Noughties & Teens

Another year has turned - another decade, too, according to some (but not all) - and traditionally one tends to look back at the year just gone, and look forward to the year to come, which might make one look like Marty Feldman for a moment (I've actually got a headstart on that one). This blog entry is made in something like that spirit, only without actually making any sense.*


LOOKING BACK ON 2009

Well, what a year that was. Last year I:

Saw the G20 demo in London


I was working that day, but did manage to see at least a little bit of egregious police brutality. Mostly because a riot kicked off right outside my office. A highlight has to be the demonstrator dressed in a pink Star Wars Stormtrooper outfit. At least I assume he was a demonstrator, he could have been FIT undercover...

Got married

Actually that's not quite true, I got married in 2008. But I stayed married in 2009, which I consider to be equally momentous as an achievement. Yay me. (And yay my wife, obv.)

Met Paul Watson

Somewhere in the bowels of HMS Belfast, I managed to grab a few words with eco-legend Paul Watson. Watson is currently in the Southern Ocean, chasing down Japanese whalers with a view to ramming them, throwing rancid butter at them, and casting aspersions on their parentage. Good man. Me? I got a signed book and a hoodie. You don't actually expect me to DO something, do you? Sheesh. It's cold down there, you know.

Got dogs

For some reason, my wife obviously thought there wasn't nearly enough farting going on in our house. Believe me, there was no shortfall on my account.

Gor blimey that's a fruity one...

LOOKING FORWARD TO 2010

This year I hope to:

Start a revolution

Frankly I'm fed up waiting for the Iranians. Clearly they're just not putting the effort in. I therefore propose to combine my 2010 holiday with some good old-fashioned revolutionary fervour. This may include executions at football grounds (I currently favour Fratton Park, starting with that idiot with the sodding Pompey Bell), extraordinary renditions (again, Fratton Park comes immediately to mind as the most unappealing place I can think of, offhand) and brutal suppression of the media. Actually, bringing down the apparatus of the State takes a secondary priority to eliminating the world's most annoying campanologist. The revolution can wait.

Rename the year

Twenty-Ten, or Two-Thousand and Ten? Such is the current debate on naming the new year. Well, let me tell you something - you are ALL wrong. It's twenty hundred and one-oh. Or possibly the square root of Forty-Forty-One-Hundred. I hope that helps.

Make better use of similes and metaphors

It's as clear as beer. If I can hit that bullseye, then the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards. I speak with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

Start training for the Olympics

Bearing in mind that I am both British, and hideously unfit, I need to select an event carefully. One that involves sitting down, ideally. And one that involves almost no physical exertion. Currently I'm torn between going for the PS3 Call Of Duty event, or the 4x400 spliff-rolling relay. Either way, I'd better get my thumbs in condition in time for London Square-Root-of-Forty-Forty-Eight-One-Hundred-And-Forty-Four. Hup hup hup... aaaaand relax.

Happy New Year!





* Should all or any part of this blog entry actually make sense, please disregard. This is clearly an unintended side-effect. Please ensure all jars of peanut butter are kept at a safe distance until the effect wears off.