an interesting and rather different viewing experience. But what about spoilers? Thanks to the level of tweets about the Torchwood storyline last night #torchwood was joined by #Ianto in the trending topics. Anyone who is yet to see the five night special only has to log in to Twitter to find out what they are missing.

I am very adverse to spoilers. I caught the Harry Potter bug in between book …

Although April 1st may be another three hours away in the UK, New Zealand is already nine hours through. And if this NZ Herald blog is anything to go by there’s some ambitious trickery out there. However I’m of the opinion that the simple yet absurd April Fools are the best. The ones that actually sound plausable to your semi-unconscious brain as you hit snooze for the third time . I have to admit it wasn’t until post-shower last year that I realised that the BBC had got me good …

(Published elsewhere originally as Blogger didn’t want to work for me for a couple of days – all sorted now though!)
Last night I had my 15 minutes (or to be more accurate ‘my 0.15 seconds’) of fame. If you watch ‘The Apprentice You’re Fired!’ tonight you might just catch a glimpse of me in the opening shots of the audience.
I am a huge fan of The Apprentice, one minute I’m shouting abuse at the television, the next I’m laughing out loud… and it’s a completely guilt free experience as I …