- did my first C & C++ programming

- moved out of Croydon

- watched live rugby at Twickenham

- visited Istanbul, Ireland and Northern Ireland

- partook of some live theatre around ASDA

- first ever beer festival

- first stag night

- first Notting Hill Carnival

- shook booty to DJ Assault

- got snowed in

- finally joined Facebook (using a pseudonym)

- released an iPhone app

- had a day at the races

- started going to the cinema weekly

This year we:

- got well into spinning around on bikes - going to Brighton, Box Hill, Brasted, between Seville and Cordoba, 47.5 mph down Titsey Hill and through London at night (occasionally without lights or a full complement of contact lens – neither recommended)
- got sonically sliced and reassembled by a blistering Autechre and .snd gig in Hearn street car park. Had to leave early, but could still hear the beats a good five minutes walk away
- started a dangerous habit of European city breaks, and had a series of glorious meals in Paris, broken only by some serious dancing in the original Favela Chic
- tried to keep rock climbing, semi-successfully
- left one career; got another job after visiting the pub
- saw (and loved) my first Chagall at From Russia, an exhibition teeming with quality, exhilarating to see Kandinsky’s and Malevich in the flesh
- marvelled at Richard Serra’s malleable steel playground
- shook out some demons at various dread sound systems at my first Notting Hill carnival
- grasped and gasped my way round Roger Hiorn’s Seizure
- tasted madelines (metaphorically) at a Mogwai gig
- cried at a Rod Stewart song
- probably reached the crux of hipsterdom seeing a poet do a reading along to Gang Gang Dance in Hoxton. Whilst wearing jeans that were probably on the skinny side.
- got even more hipsterish when watching some free jazz in Dalston, including a man playing a bin bag filled with gas. It was a furious, exhilarating concert though
- politely clapped to a man prancing around on a JCB
- spontaneously combusted to Herbie Hancock encoring with a Keytar
- pestled my own pesto
- visited Riverside for some World Championship darts, discovered that it’s really not my sport
- still haven’t used the mango destined for that fish curry
- sat on cushions in the Tate's turbine hall and got assaulted by some early computer animation, it was well techno

- completed Crysis on a 32" LCD
- saw Public Enemy at Brixton Academy; Alva Noto at the ICA; 808 State, Arthur Baker and IF at Jacks; Squarepusher and LFO at the Astoria; Loefah and Hijak, Mala and Skream at Black Sheep Bar
- Stuart Lee at the Hen & Chickens and at the Soho Theatre
- Richard Herring, Phil Nichol, Josie Long, Bridget Christie, Will Adamsdale, Pappy's Fun Club and Dave Goreman with free bangers at Battersea Arts Centre
- Steve Coogan at Apollo
- Elizabeth and Rayleigh at Croydon Library Theatre
- lots of Bug at the BFI with Adam Buxton
- Sean Locke at Hammersmith Apollo
- Mighty Boosh at the O2
- Frank McGuiness' Oedipus with Ralph Fiennes at NT
- lost my father
- felt like I was having a heart attack from grief and fury at 3am
- played a lot of Mass Effect
- bought an iPhone
- got a massive boil on the right eyebrow which had to be surgically removed
- moved offices and employer without changing jobs
- properly got into podcasts (Collings and Herrin, Dream Chimney, TwiT, The Tone Generation)
- got Miró, Calder, Giacometti and Braque in some perspective at the Royal Academy

- worked as a teaching assistant
- in the same 6-hour period: attended York Museum of Popular Culture, dressed like a hippy and swore at numerous children despite it being my jobsworth and met Tom Baker while eating a penguin
- had the drummer from the Housemartins and the Beautiful South give a workshop for da kids

If I was being brutally honest, the five best eating experiences this year have probably all been ice-cream based, eaten after midnight having consumed a few beers. But that would be a very boring list, and the photos of me dribbling down myself should probably never find their way onto the internet.

(5) Birthday Fishcakes

Great because they’re almost a meal on their own, and they neatly combine the comfort aspect you get from fried food, but with the health kick of eating fish. Bonus.

Peel and boil your potatoes, then start grilling your fish, for which I prefer salmon. I generally have too high a potato-to-fish ratio, but you need at least 40% potato if you want the cakes to hold together when you’re frying them. Mash the spuds, flake the fish. Stick them in a bowl and combine with a handful of fresh coriander, garlic, some chilli, a dash of soy sauce and the zest of a lime. You can chuck in the juice of the lime as well, but probably not all of it. Beat an egg and then tip a bit onto a plate, while waiting for the mixture to be cool enough to handle. Get another plate and make a bit pile of breadcrumbs. I’m an unreserved ponce, and so like to use Tesco’s ready made ciabatta breadcrumbs with parmesan, but this is a bit silly given the amount of crusts we have knocking around.

Place a fair wack of oil in a pan and heat, around a centimeter deep. It depends on the size of your cakes – the oil needs to come up halfway.

Wet your hands. Get the mixture and roll into fist-sized balls, then gently squish both ends. Place on the eggy plate, then turn over, then place in the breadcrumb pile, again turning it over.

Place in the pan. All the ingredients are already cooked, so you’re just waiting for the breadcrumbs to turn golden really. Place on kitchen roll to get rid of any excess oil. Serve with peas.

(4) Weekday Randomness

We’re home, and the fridge is full. More often than not, this results in two or three meals on the same plate, but occasionally it comes together. This photo is of some girolle and enoki mushrooms sautéed in white wine vinegar and white wine, some gnocci in tomato sauce with some fresh basil, and some wilted spinach. Does anyone know what they put in gnocchi to make it so good? Potato doesn’t normally taste that good.

