Those Resolutions in Full

Happy New Year!

Yes, I know I'm a few days late, but it always seems to take a while to get the turkey and mince pie-driven lethargy out of the system at this time of the annum.

Of course, everyone else has been up and running for days,and why not, with such a lot of things to look forward to in 2008. Aside from the Olympics and the US Presidential Election, it's also 30 years since Boney M took the charts by storm with Rivers of Babylon and 60 since Prince Charles was born. Will he be the oldest person to ascend to the throne? We may never know.

Moving on, it is by now a tradition amongst the lazy and feckless to aim for self-improvement at the start of January with so-called New Year's Resolutions. It is also a sign of their lazy fecklessness that by the start of February, these promises are, if not broken, largely forgotten. Being of such a disposition, I hereby list my own resolutions:

1. Blog more frequently. Or at least better. Easy to say this, but I do enjoy this whole process of writing my own nonsense and reading and responding to other people's, so I'm going to try and make more time for it.

2. Learn more Portuguese. I spend my working life helping people get their heads round my native language, and yet I haven't really made any structured effort to get mine round theirs. This must change!

3. Read more Russian literature. Or Soviet literature - however you want to describe it. I don't think I need to explain this, for of course, dear reader, were you the sort to make resolutions (you're far too good for that, I know), you would doubtless say the same.

4. Visit some new countries. I don't mean newly designated countries like Eritrea, East Timor and Montenegro, although I'd be happy to visit them, but any that I haven't been to yet. I'll never get round the whole planet if I don't keep ticking them off steadily.

I'd say that's probably enough for now, although there is undoubtedly a large chance the same things will be trotted out next year. Have a good one!