Well, that’s 2008 done and dusted, then.
Everywhere I look on the internet there are Happy New Year messages and people reviewing the year. Some are casting their eyes back on the politics of the year, some on the music, some on the movies. Just about every aspect of the old year is being held up to scrutiny by someone, somewhere. I don’t think I have very much to add to any of that.
My personal year has been a bit, to use a word that made it into the dictionaries this year, meh. It’s been a nothing kind of year really. I’ve done nothing very interesting, been nowhere very exciting and generally just got on with whatever it is I’ve had to get on with. Next year promises to have a bit more to it, as I’m off to visit North Korea at Easter, for no better reason than that I can. When I get back you will, of course, be among the first to hear of it.
So all I can think of to review is this year’s blogging, which is in fact nine months as I didn’t start until 25th March. The March entries, of which there are precisely two, were just setting up the blog, explaining what it’s all about and hoping that I could keep it going longer than my previous effort. Well that worked out. Not only did I keep it going but I also set up another blog to reveal my previously unpublished masterpiece to the world.
April saw me getting a bit more into the swing of it with eleven entries on assorted topics ranging from Doctor Johnson’s dictionary to my travels in Iceland, Malawi and Thailand to The House on the Rock to my friend Pete’s sneezecount project to ESOL teaching. An eclectic kind of month, all in all.
There was a drop off in May to only eight entries, most of which were recycled from previous work, including further travel anecdotes, lots of personal nostalgia and some recycled book reviews.
May saw a further drop off to only six entries – more travel, more ESOL and a piece about bookseller’s age-banding idea. It looked as if the blog was going the way of its predecessor.
But then things picked up thirteen in July, seventeen in August, another fourteen in September. July, in addition to all the usual topics included various anecdotes from this year’s stint at Harrow, as did August which also had some film critic criticism (as distinct from mere film criticism) and an item about the Psycho Buildings exhibition at the Hayward. September, in addition saw me start to put up a few of my really early poems, a project that I have now all but abandoned as I’ve come to realise just how rotten a poet I was thirty years ago. October with eleven entries and November with sixteen. By and large hey were the same sort of thing as before, though perhaps with more shorter entries in an attempt (mostly failed) to widen my readership. I did start a new ongoing project of retelling Alice in Wonderland illustrated with single shots (for the purposes of review, naturally) from the many editions that I own.
That project continued through December and will continue for as long as I stay interested in it.
It only remains now for me to add my New Year wishes to everyone. I would like to find something deep and important sounding to say here but I don’t think I can do better than to quote the New Year greeting from Neil Gaiman’s excellent blog.
Everywhere I look on the internet there are Happy New Year messages and people reviewing the year. Some are casting their eyes back on the politics of the year, some on the music, some on the movies. Just about every aspect of the old year is being held up to scrutiny by someone, somewhere. I don’t think I have very much to add to any of that.
My personal year has been a bit, to use a word that made it into the dictionaries this year, meh. It’s been a nothing kind of year really. I’ve done nothing very interesting, been nowhere very exciting and generally just got on with whatever it is I’ve had to get on with. Next year promises to have a bit more to it, as I’m off to visit North Korea at Easter, for no better reason than that I can. When I get back you will, of course, be among the first to hear of it.
So all I can think of to review is this year’s blogging, which is in fact nine months as I didn’t start until 25th March. The March entries, of which there are precisely two, were just setting up the blog, explaining what it’s all about and hoping that I could keep it going longer than my previous effort. Well that worked out. Not only did I keep it going but I also set up another blog to reveal my previously unpublished masterpiece to the world.
April saw me getting a bit more into the swing of it with eleven entries on assorted topics ranging from Doctor Johnson’s dictionary to my travels in Iceland, Malawi and Thailand to The House on the Rock to my friend Pete’s sneezecount project to ESOL teaching. An eclectic kind of month, all in all.
There was a drop off in May to only eight entries, most of which were recycled from previous work, including further travel anecdotes, lots of personal nostalgia and some recycled book reviews.
May saw a further drop off to only six entries – more travel, more ESOL and a piece about bookseller’s age-banding idea. It looked as if the blog was going the way of its predecessor.
But then things picked up thirteen in July, seventeen in August, another fourteen in September. July, in addition to all the usual topics included various anecdotes from this year’s stint at Harrow, as did August which also had some film critic criticism (as distinct from mere film criticism) and an item about the Psycho Buildings exhibition at the Hayward. September, in addition saw me start to put up a few of my really early poems, a project that I have now all but abandoned as I’ve come to realise just how rotten a poet I was thirty years ago. October with eleven entries and November with sixteen. By and large hey were the same sort of thing as before, though perhaps with more shorter entries in an attempt (mostly failed) to widen my readership. I did start a new ongoing project of retelling Alice in Wonderland illustrated with single shots (for the purposes of review, naturally) from the many editions that I own.
That project continued through December and will continue for as long as I stay interested in it.
It only remains now for me to add my New Year wishes to everyone. I would like to find something deep and important sounding to say here but I don’t think I can do better than to quote the New Year greeting from Neil Gaiman’s excellent blog.
...I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.(You may notice an absence of links in the above. This is a deliberate ploy to encourage you to go back and read all those other wonderful entries that I referred to in the text. Happy New Year. Bob)
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