Richard and Judy - Pick this!

I've been away from the comfort of flickering screens for a few weeks as my mum and dad were visiting. Hard to spend quality time with the parents when one eye is glued to Calista Flockhart's fish lips mugging their way through Brothers and Sisters.

I managed to cope by reading almost five novels in seven days. I took a few books with me to Santorini but by the end I was scrabbling for the beach reads favoured by ma and pa. I started with a thriller set in Venice whose cover looked disturbingly one of Dan Brown's but turned out to be inoffensive enough. My main sticking point was Emily, the love interest of the young moody detective, a perky but highly intelligent, ex FBI agent turned architect cum undercover investigator all by the sprightly age of twenty-freakin'-six. Ok, maybe it's just a sensitive issue for someone approaching 26 in a job where I don't have cause to remember training at Quantico.

The best beach read was being introduced to Jack Reacher in Lee Child's The Hard Way (one of many, many titles and chosen by my dad). Don't know Jack Reacher? Here's how he was described on in the blurb "Hero. Loner. Soldier. Lover.". How could you not want to find out more? He's the epitome of men want to be him, women want to be with him (so says the blurb of another back cover). Ex military police, razor sharp mind, 6'5", irresistible. I read the whole thing picturing Jeremy Paxman's head balanced on Matthew McConaghey's body. Hott.

The diversion hasn't lasted too long though. Mum and dad are back in Perth and I'm back on the couch, flicking through NSFW sites with Location, Location, Location burbling in the background. That would be two flickering screens at once. It's good to be back.

Hot Spot, Crap Spot, My Spot

I've seen so many famous people recently I could set up a rival to Heat's spotted pages. OK, maybe not Heat's two page spread but I could definitely rival a free commuter paper's celebrity sightings.

Since Cillian Murphy there has been...

• Matt Lucas and David Walliams having lunch (Matt Lucas tucks a napkin into his shirt when eating soup)
• Lea and Richard from BB7 having an early bird Thai set menu, possibly contemplating just how obselete they really are (obselete but they still caught me noticing them. And then rolling my eyes at them)
• David Mitchell from Peep Show on Kilburn High Rd (unsurprisingly, he looked like Mark)
• Nigella Lawson in Superdrug fending off the pleas for help from out of work actor serving her (dude, she's a cook. Let it go)
• Noel Gallagher in Waitrose (I might have stolen that from my work mate)

I promise this - my life IS richer for being in a city where I can buy shampoo behind a lady who's been on the telly.