This Is This

Like an idiot, last year I published my new year’s resolutions in this blog. And now, exactly an idiot, here’s how I did.

1. Become a better banjo player. This means practice.

Kind of, yeah. I’ve been working at it OK. The tea towels in our house go missing because I stuff them into the pot to deaden the sound, and stick a pillow on my lap for further muffling. Banjos are loud. You can play them soft or slowly.You really have to just drop the clutch and go. So am I any good? No I’m OK. But I am better, which give me a respectable score.
Score: 6/10.

2. Keep writing the book. At least two hours a month, so as to make progress and not obsess. I have trouble doing anything by halves.

Writing my grandfather’s hellography of his days in the trenches of the Western Front turned out to be a litany of daily mud and hate. I will start it up again sometime, but for now my time and happiness are worth too much, so I have declared an uneasy ceasefire with the memory the men of the 9th King’s Liverpools.
Score: 1/10

3. Use the Japanese calligraphy set my wife bought be for Christmas 2003. I haven’t even opened it. She’s a good woman and I don’t deserve her.

Total and unmitigated failure. It’s on the bookshelf somewhere.
Score: 0/10

4. Lighten up - try not to think bad thoughts.

So-so. I think a lot of worst-case-scenario stuff can be productive, but U should probably be happier. I’m aware of that and that has its own merits.
Score: 5/10

5. Spend more time with my dad.

A bit. I find that having kids takes up a lot of time but we all make time to do things together, and if that can include my dad, then that’s fun.
Score 5/10

6. Paint the garden fences with that waterproof protector stuff.

I did four out of ten panels.
Score: Lets see, that’s….. 4/10

7. Plant a plum tree in the garden.

No. I grew tomatoes, sunflowers, peppers, courgettes, beans and tons of flowers, but you would have seen more plums at a eunich’s skinny dip than in my garden this year.
Score: 0/10

8. Watch no reality TV whatsoever. This doesn’t include docos or News, but it does include drivvel like What Not to Eat, Changing Organs, Back to the Plague, How Shiney is Your Heiney? and shows of that ilk.

Haha. Although I did cut down massively. I saw none all the way through and some I didn’t watch at all.
Score: 8/10

9. Buy nothing on credit.

One holiday, mail order clothes because that’s how they work, but I paid them off pretty quickly.
Score: 8/10

10. Use this (points to head) before opening this (points to mouth).

Getting better, but still said some stupid things, leading people to assume that I don’t know this (points to elbow) from this (points to arse).
Score: 6/10

Total Score: 42/100

Cliff sets himself goals to which he has trouble committing. While he is ambitious, he needs to be more realistic when setting his sights. 2006 will be a tough year for Cliff, not least because he will have the responsibility to be a better person rather than a more productive one. Plum trees can wait. It’s what matters to other people that should matter the most to him.

Also on This Is This
“You paragliders really piss me off, you know that? I can’t fly my glider anymore because you guys always bogart the thermals.”
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This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 28th, 2005 at 8:31 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed, or leave a comment yourself.