For aul lang syne etc etc

The Sunday Post that grand paper of record (which I rashly bought to read on the last train back from Glasgow) reports that only 25% of people do anything for New Year - 10 % going "out" and 15% at the home of friends or inviting friends round.

Now I have 160 Friends or so of whom something like 50-80 probably read this or at least actually exist.. so why don't we try this out empirically on my horribly skewed sample?

I've also been reading a book on happiness, so that has squeezed in there too. The key to happiness is apparently lowered expectations and gratitude. Money, sex and beauty are largely irrelevant(I agree with that bit). Sounds horribly like Christianity to me though..


[Poll #897874]

52 film challenge - success!!

Just realised I only have 6 hours to announce I DID IT!! albeit by skin of teeth..

51. Deja Vu - was much better than I expected. Till oh at least 3/4 way through it's a genuinely funny smart action movie based on a solid sf time travel premise. It's got a neat ending too. But en route there it sudenly hits a period of TOTAL BOLLOCKS OVERDRIVE (as I hear it is known.) Shame really - one more script rewrite and it could have been really good..

52.!!! waas sadly UTTER SHITE!! namely The Holiday. OMG this is the worst manufactured romcom I've seen in some time. AVOID. This is a UK/US life swap Richard Curtis style fantasy only worse - in which struggling hacks can somehow live in charming multi million pound cottages in quaint Surrey villages, in which single fathers without live in help can somehow get drunk in the village pub every night and randomly crash (sans children) on their sister's couch; in which tickets to and from LA can be purchased the day before both Xmas and New year, in which elderly millionaire filmwriters take walks (WALKS!!) on the pavementless roads of LA.. oh I won't go on. This film grimly assumes its audience are idiots and goes from there. OH one more I'd forgotten - this is a London where it snows solidly for a week at Xmas. Global warming anyone??


OMG - TV blip here - Eastleigh is the 9th most desirable place to live in the UK. I Don't Believe it.. it is, as they just said, ugly, dull and polluted, the best thing to say about it being that it's near an airport (it's ten mins from where I live in Soton) .. It beats Manchester at 10 though, even though it's the ASBO capital of the UK with 10 % of the population leaving to get away fromn the crime rate. Who compiles these things???

EDIT: Sorry sneerpout, Islington is the 5th worst place to live!! based on crime, unemployment and high prices..

and.. it get worst - Glasgow has the lowest life expectancy in the UK and Scottish kids are twice as fat as US kids proportionally! ag!

Right, signing off!! Have a cheerful New year and don't get blown away by the gales!!