THE children were enjoying another little history lesson, about life in the Dark Ages, when I was a girl.

"Tell us again, mum, was television really in black and white, with nothing on during the day, no videos to watch or anything?"

"That's right. And we had to get up and walk across the room to change channels. And we didn't have a fridge. The milk stayed cold, though, because we didn't have central heating either."

"Poor you. Tell us about the Christmas decorations." "Well, we had so much time on our hands, what with nothing on the telly, we'd spend hours cutting and licking strips of coloured, gummed paper, looping them together and hanging them from the ceiling."

But it was the revelation about the advent calendars that really shocked them. "What, no chocolates?" "They had little windows, like yours, with pictures of angels or the baby Jesus behind them." "Is that all?"

The boys' calendars have nothing to do with advent. They all go on to New Year now. More chocolates, you see. And they feature characters from the Simpsons or the Incredible Hulk. The baby Jesus doesn't get a look in.

"Poor you, how boring," said the eight-year-old. "But no, we couldn't wait to discover what the new picture was every morning, it was quite exciting," I said. "That's because there was nothing on TV," they laughed. Yes, and we weren't bombarded with adverts for the latest toys and computer games every ten minutes either. So if we were missing out, we didn't know it. "We made our own fun," I said, sounding just like my granny.

The boys decided to eat their Christmas Eve and Christmas Day chocolates straight away. "There's so much other stuff around then, we won't miss them," they reasoned.

"You have so much more than we ever did," I told them. "Poor you."

THERE was much hype surrounding ITV's Record Of The Year show at the weekend. Viewers were urged to phone in and vote for their favourite. But why? The record of the year is simply the one that's sold the most copies, and we already know that. This was yet another cynical ploy by TV bosses to extract more cash from impressionable young teenagers. Shame on them.

WE have rarely seen anything like the rejoicing crowds that turned out to cheer the England rugby team in London after their World Cup win. It almost bordered on hysteria. Imagine what would happen if our football team ever won anything.

I LOVE Turner Prize winner Grayson Perry's pots. All of them tell a story, some reflecting the transvestite artist's miserable childhood. But that photo of him in the papers, dressed like Shirley Temple, with his arm around his young daughter at the awards ceremony, told another story. Even if she accepts her dad is different, how does she cope with all the comments? And what kind of art will she be creating in 20 years' time?

A Christmas beauty tip for all you party girls: a friends wanted to know where I got my lovely body glitter the other night. "How did you scatter it so attractively? I can never get it right," she said. "But I'm not wearing..." I started. Then I remembered. I'd been making Christmas pictures with the children earlier. "The Early Learning Centre. My five-year-old helped me," I told her.