That's It Then....

It was the year that began and ended with snow, that began Brown and ended up a sort of bluey, yellow mess, saw the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and the kettling of students, Robbie Williams returned to the fold and David Milliband left the band. Mel Gibson made a complete arse of himself (again), as did Vince Cable, 33 Chilean Miners were trapped whilst working and Julian Assange was placed under mansion arrest so he could carry on working.

2010, how was it for you?

On the political front it was a toss-up between Silvio Berlusconi and Vince Cable for the tosser of the year award, both showed once again that all you need to fail in politics is to be confronted with a young girl in a short skirt and your brains head southwards. Cable managed to show both crass stupidity and a lack of class as he boasted about bringing down the evil empire, he managed to compund his arrogance by taking in place in a stupid television dance contest.

We said goodbye to Gordon Brown, thanks in part to Gillian Duffy, a woman who was derided by sections of both the public and the media for being daft enough to speak the truth, if only politicians were so daft. In came Clegg and Cameron, described by the American comedian Rich Hall as looking like a pair of gay antique dealers and quite frankly who could argue with that assessment. They were the leading players in the years biggest grossing film, "Coalition - Lust For Power," such was the ineptitude of the pair that by the end of the year Liberal Democrat supporters and Conservative loyalists were saying they had every faith in this particular production whilst keeping their fingers firmly crossed behind their backs.

For those who like random statistics, and who doesn't, this was the year we discovered that one in three call centre workers has a University degree, that China now exports as much in six hours as the UK did in the whole of 1978 and that following 13 years of Labour Governments 22% of all 16-19 year olds are functionally innumerate and 17% are illiterate - but never mind, it was all Maggie's fault!

It wasn't a good year for BP, but the over reaction in the States was laughable, this from a country where some people actually think Sarah Palin is a good idea!

English football supporters began the year hoping to win one World Cup and be awarded another, but this being England we ended up being embarrassed in both South Africa and Switzerland, one cup went to the footballing little guys of Spain, the other to the oligarchs of Russia. At least our cricket team showed the way when they retained the Ashes by overwhelming the worst Australian side in living memory.

On the home front I managed to have several minor health issues but nothing too serious, work swung from the sublime to the ridiculous. As a family we saw first hand the impact of the spending review three months before it had actually been announced. In June our daughter was offered a place at three colleges to study her 4 A Levels, this after gaining 9 O Levels of B or above. She choose the one which had the best facilities for her Photography course, it had a dedicated studio, computers, editing suites the lot, I actually wished I was 16 again for a brief moment. When she turned up at the start of term for registration the studio facilities had been scrapped as the budget for 2010-11 had been recalculated. We've been lucky as parents, so far, but you would have to have had a heart of stone not to have felt the sense of dejection and disappointment in the air when she returned home from college that first Tuesday in September.

Anyway, that was then. A big thanks to all of you who have visited these pages this year, all visitors are welcome, and thank you especially to everybody who has left a comment.

A Happy and Healthy 2011 to one and all.