9/10ths Full of Penguins Review of the Year 2008

I apologise for my lengthy absence. I have been pondering the purpose of this blog and took something of a furlough to consider whether I should keep going or not. I never wanted my blog to be a 'today I had my breakfast and then went to work' type-blog and felt it might have been slipping slowly that way. However, I'm now back and raring for more blogtacular action in 2009...

2008 has seen some extraordinary moments. Barack Obama's huge victory in the US presidential elections, global economic meltdown and two pensioners making jumpers out of their dead dogs' hair.


Best Moment
November 5th at the Empress Ballroom in Blackpool. I finally got to see the peerless Sigur Ros live in concert. It was simply the most extraordinary gig I've ever seen and leapt straight to the top of my all time gig list, unseating Iona at the Royal Festival Hall in May 1999.

Best Film
The year's best film was an easy choice in the end. Nothing even came close to the dazzlingly bleak Dark Knight - brilliantly written, directed and acted. However, my favourite film of the year was the marvellously entertaining Hellboy 2.

Worst Film
The Happening. For the sake of all that is holy - please lock M Night Shyamalan in dark, windowless room until he promises to stop making films this terrible. It was a film with nothing going for it at all.

Best TV
Battlestar Galactica was once again the best thing on the goggle-box in 2008. I have also discovered the wonders of the West Wing. I'm about half way through season 3 and I'm reluctant to carry on watching it as the further I go throught the seasons, the closer I am to never having a new episode of the West Wing to watch....

Worst TV

I was subjected to a few episodes of Strictly Come Dancing in 2008. I was truly astonished by the level of self-importance and vanity oozing out of most of the contestants and judges. The fact that the judges continued complaining that the public kept saving John Sergent demonstrated that they thought far too much of themselves and their dance show than the fact that they were part of a reality TV show that asks for public opinion. What they told the viewers was that they (the judges) were right and the great unwashed of the British public were incorrect because they had the temerity to disagree with them.The truly magnificent John Sergeant

Best Album
Dial M - Starflyer 59

Best Book
The Separation by Christopher Priest - a pleasingly complex and intriguing book of alternative fiction.

Best Penguin related story of 2008
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Do people need rescuing? Nah - its just two inflatable penguins. Read all about it here

Blogs of the Year
Here are my 3 favourite blogs of the year in no particular order.
Fat Roland
Quinquireme
Cultural Snow

On a personal level, I decided to follow the example of a good friend and start trying to lose weight. In the last 5 or 6 weeks of 2008 I lost over a stone in weight and have set myself the goal of losing enough weight to start playing cricket properly again before the end of 2009.

In 2008 I also rediscovered an old friendship that has blossomed into somewhat more over the course of the year which has made me very happy.