Saturday, December 31, 2016

Bye bye 2016. Will 2017 be better

2016 was the year Nan Harris died and Charlie Jones committed suicide.  Oh no, wait, that was 1979.  2016 was the year David Bowie died and Leonard Cohen and Prince, and Vi Subversa.  It was the year Britain voted to leave the EU, America voted to leave the planet and David Cameron backed off from the mess he'd made saying "Someone else can deal with this shit".  I don't believe in no platform policies but I'd make an exception for David Cameron.

On the plus side it was the year Leicester City won the Premiership and Chicago Cubs won the World Series.  And the Giant Panda and the Humped Back Whale came off the endangered species list.  It was the year I was made redundant, sadly at a much lower level than the amount I was told I could have 13 years ago if only I could somehow contrive not to get a job when the Department of Health reorganised itself.

Let it be known, in the name of Quellchrist Falconer that I consider the change of policy that robbed me like that as a personal assault.  Still, I'm moving on.

2016 was also the year in which I failed to keep any of my New Year's resolutions but it was the year in which I played in my first, second and third festivals so it wasn't all bad.

For 2017 I have only three resolutions.
  1. write as much as possible and (once I leave work) that includes: spending the first 90 minutes of each the first 90 days from 1 February onward writing; complete the promised adaptation for screen of Diary of a Rock Star by Paul Chiles Bown; adapt my own novel Ghost Army for the screen; writing on this blog and it's sister blog at least once a week; carry out my final contributions of the book I'm writing with Kirstein and Craig; enter as many writing competitions as I can; and even write reviews regularly on Amazon or on trip advisor or wherever.
  2. Perform as well and as often as possible.  This includes performances with e-Cog Zero and Edelweiss Pirates UK as well as performing solo as Quinn Agathoni.  That also includes making sure my leaving do is awesome!
  3. Find somewhere awesome to live outside London.
I really regret the last of those but London is so expensive it has, or is in the process of, driven me out.  I love this city for its cosmopolitanism, for the diversity of its people and for the fact that I can find almost anything I need just by walking around.  The only place I can imagine living that's not London is New York City.  I am so tempted to move to New York Lincolnshire just for the address.