That was MMV

2005 has brought its fair share of natural disasters, political nightmares and boybands, but for me it will represent the first year of full employment since leaving Her Majesty's Arm Twisters.

So I thought I might share a few thoughts with the world by way of a special award ceremony. The nominations are in, the world holds its breath... And the winner for Most Pointless Blog Article goes to...

Highlight of The Year - Dolphin hunting in Scotland. Even though we didn't find any!

Serendipity Award - Richmond Live 2005. Wow! I never thought this would have been anything like as good as it was. If you can get there next year you'll find me at the front!

Damp Squib Award - Coldplay live at Reebok Stadium, Bolton. A polished performance, but not much different to listening to their albums, and nowhere near worth the Neolithic wait to get out of the carpark afterwards. Oh, and a special thank you to the drunken chav who pissed down my leg in the middle of Yellow.

Popcorn and Coke Award - Sin City. No contest. Definitely. One-hundred-per-cent-certain. No, wait. There was Harry Potter too, wasn’t there?

Shiny Round Thing Award - Honeycomb, by Frank Black. By far the best CD of the year. Even though nobody in Sheffield's HMV had ever heard of him.

Square Eyes Award - The West Wing, Season Six. Despite those Arseholes at Channel 4 deciding not to bother showing season five, this has been completely unmissable.

Clicking Excellent Award - Weebl and Bob. I don't know why, either. But if you don't find it hysterical there is something medically wrong with you.

Page Turner Prize - Carter Beats the Devil, by Glenn David Gold. Although this book was released before this year I thought it would be worth a special mention as it's been re-released in paperback. A riveting yarn about one of Houdini's contemporaries

Bugger It Award - Didn't stick with learning the guitar.

Five Gold Stars For Me Award - I Finished i-con Part One.

Things to Make You Go "Aww" Award - Jessica putting "Go somewhere nice with Daddy” on her Christmas list.

And my top tip for 2006 - i-con, part 2. Fun and frolics with a lady in a wheelchair, an anti-globalization suicide cult, and a little girl growing up in a rather unsavoury corner of Eastern Europe.

Happy New Year, everyone. Thanks for all your visits and comments. I wish you all the very best of health and success for the year ahead.

What's that big star over there?

Richard Fleet seems to be a rather clever chap. He's made a lovely bit of freeware that shows you where all the planets are in the night sky on any given night. Just load it up, click on "now", then click on "horizon view" and you'll be able to tell exactly which planet or star is visible in your area at that moment. It even works during the day, but that's not really the best time to be out with your binoculars, is it?
It really is jolly clever, and it's free. You can download the Graphdark program by clicking the link below.

Go to Richard Fleet's homepage

Thanks, Richard.

Exclusive

US Sky Marshal boss, William J T Leonard Jnr has admitted that his plans to continually monitor and improve the service did not go as planned.

"I used to be a management supervisor at the Florida branch of the Wal-mart." He told our reporter. "And mystery shoppers worked just fine there."

Amid calls for his resignation, Miami resident Mr Leonard did his best to appeal for understanding. "Back at the Mall it was the job of the mystery shopper to create a little bit of a stink... be kind of unruly, and then rate the staff on their performance. This was kind of a pilot scheme, but I guess we should have sort of thought about what might happen if we got a lady marshal at, you know, her special time."

Louder than Words

It seems the influence of "Post a Secret" has reached the Westminster Village.