Things I am a bit cross about today:

1. Earphones. It seems *astonishing* that the first Briton ever has just arrived in space, and yet we still can’t invent a pair of earphones that lasts longer than a month or so. I have just bought my 378292th pair this year, after the previous pair stopped working in one ear. I like the small earphones that you push into your head a bit like a cotton bud, but I’m always losing the little plastic bud bit or the plastic coating comes loose and they stop working and so on and so on… I refuse to buy a pair of the giant spongy ones that go over your ears because you can’t go running in them. And also I don’t rap about bitches and hoes. The constant breaking issue might be because my earphones tend to rattle around in the bottom of my handbag along with bits of chewing gum, coins and Pret napkins. But given that this is the country that invented the steam engine, the lightbulb and even the frigging internet, surely we can come up with something a bit sturdier?

2. Serial. The reason I needed to buy a new pair of earphones was to listen to Serial, the hit American podcast, on the bus home. The first series, I mean, because I am the only person left on Earth, maybe even in space these days, who hasn’t heard it. But, honestly, what’s all the fuss about? I got half-way through the fifth episode on the 94 home tonight and gave up, because I was too confused by all the phone records and who called who on which ‘cell’ when and did he do it in the carpark or was he in ‘track’ class etc etc. I prefer Luther.

3. Star Wars mania. The seventh film is out this week. I don’t know whether it’s a sequel or a prequel but hearing fully-grown adults drone (ha ha) on about Yoda and lightsabers is embarrassing. And worse still, I’ve just Googled it and seen that there are three more films to come – in 2017, 2018 and 2019. I wish I  lived in a galaxy far, far away, quite frankly.

4. I have my fourth cold of the season. Quite tiresome this, when I never normally get sick and find people who snivel throughout winter terribly wet. A bit like those people who snivel throughout summer and moan about ‘hayfever’ when we all know it’s a made-up disease that only townies get. ‘It’s because there haven’t been many frosts this year,’ declared my colleague Luciana, like some sort of medieval village witch. Anyway, I’m going to have a medicinal glass of red wine and a medicinal chocolate hobnob for my supper. I’ll probably be a bit less cross after that.