(3) YC

This is an institution. Everyone is invited. Guest speakers each week, rotating membership.

Yoghurt club.

YC.

This is the name a friend gave to the practice of having yoghurt after a meal. He went to public school and found in constitutionally impossible not to give acronyms or nicknames to almost everything in his life. It is pretty contagious though (both the eating of yoghurt, and the habit of giving things nicknames that are no quicker to say and only serve to confuse the uninitiated).

Popular guests include YCF (fruit), YC neat, and YCH (honey). The picture shows YCF (figs), which was very well received. Heat the oven to 200°C, half the figs, place on a baking tray, and drizzle with honey and white wine. Leave for about 10 minutes. The flesh should start to be oozing out of the skin. Place in a bowl with some Y. Get involved.

(2) Chocolate Fudge Cake

Baking. Good for the soul. We also had cookies, beetroot brownies, normal brownies, and cheese cake.

(1) Okonomiyaki

Osaka omelette style yumminess, cooked on a hotplate in your table by a waiter/waitress. Garnished with fish flakes, and mayonnaise and sweet chilli type sauces. Awesome.

Honourable mentions to the brownies of both Riverside Terrace and St John’s, the first time we went to Fisherman’s Catch on Southend Road, dukka and butternut squash, rhubarb crème brule, gazpacho, and the numerous four-hour stews after a session at Scream studios. Out to all the cashew nuts. Beers of the year: Kwak did constantly surprise me, although Duvel is becoming a firm favourite. Big up all triples, and everyone keeping it Trappist.

The King of Kong (Seth Gordon)

imdb amazon
Personal, amazing and often amusing look into the trials of obsessively competitive classic arcade video-game players.

There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson)

imdb amazon
Epic parable of ambition and family, selfishness and power, driven by the incredible performance of Daniel Day-Lewis as the ruthless and charismatic Daniel Plainview and a vivid rendering of early twentieth century America. I drink your milkshake!

No Country For Old Men (Joel Coen, Ethan Coen)

imdb amazon
Beautifully rendered, exhilarating criminal mayhem and the elegiac ruminations of an aging sheriff. Best haircut award to Javier Bardem.

Du levande (You, The Living) (Roy Andersson)

imdb amazon
Funny, unassuming yet fantastical dream about a set of people that seem peculiarly Swedish. Table-cloth trick lol

Manufactured Landscapes (Jennifer Baichwal)

imdb amazon
A study of the work and subject of photographer Edward Burtynsky, who photographs the artificial and affected landscapes created by industry around the world. Featuring astounding, memorable and significant images, particularly of China.

Google Chrome has arrived. They've used many of the best user interface features from Firefox 3 (for example the amazing address bar auto-completion) and combined it with an already highly impressive speed and finesse for a first beta, to rival that of Opera

Here's the five features I instantly miss from Firefox 3

• adblock plus
• noscript
• / keyboard shortcut for quick find
• the ability to move the bookmarks toolbar to next to the address bar (but that might change because you can hide the bookmarks toolbar for open tabs)
• delicious plugin

I would miss FireGestures, except I'm using StrokeIt which works with any application.

15 Storeys High - Sean Lock and Mark Jones' (aka Mark Lamarr) quietly hilarious and inventive sitcom.

Loco Roco - modern classic cute, wobbly, beautiful platform game for the PSP.

At Swim-two-birds - brain-tickling roam through Irish literary student life and fiction by Flann O'Brien.

All highly recommended!

I have ordered a Netgear XE104 85 Mbps Wall-Plugged Ethernet 4-port Switch from amazon.co.uk. Everyone seems to have forgotten about HomePlug in all the excitement about wireless, even me. I had ordered a Linksys WRT54GL-UK while it was surprisingly cheap until I remembered about ethernet-over-powerline (not to be confused with power-over-ethernet). It seemed like a good idea as I would otherwise have to get a wireless bridge for a bunch of wired devices in my room, and it neatly sidestepped the whole signal-strength/compatibility/security/firmware nightmare with which anyone who has set up a wireless network will sympathise.

However, I am still waiting, and I ordered on January 5th. If you go there now, it says "Availability: In stock", but when I ordered it said "Usually dispatched in 1-2 weeks". Hmmmm. Perhaps Amazon are waiting for some more buyers before they can afford to ship a crate-load over from France or something?

UPDATE: I complained two days after the delivery estimate expired and got a free upgrade to First Class post. However, I still had to wait a further seven days until it was finally delivered on February 2nd. Now they seem to be in stock at amazon. Way to be an early adopter!

Further to the case of the Canon Ebay Outlet negative feedback posted earlier, I have just been offered a refund by Digital River for the postage and packing cost if I would withdraw my negative feedback.

What bald bribery! Of course I find it easy to resist seeing as I have already received a full refund!

Informing them of this via the ponderous process of Squaretrade mediation, I am then offered a 20% discount on my next purchase from the Canon Ebay Outlet. I replied that I had no plans to purchase from them again.

Thinking long ago that this was all over after I got my refund, I have bought the exact same digital camera from Amazon, a Canon IXUS 40, which I am very pleased with. Annoyingly, Amazon.co.uk have reduced it by a further twenty quid since I bought it. This means that the camera is now only £8.75 more brand new, delivered and without having to deal with Digital River than I payed for my refurbished one!