Sitting watching TV this evening Claire and I heard the unmistakable sound of a mobile telephone ringing on silent - vibrating in other words. Having checked our collection of portable telephonic equipment and found none of them on silent or ringing we were stumped. The penny then dropped. It was Alix snoring. Sometimes I pity Tiphaine.

We got our first Christmas card this morning. Can anyone top that? Does anyone else want to admit that they've sent any cards out yet?

Hands up if you were surprised: Schumacher quickest on F1 return

I was in a well know DIY store this morning picking up a few things to finish off a job or two around the house. An announcement came over the tannoy system informing all customers that staff would be respecting one minute of silence at 11am. Fair enough, I thought. The announcement then went on to say that it was now 11am. Not much notice of the impending silence then. But it gets better; the in store music and advert loop was not switched off and so we were treated to a backing track of The Doobie Brothers singing Listen to the Music and Christmas opening hours during the minutes silence.

Marvellous.