Still no news from Sainsburys. I am 99% certain that they will refund me and not want the out of date Actimels back, but that 1% of doubt has stopped me consuming the Actimels that are still just in date. If we get the refund and don't have to return the Actimels, me and my girlfriend could have easily consumed six free Actimels - ten if we threw caution to the wind and ignored the use by date for a couple of days. But out of fear of not getting my £7.98 back I am drinking the few Actimels that I already had that don't expire until the 16th. He who dares wins, but he who worries a bit too much ends up wasting about two pounds of probably ultimately useless yoghurt drink. It's an important lesson to begin 2012 with.

I was keen to see the New Year as a turning point in terms of diet and working efficiency. Back in 2008 I started the New Year with utter determination and had written the proposal for the book that would become "How Not To Grow Up" by lunchtime of 1st January, which proved to be quite a productive first few hours of the year. I also resolved to eat healthily, go to the gym and stop drinking and kept those things up for months, losing two stone and keeping it off for the best part of the year (and things only went awry when that bastard Tim Keys attempted to murder me). It proves that it is possible to make changes to your life, even if by mid-2009 I was back to my old chubby ways. I was hoping to make today a similarly good start to the year, planning a run and maybe to finally get the proposal written for my next potential book. But I was not so successful. We woke up late feeling groggy. My girlfriend had a full on hangover and even though I had only had a minimal amount of drink (I had a large whisky when I got home) I was a bit out of it too. Brains and bodies were never going to get into gear enough to start the year at the 2008 sprint, but I wasn't disparaged by this. Sometimes when you break a resolution you are just sent spiralling back to where you were before, but the desire was still there. I didn't drink and ate sensibly, so that's halfway there. Despite my failure to even leave the house I feel confident that I can make some changes. If that love fuelled 2008 Richard Herring can do it, then the 2012 Richard Herring, with four years worth of love-based fuel should be able to do four times as well. NB the love fuel is not spunk.

Tomorrow I will strive to do better. I am still a bit ill and confused as I have been all week. As was shown by the fact that I was finding it hard to tell the difference between reality and dreams. I thought that a couple of days ago I had read an archive piece in the Guardian about a journalist going to speak to Prince Felix Yussopov (the assassin of Rasputin) in 1966. This was a strange thing to chance across because this is pretty much exactly where my Rasputin based film idea begins (though is based on the interview an American journalist did about the same time). I thought that I must keep the article and then forgot about it. Yesterday I suddenly remembered about it and asked my girlfriend to remind me to check I hadn't put the paper in the recycling. Today I searched for the newspaper to no avail. It would have to be in the house somewhere and yet it wasn't. I began to wonder if I had just dreamt the whole thing. It seemed an odd coincidence that this relatively minor event would be in the newspaper and if it really had been would I not have ripped out the article immediately? I had a quick search on line but couldn't find anything. Had I really invented that?

We went to bed early, but I couldn't sleep, partly because I was wondering if I had lost my mind, so I came back downstairs to search the internet properly and thank God, I found it. I am not going mad. Or if I am in a slightly different way than I thought. It is a sign from Providence that I must get on with writing that script too.

Interestingly, my first (remembered) dream of the year was one in which I had lent the comedian Ricky Gervais £22. He had taken the money with a smile of gratitude on his face, but then subsequently refused to repay it, getting quite angry and aggressive and saying he'd never borrowed it in the first place. It turned pretty nasty and violent. I wonder what that dream could be about. And I wonder if it was actually a dream at all. Maybe that one also actually happened. Give me my £22 back Gervais.

Did you watch Sherlock? It'd have been better with Tim from the Office in it wouldn't it?

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