If I hadn't already packed my camera...

...I'd show the best parts of the weekend:

• When Santa Claus sat next to me on the tube. (And when I got to Camden and saw that Santa was sitting next to everyone on the tube.)
• The electrician who opened a side panel on his repair truck to reveal a full tea service. (Silver kettle and all.)
• The Christmas tree at Trafalgar Square. (And the even better one in the Finsbury Park apartment.)
• The primary children dressed for the Nativity and singing Away in a Manger at the Christmas concert last night. (Especially the ginger-haired brothers dressed as the wise men.)
• The evolution of sorting out my luggage so that I can bring home the maximum amount of chocolate without going over the weight limit. (My first attempt came in at a whopping 86 lbs.)
• The assortment of activities I did to pass the time because I was too excited to sleep. (It was like Christmas Eve two weeks early.)

adverts

I don't really watch TV over here, but on the rare occasion that I do, I have to say the commercials are one of my favorite parts. I anticipate them in the same way I anticipate trailers at the movies. You might even say it's like watching Super Bowl commercials ALL THE TIME.

For example:

Facelift FAIL

In August 2005, the Royal Mint held a competition to design a new look for British currency. Over 4000 entries were submitted and Matthew Dent was chosen as the winner. His design premiered in April 2008 and is a very modern tribute to tradition as it turn the various denominations of coins into puzzle pieces that fit together to form the Royal Arms, with the pound coin displaying the full design:

I rate the design to be a "very" on the coolness scale. (Mostly due to the fact that I feel compelled to collect all the pieces in a way that I never was with the US state quarters collection craze.)

However, I rate the project in general a FAIL and I'll tell you why. On the opposite side of each coin is an image of the queen. The queen was also pictured on the last several currency designs as featuring the monarch has been a tradition for centuries. Here is what has been on the coins for the last several years:

But as part of the facelift, and to commemorate her over fifty years' reign, a new image of the queen was produced and dstributed:

I just don't see how the inclusion of a double chin is an appropriate way to commemorate Elizabeth's long reign, or that it in any way, shape, or form fits the definition of a facelift...