It seems whenever I have travel crises I console myself with drink and nostalgia TV. When my flight to Edinburgh at xmas was cancelled the other year due to storms I watched Fast Show videos and sank Scotch. When I missed my train (6 hours) and had to take the bus (12 hours) yesterday, I arrived at my Mum's empty flat and watched several hours of This Life, punctuated by Father Ted, and drank lots of Kronenbourg.

I haven't seen the anniversary special of This Life, but inevitably the original looks a bit dated now. If it were made now, Miles and Egg would be surreptitiously downloading porn (maybe the girls would too), Millie would be at odds with her relatives over her wearing or not wearing a veil, Keira would be a rank underachiever rather than a taboo-smashing whirlwind. Anna would be a self-harming binge-everythinger and nobody would have a problem with Warren's homosexuality, least of all himself. Their Tube journeys to the office would be fraught with delays and paranoia, and they would be taking coke, not E. Any allusion to E would involve depression or downmarket teenagers flogging it for a quid a throw. And of course, their computers, not their stereos, would be playing Gnarls Barkley, Lilly Allen and Babyshambles, not Underworld, Sleeper and Portishead. That's the problem with the bleeding edge- it soon heals up. Happy Christmas to y'all.