Blimey. Is it 2012 already? A few odds and sods:

* I didn’t get as much reading done over the holiday period as I’d planned, but I still managed to devour Ray Banks’ Dead Money, RJ Ellory’s Bad Signs and Caitlin Moran’s How To Be A Woman. They’re ace, gory and hilarious respectively.

* One of my favourite bands, The 4 of Us, did a really nice thing over Christmas: they packaged up their long-lost album Amplifier, remastered it and gave it away free to fans on their website and Facebook.

* I sold several ebooks over the last few weeks. I racked up my 1,900th sale of Coffin Dodgers this afternoon.

* Amazon UK’s meddling with VAT, if you’re interested in such things: it now applies 3% VAT to ebooks sold in the EU, not the 15-odd-percent it applied previously. When you’re selling books at 99p apiece, that’s a welcome development.

* It’s overkill for musical fiddling, but I remain utterly convinced that Apple’s Logic Pro music software is one of the best things since sliced bread. I’ve no idea how half of it works, but the half I do know is superb.

* The recipe for Bristol Dressed Pork in Jamie’s Great Britain is superb. And I don’t even like pork.

* I am heartily sick of “You’ve got an iPad! Buy our app!” ads appearing over websites I’m trying to read.

* Also, Facebook intercepting newspaper links and trying to make me install the newspaper’s app.

* Private Eye: The First 50 Years is a great coffee table book. Provided you’re interested in Private Eye, that is.

* And, er, that’s it.