Saturday 31 December 2011

New Year’s Resolutions 2012




DO NOT SMOKE CIGARETTES (I quit in September …)

DO NOT EAT MEAT (I haven’t eaten meat in almost ten years…)

I know I’m cheating with these two. I’m still ticking them off though. Here are some ACTUAL resolutions…

Start listening to the radio again, possibly even Radio 4. I have a lovely DAB radio that I barely use but I’m a bit of a control freak about what music I listen to so I need to open my mind and ears (to Woman’s Hour at least).

Try to get my credit card debt under control. Seriously, it’s destroying me. Not just financially but mentally. I dream about it at night. It’s becoming like the bloody knight of carnage in The Fisher King, all in vibrant HSBC red of course.

Get more involved with Amnesty International. I’ve been a member for thirteen years and have been intermittently lazy about what I do, but I’ve been thinking a lot about North Korea lately and about Troy Davis who was executed this year in Atlanta on an insubstantial charge; the world in general needs a voice like Amnesty more than ever. I’m going to see what I can do.

This is the year I will read Tristram Shandy and Ulysses. I will. How dare I set about writing novels otherwise.

I will get a distinction in my MA in Creative Writing. I won’t actually complete my MA this year but the bulk of the coursework towards the final grade will be done this year so I’m knuckling down.

Commit to the gym until I look like this …



If you are very beautiful then everybody loves you, in case you didn’t know. Men in their thirties are at their best too, they flourish, I need to flourish damn it.

Be a good uncle.

Happy 2012 everyone.

Monday 26 December 2011

2011 In Pictures