You know what they say: be careful what you wish for, not because you'll get it but because you might nearly get it and that's so much harder. It's a longish way from Southampton (where I am on Boxing Day morning) to Bolton (where I must be on Boxing Day afternoon) but hey it's just getting from A to B in the allocated time.
I am now Tweeting. My Tweet name is Aizlewood1, apparently, but I don't know how you get to follow me and I don't know how to follow you either. I try to send a Tweet by mobile on the way up, but it doesn't seem to have made it. Can we move on? I'm boring myself here.
Driving on Boxing Day is a joy. The roads are empty, except for when I pass the Trafford Centre, the snow-covered scenery is beautiful and I now know my in-car temperature reading can go down to -9. That's proper cold and to celebrate, I seem to have mislaid my fetching woolly hat.
It feels like -9 at Bolton, but they've done the decent thing, by investing in some under-soil heating and clearing the glaciers of snow in the car parks outside. I have some pointless, long-forgotten grudge against gloves, so my hands immediately turn the colour of bruises and I'm glad someone bought me a hoodie for Christmas. The hat though, where's the bloody hat? Has anyone else in the whole ground popped up from Southampton? I doubt it. I'm just trying to be professional. Nobody's noticed.
Bolton's OK. The natives are quite friendly and the hackfood isn't bad. I plump for a meat'n'potato pie which doesn't quite hit what is quite a hungry spot, the gravy is ropey and the chips are more wedge-like. Have I ever been to a Harvester before? Yes. This summer. Ugh. The tea tastes of the cups you pour for yourself. Those cups are furry and seem to be coated in asbestos. Yum.
There's a holiday feel, but nobody here I know too well, just Graham from The Times, Trevor from the MEN and someone whose name I can't place but I chat to anyway. It's cold up in the hackbox, really cold. The seat next to me is free, my mobile's on the blink and perhaps my eyes too, since I have trouble making out the player numbers.
Anyway, you didn't have to be the unlikely offspring of Russell Grant and Mystic Meg to predict that battle of the good guys would be a treat. West Bromwich Albion create a shedload of chances, but Peter Odemwingie misses most of them. He doesn't look fully fit to me, but what do I know? Nothing, as we know.
I've seen Somen Tchoyi a few times, but never really got him before. Silly me. He's fantastic. Just for extra sadism, he switches between humiliating Gretar Steinsson (is there a less effective Premier League defender? There is not) and Paul Robinson. He's big, he's strong, he's full of tricks, he runs like the clappers and - in contrast to Odemwingie - he has a certain composure. What's not to like? We'll meet again, my friend.
For all that, Bolton win. Matthew Taylor scores a fine team goal for the first and Johan Elmander - awful and uncharacteristically lazy otherwise - finishes things off just when Albion seemed set to equalise. It's hard to feel anything but sorry for them and surely they can't go on like this, which is exactly the point I put to Roberto Di Matteo afterwards. He sort of agrees, but he's more worried about Chris Brunt being suspended than Odemwingie getting all prodigal on his first game back after injury. I can see his point, but the only way they'll get into Europe is of they arrange a pre-season tour of Albania (Durres is lovely, Roberto: long beaches, firm sand and temperate climate). They may yet end the season looking down rather than up.
Meanwhile, Owen Coyle - who I swear was wearing shorts during the match, but I might have hallucinated this - has the untroubled air of a man who's got off very lightly indeed. Which he has. For all their understandable swagger, they've only taken four points off teams above them and if Albion had been sharper, we all know what would have happened. I think it's a cause for concern.
"Concern?" he asks, politely but firmly. I expand briefly, regrettably without using the term "flat track bullies", but he's having none of it. He's not one for negative thoughts I suspect, at least in public. I wonder what he'll do - or what he can do - in the transfer window...

Playlist
Wayne Smith
Under Mi Sleng Teng
Christ, I'd forgotten how fantastic this is. One of those songs which moved music on a step - sort of inventing ragga - it merged Smith's growl with cranium-busting bass and the tightest, hardest, harshest keyboards you'll ever hear. It's part crackhouse, part rollercoaster, wholly wondrous. What a "sleng teng" is and why Mr Smith should be under it, I know not.
On Kiss Presents Rodigan's 25th Anniversary, Universal album, where you'll also find Tenor Saw's Ring The Alarm and Eek-A-Mouse's Wha-Do-Dem, plus Maxi Priest's Wild World.