New Year’s Eve

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So 2009 finally disappears in a puff of smoke, like Cinderella's chariot, at the stroke of midnight and we all start looking forward to the New Year.

I have no New Year resolutions to make or to break. It’s safer that way rather than risk the sniggers of those who know my promises will come to nothing.

Maybe I’ll try to be less irascible, give up smoking and make a start on the novel that lurks in the deepest recesses of my mind.

But don’t hold your breath!
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'Hi Ya, Sharon!'

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German computer scientists have spent the last five months cracking the algorithm used to encrypt the calls of four billion mobile phone users. Their published work allows anyone to eavesdrop on private mobile phone conversations.

There is, of course, a worry that criminals might be able to use this work, though it appears that only government agencies and ‘well funded’ criminals have access to the necessary technology.

I can’t say that I can get too worked up about this news. Imagine the number of banal and utterly worthless conversations that a crook might have to listen to before he found one of any interest.
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‘Good Riddance’ Day

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New Yorkers have found a neat way of ridding themselves of things reminding them of unpleasant experiences.

In the third annual event of its kind, ‘Good Riddance’ Day enabled New Yorkers to bring their letters, summons, divorce and other papers, newspaper articles and other reminders of the bad things that happened in 2009 to Times Square. Here these items could be shredded, smashed or pulverised and placed into a waste container.

It’s a nice idea, but if only it were that easy!
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Oh Really?

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I debated with myself whether or not to mention it, but finally succumbed to the sexist trivial.

A new shopping centre in Shijiazhuang city, in China's Hebei Province, has been provided with a women-only car park, painted in pink and light purple to appeal to female tastes and fitted with special signs. Female parking attendants have been trained to help guide women drivers into their parking spaces. The bays also have extra lighting.

What interested me most was not the colours, the special signs or the female attendants.

No, it was the fact that the parking bays are three feet wider than normal spaces.

‘Nuff said!
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The New Year

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So here we are. After weeks of preparation and expectation, Christmas has come and gone in a flash.

The conversation is about Auntie Caroline getting tiddly and talkative on Christmas Day, what young Peter said to upset his mother and how Grampa Grumpy spent most of Boxing Day afternoon snoring away contentedly in in his armchair. The shops are full of folk spending money in the seasonal sales in advance of the increase in VAT. The rubbish tips are filling up with the leftover food, wrapping paper and unwanted cardboard.

One definite sign that Christmas is over and that the New Year is rushing up upon us is the weekend’s newspapers and television programmes which are full of boring and repetitive reviews of 2009. I don’t want to know any more about 2009. It was not a notable year as we all know and I will not trouble to include a mini review myself.

I would prefer to look forward to the New Year which, in any event, is the time to look forward, make resolutions and be generally positive about things.

So, maybe 2010 will be the year that we have a new grandson, the year that my family will all stay healthy, the year that we come up on the lottery and the year that we can make a trip, first class of course, to Japan to see the cherry blossom.

Maybe, just maybe, it will also be the year we get some proper government and that our savings and pensions will actually be worth something - though, perhaps, that is asking too much!
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Forecasting Cherry-Blossom Time

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One of my ambitions is to visit Japan again and, if at all possible, to go there in time for the Cherry-Blossom Festival in March. It is, alas, an ambition unlikely to be fulfilled unless our lottery numbers come up - though I live in hopes.

Cherry blossom time in Japan is something which exercises the attention of the entire Japanese nation. Millions will take to their cars and clog up country roads in the hope of seeing the cherry trees in their full splendour. Aficionados will admire the different types of blossom, their arrangement on the trees and also their setting.

For fifty years the Japanese Weather Agency has been forecasting where and when the trees will bloom and, more often than not, they have been proved wrong and forced to apologise for their error.

There’s not much difference then between the abilities of the Japanese Weather Agency and our own beloved Met Office!
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Dreams

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In his traditional Christmas sermon Pope Benedict XVI focused on the needy around the world, praising the work of the Church to help relieve suffering.

The Archbishop of Canterbury in his Christmas sermon focused on present society which forces children to grow up too soon.

Both are right, of course.

Inspiring as these homilies were, I warmed to the sentiments of the Bishop of Exeter who felt folk should try to live out their dreams for Christmas 2009 and into 2010 rather than merely wish for things they didn’t think would happen.

It’s an interesting thought. Not just to dream but to take action to bring them about.

Which, is what I think the Pope and the Archbishop were also saying in their own way.
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