How does it feel?

Well, if that doesn't just take the biscuit. In fact, not just the biscuit, but the plate it came on, too. Together with the accompanying latte, replete with chocolate sprinkles.

At the beginning of the week the news outlets were full of stories about how it was Blue Monday on the 17th. Well, I say 'stories' in this spirit of charity that seems to have overcome me at the moment. I suppose 'thinly disguised PR fluff used by lame hacks to fill some column inches' would be, well, uncharitable.

This is why that career in journalism is not exactly giving me come-hither glances, by the way.

Blue Monday was determined, by people who apparently do this sort of thing for a living, to be the most depressing day of the year. The joys of Christmas have rapidly receded, to be replaced by the realisation that your skin resembles something used to attach wallpaper to walls. The weather is cold and grey. Or, if you live in Britain, colder and greyer. Those resolutions you made on December 31 have crumbled and failed like crumbly-faily-type things. Credit card bills with numbers previously known only by theoretical physicists are thudding onto your doormat ominously.

And it's a Monday. So really there's no hope.

I'd got my defences up. I was going to trawl for some good news stories to write about, to give us all some balance. Well. That was thirty minutes of my life I'm never getting back. Seriously, look at the news - it's like the End of Days but with no budget.

So I took a different tack. I thought I'd think about things closer to home. After all, things could be worse. I have people who can bear to be around me. I get to write nonsense and, oh, literally tens of people read it every week. There's quite a nice bottle of Aberlour single malt, currently unopened, in my line of sight. The mighty Elbow are releasing an album this year. There's no need to be so blue.

And it worked. I cheered up.

Then I heard that Blue Monday wasn't until next week.

Oh crap.