The Sundays

<< The Gethin Jones: "Single and looking", since you ask

It's 6.15 on a Sunday evening - up and down the nation, the denizens of this fair isle are slumped, half-comatose in a pile of Sunday supplements as Songs of Praise kicks into gear. It is officially the worst time of the entire week. Somehow, as Sunday evening nears its conclusion, the Sunday blues recede at the same rate as the minutes of freedom remaining. Even Monday morning, despite its dreadful opening 5 minutes, when you wake up and literally pray for death, doesn't feel as bad. Maybe it's the expectation, or the weird light at this time of day, or the godawful telly, but Sunday teatime stinks. Today has been OK, although that may have something to do with having an entire month off work. Tomorrow will be the first full day I've worked since Boris Johnson got elected - I guess I couldn't hide away forever.

By the way, if you're wondering what the word 'denizens' means, it means this:

A denizen is an inhabitant of a particular place.

This is a pretty simplistic definition - a denizen is a loose noun that can refer to plants, animals or people that reside in a particular location, and was used in this country primarily to define immigrants that had been awarded citizenship - cos we couldn't just call them citizens, that would be too easy. This is an odd fact, as I'm not convinced I didn't know it, but it came to us via the intellectual juggernaut that is Zelda: Twilight Princess, and I couldn't recall what it meant until I looked it up.

The only other time I can remember this quandary occurring was back on New Years' Day, at the start of this crazy adventure - thanks to a fact relayed by Gethin Jones, he of Blue Peter and Strictly Come Dancing. Oddly, Claire just found out that her friend from uni has started going out with a guy called Gethin Jones, who she used to go to school with. Now here's the weird part - she actually went to school with the Gethin Jones (he of Blue Peter and Strictly etc) - but this guy isn't that Gethin Jones. If you follow me. This would be perhaps the world's weirdest coincidence, except that she lives in Cardiff, where everyone is called either Gethin Jones, or Sian Lloyd (incidentally, don't try and argue, you know it's true).

My intention, should we ever meet this fellow, is to pretend that he is really Gethin Jones (he of etc.). I'll ask him how he felt about losing out to Matt di Angelo in the Strictly semi-finals, despite being easily the better performer on the night. I'll ask why he's ducked out of the limelight since leaving Blue Peter. I'm sure that'll go down really well. Right, I'm off to play Deal or no Deal - the board game. A shot in the arm for the Sundays if ever there was one.