This year – no resolutions. Just a wish – that the next twelve months are more mellow and less complicated than the past twelve.
It could be an epic year. But if you don’t pay attention, you could miss the best parts. Here’s a year in 120 seconds.
That was Eirik Solheim’s 2009. If you can’t spare 120 seconds, he does a 90 second version too. Oslo-based Eirik’s main website is here, where he discusses media issues and shows off his photographs.
Speaking of paying attention and living in the now, you should check out a recent post on the Jethead blog. It’s about appreciating the wonders of the journey rather than being exclusively impatient to arrive. After all, what is arrival other than death? What’s the rush?
Jethead writes very well about being a commercial pilot. He’s lyrical rather than technical – though you get a bit of that too -with an insight into what cabin really get up to behind the curtain.
Looking back – My 2010 was considerably brightened by visits by you to this blog, and support from you in other ways. Here’s the WordPress summing up of Jan-Dec 2010 at blackwatertown. Overall health is apparently good.
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow, they say. In 2010, there were (a paltry) 83 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 125 posts. There were 335 pictures uploaded – about 6 pictures per week.
Visitor numbers peaked in the middle of the year (June 10th), and the most popular post that day was The opening lines (and Happy Christmas). (Which reminds me that I must get back to rewriting the book and finishing those short stories.)
My top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, WordPress Dashboard, the delightful home of exquisite photography that is exileimaging.wordpress.com (it’s highly recommended), variationsonnormal.com (science, inventiveness and lateral thinking – fun and thought-provoking), and twitter.com.
People who found me via searches were mostly looking for Blackwatertown (that’s handy), Lynn Barber (whose early life story inspired the excellent film An Education), the singer Juliette Greco who resembles a character in An Education, one of my favourite writers Patrick Leigh Fermor , and gumshoe Sam Spade.
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010. (Yes, I’ve noticed that some of them are from 2009 too – but this is the official wordpress version, so who are we to quibble.)
Not too bad, but could do better. (Says I.) So this year, more frequent, briefer posts – and some biggies too. That’s the plan. We’ll see how we go.
Blackwatertown 
Congrats on great year of blogging. I enjoyed the 120 seconds but not like any year I’ve ever known Where’s the crime, the background gunshots in the night, the quick passing of crack, the arrests, the unemployment, the low performance of students, the joblessness, the hopelessnesses and despair? I don’t see the government pictured that is oblivious to the needs of common people and how nice that there is no acid rain in that delightful forest.
Ah yeah – he must have been facing the wrong way. It wasn’t quite like my year either – though I did manage to do a bit of contemplating trees and forests (on my way to and from work, but good even so).
adored the year in such a short time!
Hmm….always thought the years went faster the older I got, but 12o seconds?!! Oh and congrat’s! Sounds like your blog is in excellent health 🙂
I read Jethead as Jedward. Thought you’d lost it. Happy Nooo Year!
Thank you for this one Paul:)
Being from Central Florida I have never seen the seasons come ‘n go.
Agree with europasicewolf that the years go by faster and faster. Very enjoyable video, and thanks for the mention. Have a great year, Paul.
Nice video, and I agree – don’t blink. It can be easy to miss out on a great journey if we stop paying attention, or focus too much on what lies ahead.
I think my year went faster than 120 seconds. I hung a calendar on the wall back in Jan 2010, then went to remove it on New Years Day 2011 and it had not been used! Where did the time go?
The c abbie has put something out there and revealed his motives. First act of the devil – he is setting up a lottery.
Act 2, he has put the calendar out there but with contractual type addenda. If you do this, then you can have that he is saying. In doing this, the cabbie has further clarified what the program really is.
Clearly, anyone who is currently a journalist who accepts those tickets and the conditions for attaining them is contracting with the journalism Antichrist. This is a violation of journalism’s code of ethics.
Even in corporate level arrangements at newspapers, the ones that offer people money for stories are not highly regarded. This in turnoften contributes to the seller embellishing the “facts” he/she is selling to ensure the paper gets a superior product!
I just say to my friends. Come to my blog. There are cookies.
Great post! Extremely worthy of the sincerest form of flattery.
I this.