So why the sudden return to the blogosphere you may ask, unwary reader? Well, last year brought many changes, not least my decision to get involved in local politics, charity work, start working for myself (more on that at some point) and generally start doing the things I enjoy doing but haven't had the time/opportunity to do over the last few years.
So maybe it'd be best if I started with a little about me...I'm 34, I live in Kilburn with my lovely girlfriend and have lived in Camden for 5 years now following stints in west London, Germany, Kent, Bath, Bristol and Hertfordshire (I have worked out that, on average, I've moved once every 2 years so I'm a bit of a nomad but hoping to settle in the lovely borough of Camden for some time). It's a little like moving back to the family roots too as my mum was born just down the road in St Johns Wood and her parents lived there and just off the Edgware Road for as long as I knew them. I have no small affection for the area and it's nice to be somewhere that I can say "ooo, my mum used to go there" such as with Marine Ices in Chalk Farm.
So, that's enough me for now...on to something a little more interesting (to vaguely paraphrase Monty Python).
This is best attempted as a list of things that have been popping round my head for the last couple of days and see how we get on from then:
- The return of the snow has made me wonder if there is a conspiracy among bookmakers to make they don't pay out on white Christmases. I have no doubt that planes with the Ladbrokes logo have been circling the upper atmosphere on Christmas eve doing something clever with clouds to prevent there being anything but slush at Weather Centre on the big day...although it could just be a coincidence like those bloke in black suits and the flashy pens told me the other week...
- I have decided that my "thing that gets me very annoyed" over the past few weeks is completely uncoordinated utility work...I moved into my new place in February of this year and have had two lots through here in 10 months. First Thames Water "replacing victorian water mains" or "doing what we should have started in 1989 when we got the franchise and not when we were finally forced to by the regulator". Since then it's been the gas board. Now before this sounds like an old man ranting from the safety of his twitching curtains (which may be my eventual fate) my point is that utilities really should be forced to dig up roads at the same time and not in a never ending sequence. This appears to be a passion on West End Lane which has been dug up more times than Dracula (and when the gloriously named "Hampstead Leather & Gifts" was there, was almost as camp). I will go on about this more but is it really any wonder roads turn into something resembling a potholed mountain track when they look like a poorly embroidered patchwork quilt?...
- And finally (this was supposed to be a short introductory piece...so much for that plan), I would like to go on a little about my belated conversion to Twitter (I'm at http://twitter.com/fac203 if you're interested). I had initially avoided the rising star of social networking on the basis that I'd got a Facebook account and struggled to keep up with my status on that, let alone trying to come up with regular and not verbose updates on another system...however, I finally decided to give it a go after a few friends (this sounds like a "don't do drugs" advert) showed me how addictve it could be...and gamer getting a new console I have become more than a little obsessed with it as both a rolling news feed for the more obscure corners of my interests and a great way of keeping up with people...especially as I now have it on my phone...time for a trip to that hypothetical AA place again...
Anyway, that's more than enough ranting for one evening, until next time keep watching the stars and all that.
