Noughties end

I've composed a song. Let me prepare.

Harrurgh!
Ag! Ag! Ag!
Mee mee mee meeee!
And a one, and a two, and a . . .

*snaps fingers rhythmically, like putting castanets on someone having a seizure*

And now, the end is near,

And so I face, the final blog post.

Not of all time, just of this year.

I didn't mean, to raise up your hopes.

I've posted lots, maybe too much,
You've waded throooooooooooo,
My dodgy paragraphs.
But more, much more than this,
I did it for laughs.

Ol' Pink Eyes, 2009

Well, here it is. The end (almost) of 2009, and the arbitrary, subjective quantification of time via this particular calender demands some reminiss . . . some re-mincies . . . some remissin . . . some remembering of what has come to pass.
This is an original concept, and will not have been done before, but I expect other media to do a similar sort of "Year in Review" type thing when they see this, so remember you saw it here first.

2009 then.

We've had financial chaos, with various governments struggling to find a different, more upbeat term for "recession" and finally settling on "economic downturn".

We've had a few deaths including, well, millions of people actually, but also Bobby Robson, Mollie Sugden, Paddy Swayze, Mick Jackson, and someone called Lockerbie Bomber. Unfortunately I think this trend of dying will continue unabated until someone comes up with a cure.

We had the G20 summit which solved all the planet's problems and led to a better world for all. Huzzah!

We watched North Korea test out some nuclear powered fireworks for funsies.

We eyed pigs suspiciously as they passed on a particularly nasty flu to us, but didn't stop eating them because they are so very, very tasty. This is an example of yin and yang in action.

We noted Iran quietly and studiously building up it's international relations with intelligent diplomacy and public hangings.

We 'oohed' as NASA crashed a rocket into the moon, ostensibly to look for water in the resulting debris, but almost certainly really as part of an elaborate strike against an evil, organised and strangely well-funded super-villain.

We 'ahhed' as scientists discovered a huge great ginormous species of rat in Papua New Guinea that was strangely cuddly and more endearing than a pygmy marmoset in a slipper.

I think that about covers 2009. If I've missed anything, let me know by sending it to gordon.brown@primeminister.co.uk.

Label your post "Red Mercury" and include a threat, so that I know it's not a spam-bot or something.

According to Wikimisleadia, 2009 was the year of both Astronomy and Natural Fibres, which explains the new Hubble Space Telescope Cosy knitted by the WI in tartan wool.

The biggest thing I'm going to miss is that, from now on, we're more likely to prefix "twenty" onto the year rather than say "two thousand and . . .".

So are you going to say twenty ten or two thousand and ten, or maybe just stick to Year of the Tiger to conform to our inevitable new Chinese overlords? It's a bit fiddly to write on a cheque but they're phasing those out soon anyway.

From a blog point of view, I've discovered that there's rarely nothing to post about. I'm not saying my posts are always riveting nuggets of untempered fascination*, but just that, as long as you have time, there's no reason you can't glean a spot of creativity out of just about anything.

And, if I am stuck for witterings, I shall take incentive from the author of this self published tome I photogratified on a local market book stall just before Christmas:

It seems strange that we've lasted so long without Benson, Mr C's treatise on the Relevance of Sofas. It was a work waiting to happen, and just required someone to get off their comfortably ensconced arse and do it.

And, inexorably, on we go to 2010. It will be the start of life for some, continuation of life for most, and the cessation of life for the rest, which is both heartening and depressing at the same time.

In our household, we finished off the year with a family trip to Birmingham's Sea Life Centre, where they continually demonstrate their grasp of the oxymoron by having a sea life centre in the middle of the country, by having freshwater fish in it, by having an otter colony on the third floor in the middle of a city, and by being staffed by articulate brummies.

Here, I took a pic that, to me, is a tidy metaphor for the human experience in this universe:

I am a dainty, bright, blue-flavoured jellyfish, swimming in the sea of experience, occasionally going upside down and sometimes stinging myself with my own ill-controlled tentacles.

See?

Tidy.

Happy End Of Year Period!

*Although they totally are.