Personally the start was really shabby, we were still suffering from the aftermath of the burglary in Dec 2003, my ex didn’t want to be left alone in the house and I was still working at my old job who were being less than understanding and kept trying to get me to drive to Birmingham for the day. I really didn’t care by that stage I told them to shove it. 10 days later I got the call that was to change things regarding my new job.

It is amazing how changing something fundamental like your job has such knock on effects all over the rest of your life. I got lucky with my job I knew that, it’s not that I didn’t work hard to get there because I did but it’s a myth that if you work hard everything lands in your lap. This time I got a break. I am thankful for it. I also know that I wouldn’t have been in the position to take it had I not got out in 2002. It took me some time to rebuild myself and it is just as well that the job opportunity didn’t come up until the end of last year because I it was only in the summer that I had started to get some confidence and started to dictate things in interviews. I learnt a lot over last year in the job sense I learnt to stop tolerating mediocrity and that strategy bore fruit this year.

I gave up smoking once and for all in May and have been clean ever since.

Midway thru’ the year it became clear that I was going to have to do something to stop the financial slide and the main option was that of moving closer to work. This is a quandry was has been festering since then.

The end of the year was a fair bit like the start with the ex’s car being stolen. [2005 has continued in irritating genre with the TV busting and the socket blowing up whilst the dyson hoover was plugged into it.]

I have been blogging for 51 weeks and in total have amassed really quite a lot of words. I really want to count them some day. I know of 33 entries I had 20,000 words so I’m estimating it’s over 100k, that’s a fecking book that is! I have had contact with many people all over the world. Some have come and gone and others fortunately have stayed and become regular fixtures. I will always look back on this year as being the year that blogging revitalised my writing as well as giving me a crutch in a time when the real world was less than fulfilling.

In world affairs which have taken the bulk of my attention here I feel that the West if not a great part of the rest of the world is splitting into distinctive factions. Who would have thought that the imbecile Bush would have turned prophet when he said that you were either with them or against them. What he of course failed to realise was that there was a significant group of us who were perfectly happy saying we were against them. This did not make us ‘with’ the terrorists because there were no terrorists. This year we have the chance to illustrate this with Britain being the holder of G8 and EU presidencies. I am not only talking about the group of us on the far left in this tho’ the whole Make Poverty History campaign is really starting to galvanise many of the liberals, in my view it will take a long time but they must eventually make the connection that it is precisely our system that makes the inequality. You can chose to address the problems if you wish and be reactive or take the bull by the horns and be proactive. Then again this isn’t rocket science and they’ve failed to grasp it for many years previously.

I am also struck by the irony of the West waging war in the Middle East and the ensuing death and destruction and then Mother Nature showing just how insignificant humans really are and how arbitrary disaster and destruction really can be. You might think that the resulting thoughts of logical beings would be to sit and reflect on this a while, and so it would but whilst our gift is sentience our curse by the same token is often a lack of logical reasoning.

Politics is such a huge part of my life in terms of what makes me who I am and the last few years have been difficult for me to see what appears to have been a combination of apathy and disolutionment with politics. I hope and to a certain extent I have reason to believe that this may be changing. People are being forced to be politicised as the system here in the West polarises them more and more and squeezes so many out of enfranchisement.

2005 strikes me as being a year of more work, but I am confident that like this year there will be a degree of payback for it. I hope all of those reading have a fulfilling year.

Song Of The Day – Iron Maiden – Phantom Of The Opera

Original Comments:


Pimme made this comment,
Out of all the blogs that I read, yours are the longest! There should be some sort of award for that.
Bush and his followers are so stupid that it actually bores me to talk about them anymore, so I’m going to go light on the political posts until otherwise noted.

I started a fund drive in my church for the victims of the tsunami. I’m glad that I get to choose where the money goes.

Visit me @ http://pimme.blog-city.com

[Redbaron Responds – And bearing in mind the number of blogs you get thru’ I am pretty chuffed to get the rambling git award!]

comment added :: 5th January 2005, 03:34 GMT+01
A visitor made this comment,
Please don’t remind me that 100K words is a book. It only makes me feel that much more ridiculous that mine languishes…welcome back, Baron. I miss your e-mails.
Kristie

[Redbaron Responds – That wouldn’t possibly be a thinly-veiled hint would it perchance?!]

comment added :: 5th January 2005, 05:05 GMT+01
A visitor made this comment,
bush’s re-election and tsunami disaster made this pretty eventful year seem kind of crap, but personally, it’s been good and i’m so glad i randomly came across you on neil’s blog and found my long lost irish twin!!
many good things have happened this past year, and i’m sure 2005 is going to be absolutely fantastic for the paki/irish twins:)!!

sarah [sarah.a@gmail.com]

[Redbaron responds – Yes, it will be interesting to see after a few years what we actually look back on, I think the Tsunami is a given. I am naturally delighted to have been reunited with my twin and since I trust her implicitly I have no reason to doubt that her optimism is well-founded!]

comment added :: 5th January 2005, 12:43 GMT+01
A visitor made this comment,
may 2005 be a better year 🙂
Pip [pip@errantmind.co.uk]

[Redbaron responds – For you too Hon, glad you’re still about, thought we’d lost you back there.]

comment added :: 6th January 2005, 14:39 GMT+01
Rachel made this comment,
The “ramblin’s” a bit much, mate. No worries. At lesat you don’t bore.
Was glad to hear you quit smoking, still am. 🙂

Hope you have a great new year, my friend. You deserve it.

Visit me @ http://palmysinfullbloom.blog-city.com

comment added :: 6th January 2005, 20:03 GMT+01