2009 – a clusterfuck story [31 December 2009]

2009 was quite simply balls, and I’m not the only one who thinks so. It literally was an awful year, even aside from all the environmental plight of everyone’s naughty emissions, soldiers heading eastward to die for no good reason, rich bastards scamming everyone to get even fucking richer, and young people getting felt up at school, stabbed in the street, or encouraged to top themselves on Facebook. And that’s just the widely publicised stuff. Scale back to a more personal level and anyone you ask will tell you that their year was at some point tainted by a doomed relationship, abusive family member flaring up, untimely redundancy from work, or some similar blow to their usual conduct. I for one can tick several of those aforementioned 2009 boxes.

And so 2010 is finally here – we emerge with bruised bodies and squinting eyes from the murk of death, disappointment and corruption, into what will hopefully be an annum of significant improvement, though ever the pessimist, I pretty much fucking doubt it.
Turn on any TV to any channel right now and you may just be unfortunate enough to catch a programme on this person’s or that person’s more important/depressing/hilarious events of the year, organised in a fun-for-everyone countdown fashion. Continue reading this blog however and you’ll get a list of indeterminate length expressing my personal commentary on my own 2009 sentiments. In no particular order, they are as thus:

  1. Breaking up sucks.
  2. Starting your own business isn’t as difficult as you might think.
  3. Maintaining your own business is consequently not as easy as setting one up.
  4. Kerrang Radio either gets it really right... or really wrong.
  5. There is nothing notably wrong with Portugal. Well done Portugal. Oh wait… Ronaldo.
  6. Even though Carling tastes like shit, they sure got O2’s number.
  7. There were not enough legitimate opportunities to use the sentences “this isn’t what it looks like”, “it was like this when I got here” or “I can explain everything…”
  8. I’ve always wanted to spontaneously leave a train midway along a country pass, or a motorway that cuts through seemingly endless woodland, and run as far as the eye could see, I took the opportunity to do so recently, as I was in desperate need of a piss. As it turns out, much of the vegetation is deceptively deep and incredibly difficult to stand upright in. This will perhaps form the basis of my 2010 New Year resolution.
  9. There were too many advertisements this year which were just mouths.
  10. Racistdating.com never was and probably never will be a real website.
  11. Facebook is just poor.
  12. Though programmes that count down the best of/worst of this, that and the other are always shit, one can’t help but admire the range of quirky and increasingly more intricate CGI backdrops behind the Z list celebrity contributors.
  13. Derren Brown did pretty alright for himself didn’t he?
  14. Classic Muse is the only good Muse.
  15. Quentin Tarantino, not unlike Muse, also no longer knows what he is doing.
  16. The 10 days of my Christmas break were unquestionably the best 10 days of the year, if for nothing else than the relief they provided.
  17. Stand up comedians get funnier when you try to evade them.
  18. A text message in the right inbox can be as bountiful as a solid-chocolate Crunchie bar malfunction.
  19. The original Futuramas were for some reason a whole lot funnier this time around.
  20. Real Life Tombraidering will be big in 2010, I promise.
  21. London musicals, or indeed any musical performances, still do very little for me (unless they’re orchestrated by one Tim Minchin, who yes, I definitely would).
  22. The X-factor had it coming.
  23. Getting the regular flu at the same time that everyone else was getting the swine flu was just another form of my quiet rebellion.
  24. New Year is definitely not the same old bag of shit is usually is if you actually do something. Nice one Andy.
  25. I didn’t get down to Bournemouth as much as I would have liked this year. There’s obviously a change need making there.
  26. Papa Roach finally rocked my ass.
  27. If you wouldn’t trust a pikey to set the table for dinner with your finest china why the hell would you trust a bunch of them to light fireworks?
  28. Mini Eggs were severely down played this Easter and this saddens me. I remember the days when people would actually reward me with them for remembering things, doing something kind and not wetting the bed.
  29. Peep Show has still got it.

And finally, I will leave you with this. You can please some of the people some of the time, everyone else can fuck off.

Happy New Year!