My name is Solly and I've got a link to Alcoholics Anonymous

Just caught that Matt Cardle singing on TV. Why did he have a band dressed as the Ku Klux Klan behind him? And One Direction. They're just five individual kids singing but not as a group. I don't get it, I really don't. Even JLS, who aren't great, seem a million times better. Am I missing something?
Also, when they are interviewed, all these X Factor contestants tell people (their old schoolmates, the audience, anyone who will listen) 'you can be who you want to be'. That's not true, is it? I want to be Paul Weller but it's not going to happen. Or Jay-Z sometimes. And my wife wants me to be Clive Owen. It's just not true, you can't be who you want to be.
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Did you know that on this day in 1934 the bloke who founded Alcoholics Anonymous had his last ever drink?
Some people have wars beginning or ending on their birthday. Others share their big day with movie stars, presidents and Nobel Prize winners.
I've got Cliff Michelmore and Brenda Lee. Nothing against Cliff and Brenda but no one under 40 has heard of them, and most people over 40 aren't quite sure either.
True, Teri Garr is also celebrating today and she did star in one of the best films of all time, One From The Heart. But it's not quite in the league of Gandhi or Mandela.
And Arthur Mullard died on this day too. According to Wikipedia. Better than Wikileaks - they just published a memo he wrote in 1978 in which he described Hilda Baker as an old slapper.
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We went to Woodbridge in Suffolk today, for my birthday. We wanted to get away from Christmas shopping crowds and that we did. Pub lunch, walk by the river - it was lovely. This isn't a part of the world I know well but I gather it's changed a bit over the years. My wife thinks she saw a black person but it remains an unconfirmed sighting at this stage.
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I never did go in for those lists of 'things to do before I die' or 'places to go before I'm 40' and so on. Particularly now I'm 37 years old!! Okay, 48. There are things I want to do - you know, the usual like write a book, have a foursome with all of Destiny's Child, go to Manaus, see Spurs win the league and then be killed by a piano falling on my head as if I was in a Buster Keaton film. But I'm realistic to know some things are unattainable - Manaus is quite expensive to get to I understand.
Instead of measuring these things in terms of significant birthdays, I tend to look at the kids growing up and realising that, while not wanting to wish their lives away, it's getting to the stage where we do less and less as a family. The eldest is unlikely to come on many more holidays with us and the others will soon be like that.
That's growing up. Both for them and us. But I've had a lovely birthday and it was with all of us so it was special.
Thank you everyone for your birthday wishes (isn't Facebook great for this sort of thing?) - Solly