It’s a quiet week out there – not a lot going on at all. Nobody’s planned anything because normally it’s freezing. Thank god for English football. A winter break might make perfect sense, but what would the world do without it – watch darts?

Everybody’s detoxing  – a fat load of good some doctor said in Britain, but isn’t that always the case over there. Health-scare stories have replaced celebrity scoops as the new way to peddle newspapers full of hate that vindicate their readers for hating everyone else only marginally less than they hate themselves.  

It’s not a good time to have a birthday. While there are very few valid excuses for not turning up to a party in the first ten days of January, everyone will find one. Flu is the most popular option – isn’t it remarkable how some people get it 15 times more than others?

Why can’t they be honest: “I’m not coming because I can’t fake it anymore. I hate my life, as I do every year in early January, and I just want to sit at home in the warmth. Please don’t invite me to any more of your birthdays unless you decide to move it. Besides, you’re 43 – aren’t you too old for birthdays?”

To any Capricorns reading this, please don’t be too literal in your interpretation (you’re morose enough already), although the suicide rate suggests you won’t – more people top themselves in spring than winter, apparently because they’re too knackered to carry it out because of the perpetual darkness.  

What you need is a distraction, and there’s nothing more so than a children’s birthday party (see this week's Kids Corner). Personally, I like making a special effort with the cake (note the Cirkeline and Robin Hood castle ones I made for my four-year-old last month – yeah, yeah a woman helped me decorate), but do get a little miffed that I have to make cakes for two parties – one for her friends, and one for the family. It’s a birthday, not a birthweek!

I guess what drives me on is how much better my cakes are than the layer crap the vast majority of this country splodges out from supermarket packets like one giant  cowpat with sickly icing on top. Sorry, but something’s got to keep me happy during the long winter evenings.