I am thirty-ten... oh, OK, forty. It's a number. I'm surprisingly fine about it. Surprisingly, because I was very much not fine about 39. Strange how these things go.

Anyway. I look good on it.

And what a great way to celebrate a big birthday. The Fat Duck apparently isn't the best restaurant in the world. If that's true, I don't think I'd want to go to the best one, because I think I'd pass out.

( I just saw how much I'd written, and it really needs to go behind a cut. Warning — this is long, and if you read Alasdair's blog a while back, a lot of it might be familiar. But if you want to read well over 5000 words about a visit to the Fat Duck, carry on, carry on... )

I have emerged, blinking in the light, into a very quiet office. Almost everyone seems to have booked holiday, or pulled a sickie, and our wonderful IT department has closed the server down for maintenance so we can't do any work anyway.

So, Christmas.

I really ought to blog about lots of things, and will over the course of the week. Ukelele Orchestra (genius), Stephen Fry's panto (fun, but not as good as it should have been); Bruges (almost unbelievably beautiful; almost unbelievably cold, lots of photos). But I'll confine myself to telling you about one particular Christmas present. After remembering it being mentioned on QI as the source of a story so ridiculous it just had to be true, Andrea bought me Brewer's Rogues, Villains and Eccentrics. It's the most unputdownable book of all time.

The story in question involves Gladys Elton who, while an inmate of the Haslemere Home for the Elderly in Great Yarmouth in 1960, decided to perform a striptease for her fellow inmates. She was 81 at the time. One poor gent died of a heart attack and five others were treated for shock. The following year, three more residents died after another inmate, 87-year-old Harry Meadows, dressed up as the Grim Reaper and tapped on the window of the dining room.

And that's one of the shorter entries. It's almost 700 pages long. There are lots of very, very strange people in there.

But the thing that makes it really unputdownable is the cross-referencing system. While everyone is listed by name, their deeds are also listed. And as you go through the book, something catches your eye which you just... have... to.. investigate.

Here's a few samples, taken completely at random.

Bishop, performing an act of fellatio on a newly-consecrated: see Cleveland, Barbara Villiers, Duchess of
Bomb inadvertantly detonated by pet Rottweiler: see Aristedes, Susan Mary
Crocodile in the Scottish borders, surprising appearance of: see Douglas-Home, William
Debauched when young by the Earl of Sandwich: see Ray, Martha
Drunks, nightmare: see Bernard, Jeffrey; Farson, Daniel; Reed, Oliver (there are a lot of cross-references for Oliver Reed)
Ferret called Sir Andrew Large, a defrauding: see Chaney, Sid
Fish, smuggling diamonds in frozen: see Richardson, Charlie
Sadomasochistic pornography in Europe, the most comprehensive library of: see Edinburgh, Prince Phillip, Duke Of (in the interest of fairness, the library belonged to his surrogate father, but his mother believed that she was having carnal relations with Jesus, and his uncle is probably the only king who died after being bitten by a monkey)
Who could resist that?

Just as a further taster, how about the story of Archbishop Lancelot Blackburne, priest, philanderer and pirate? 'Blackburne's behaviour was seldom of a standard to be expected of an archbishop,' the book says. 'In many respects, it was seldom of a standard to be expected of a pirate.' Among other things, he's said to have employed Dick Turpin. As a butler.

Speaking of butlers, how about "Butlers, levitating: see Greatrakes, Valentine"?

It sucks you in for hours. And there's probably an entry for that, too.