Lunch With Ann Widdecombe

Drive in to work. Still no traffic. No sign of the forecast snow but perhaps all the schools have shut again, just in case.

Once at work I find I have an email inviting me to lunch with Ann Widdecombe. Think I'll have to turn her down; she's not really my type. Apparently she's doing a gig at Pride Park in July.

Hurray the blizzards arrive. I might struggle to get home. L says they've got glorious sunshine in Nottingham

False alarm, the blizzards stop. Sunny again. So I should be ok driving home, as long as they’ve not closed all the roads as a precaution. L says they're now having the 'blizzard' in Nottingham.

L says the new ornamental lake in our all new £8M Market Square is very popular. Any idea what was wrong with the old one? There were two truanting kids and an OAP with a zimmer frame paddling in it at lunchtime. Hope the kids hadn't thrown her in.

As I leave the office it's hailing. What bizarre whether we're having. Doggo will be in hiding in case I try and take him out. For once I'm glad I'm not on my bike. The traffic is so bad it takes me 45 minutes to get off Pride Park. I wish I was on my bike.

L goes to the Gym. Doggo and I go to dog class. It's been coming for some time and tonight it finally happened. Doggo and the Weimaraner both got free at the same time and squared up to each other. Everyone closed their eyes expecting a flurry of blood and fur as they tore into each other but no. Nothing. Not a thing. Nothing happens at all. Dogs! Talk about all gob and no action.

Go home and L has done a spot-on Chilli. Then we watch the first hour of Billie Piper in Mansfield Park. As it happens an hour is far too long. I know little about Jane Austen but L assures me that they'd basically thrown away the essence story of Mansfield Park and started again. That was probably why none of it made sense. I've no idea whether JA intended the outcome of the story to be clear after thirty seconds but with this production is clearly was. Then followed a two hour (less advert breaks, luckily we had it on video) mishmash of a story that rarely seemed to fit together.

It was also supposed to be a period drama, so I was surprised to see most of the young cast wearing make-up and costumes more appropriate to a night out in Nottingham City Centre. Billie Piper's bleached-blonde look was particularly out of place. I have absolutely nothing against heaving bosoms and pouting lips but if ITV thinks that's enough to make a good story, they are mistaken. Now if they'd gone for a totally sexed up, Dangerous Liasons-ish, full tits-out, shag-fest of a modern day version then that might have worked, it might even have been fun but this half way house clearly didn't work. With period drama, no one does it like the BBC. Unfortunately we have another hour to watch tomorrow.