The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead

If you like zombie apocalypse television (and, in my humble, what's not to like? Blood, guts, gore and plenty of it) the The Walking Dead is for you.

If you don't, then this is the perfect series to kindle a latent love for zombie apocalypse television that may just be lurking deep within. The plot unfolds quickly, characters, generally, come and go, because, well, times are hard in the post zombie apocalypse world. There's food and weapons and fuel shortages, mostly because looting the supermarkets, police stations and filling stations is made difficult by the hoards of walkers out for their fill of flesh. One bite and that's it – you're one of them.

I'm not sure what season we're on now, but DLL and I look forward to our weekly fix.

The Kills

I'm a fair way through the last of the four books now. Most of the threads, if not neatly tied up and resolved, seem to be coming together. The press seems to have a standard description of anything that goes over the Richard and Judy recommend, three for two at Waterstones, three hundred (or thereabouts) pages: sprawling. It's a bit negative, sprawling. By the right author, the more sprawl the better. William Gibson's Neuromancer trilogy is set in The Sprawl, which is, I think, a futuristic vision of Tokyo.

If over 1,000 gripping pages has more attraction than three hundred mundane ones, go for Will Self's Umbrella, it's better than The Kills, but for this year's list, the Kills is one of the best of 2013.

Good and bad Christmas larder ideas

Nuts (good). They don't go off, and, sooner or later, they always get eaten. That's wallnuts, hazelnuts, those in-shell nuts.

Nuts (honey-coated peanuts) (bad) we had some last year. If we don't still have them, they were thrown away.

Pickled onions, gherkins and chillies. These always get used up. They're good.

Piccalilli (very, very bad). I think I've broken the annual buy, try, wonder what I was thinking about, find it at the back of the fridge in September, dispose, cycle now. Particularly that dayglo yellow stuff they have in Aldi and Lidl. In the cold light of the non-festive season, what could be the attraction of a substance that is colour-coded to transmit a toxic or radioactive warning?

Sausages and bacon (good). I'm tempted to forget the turkey and just do a baking tray full of chipolatas wrapped in smoked streaky.

Presents for the dogs (good and bad). I think D the Dog's going to love Christmas, but is going to be bit of a handful if we don't walk the legs off him and tire him right out. White dog don't get Christmas.

Baileys (good, never any left). Port (bad) still have some from a circa 2009 hamper. Mulled wine (bad) a lot of cocking about to spoil some red wine.