The Blood is the Life: 31-12-2010

• BBC News - Pub closure loophole under review
  MOAR HUZZAH!
  (tags: pubs huzzah!)
• BBC News - Phone firms back common charger plan
  HUZZAH!
  (tags: phones huzzah!)

2010: the year in review

2010: a year in StatPorn

• The Numbers. Google analytics gave me the following numbers, which do not include people who read via RSS, facebook import, or LJ/DW friends pages:
  
  • 38,883 Absolute unique visitors
  • 62,160 visits, just over 45% of which were new.
  • 31,603 (81%) of my visitors came from the UK, and 4 from Qatar (Hello Nicki and friends!)
  • Average page views is 1.60, and average time on site is 1 minute 45 seconds, which considering that both of those include search bots is not bad.


• Referral sites - 67% of traffic. The rise of the aggregator has has an effect this year; aside from google variants, most of my traffic came from twitter, facebook, networked blogs and the ever-relaiable libdemblogs aggregator. Last year the majority was from links and blogrolls in other people's blogs.


• Search Terms - 18% of traffic from searches. Aside from variations on my name and user name, I'm still getting a lot of hits for Ashes to Ashes and Stephanie Flanders Stockings LOL


• Top Five entries:
  
  1. Ashes to Ashes Finale.
  2. The Election for Who Geeks.
  3. Yet More Presidential Musings: Bugger it, I'm Going to Go For It.
  4. What if David Cameron loses his seat?
  5. Newsnight Porn: Scary Stuff.

Things that are worse at the end of 2010 than they were at the beginning:

• My physical health. Mainly due to Gideon, I am pretty unhealthy at the moment. Exercise has been non-existent for a couple of months now, and I feel terribly weak and feeble. I have has surgery twice this year, and neither time was fun.


• Finances. Between my hours getting cut at work, various emergencies like Byron's tumour and me being off work sick for six weeks minimum, and my continual inability to sort out benefits, my finances are in a pretty parlous state. But there is hope for the future. I have been filling in forms and such. Hopefully things will be more stable soon.


• Work. Mainly because Mark and Liz are jacking in, work feels very uncertain. Also being off sick leaves me feeling out of the loop about everything.


• Some political stuff. My political idealism has taken a real dent from being in coalition with the Tories. Ros not standing again for party president was a shock. Evan losing his seat was horrendous. And various members of my local party continue to piss me off with their small-ninded parochialness.

Things that are better at the end of 2010 than they were at the beginning:

• My mental health. I feel a lot more stable and grounded now than I have done for a long time.


• Relationships. matgb and I are still vomit-inducingly in love, and I have added magister to my roster. In September the Duracell Bunny and I sorted out the terms of our relationship and that now feels very stable and secure too.


• Holly. Holly continues to grow into the most awesome person I know. I am so proud of my daughter.


• Byron. He's like a new pup since he had his tumour removed.


• Other political stuff. Pragmatism has taken a big boost: coalition might not be fun, but it's interesting. We now have Huppmeister J as official minister for geeks, and he's ace. Lynne Featherstone is equalities minister, and that's more than any of us could have hoped for or dreamed of this time last year. We're making a difference in government: it's not ideal, but it's better than unfettered Tories would have been.


• Fandom stuff. Horror, in particular, seems to be undergoing something of a renaissance. Mark Gatiss's History of Horror was awesome, there was a new ghost story for Christmas, and Hammer Films has risen from the grave (again).


• Doctor Who! I can't get over how much better the series is with its new showrunner and new lead characters. I love Eleven. I adore Amy. And the writing is exponentially better now than it was under Rusty.

In Conclusion:

Overall? It could have been worse, but it could have been a whole lot better. It doesn't have the miserable, low-grade, dull, consistent shittiness of 2009; the highs have been great, but the lows have been awful. Thank you all for being here for me in whatever guise you have been, whether that be my bestest friend, or just a lurker who never comments. You all rock.

The prospect of 2011 fills me with hope. matgb and magister and I are going to find a nice house together. It may even have a shed. I have a lovely new phone. I have lots of friends and family that I love, and who love me back. My daughter and my doggies are happy and healthy. We have lots of stuff we plan to do for the podcast, and I feel pretty well-embedded as a semi-regular at the Pod Delusion now. The FFW has its tenth anniversary. And the new series trailer for Doctor Who looks AWESOME!

So yeah, roll on 2011. Let's see what the future holds...

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Resolutions and predictions.

Ten resolutions:

1. Make less commitments to do stuff I know I won't have the time or energy to do, thus disappointing less people. I am really bad for this. My brain is relentlessly optimistic about what I will have the spoons for, and I say to people I can do that! and then other commitments or a bad day of depression get in the way, and then I feel guilty, and then I beat myself up... It's not a good cycle.


2. Join the gym at the bottom of the road as soon as health and finances permit, and get back to some reasonable standard of fitness. Also make progress at karate, once I am allowed to go back to doing it. I hate being enfeebled so much. It makes me grumpy, and that's not good for my mental health.


3. Clean out my various messages, inboxes, and such at least once per week. Also tag lists and f-lists on a regular basis. My gmail inbox, for example, is currently at 355 unread messages and over 1000 total. This is not sensible or healthy, and it adds to my stress needlessly.


4. Finalise the design for, and get Bob to tattoo my sci-fi sleeve. I have a picture in my head what this should look like, but I need to get it on paper. And then on flesh.


5. Sort out and stick to a cleaning rota. I know I say this every year, but it really needs doing. I think I am going to have to timetable myself, but I'll have to be careful about doing it so as to not transgress 1.


6. Schedule at least one hour of total downtime every day. If I don't have time where I am not doing ANYTHING my brain frazzles very quickly. I need to have a period where I am not committed to cleaning or work or blog posting or everything, when I can just relax.


7. Book an Actual Holiday. For the last few years my only holiday time has been for conferences or for the FFW, and then odd weekends here and there. This year I want to have at least a week where I go away and am not committed to do anything while I am away.


8. Leave the house at least once per day, if only to walk the dogs. I have a tendency, especially on my day off, to not get out of bed at all. This is almost certainly not healthy.


9. Keep on top of finances. Yes, I say this every year too. But things are so tight at the moment that if I don't keep on top of them there is a serious risk of the problems becoming insurmountable.


10. Spend more time with the people I love. I need to make more effort to schedule quality time with Holly, and Mat, and James, and all my friends, and spend less time sitting in bed and wishing I was spending time with the people I love.

You may have noticed that there's a pattern to my resolutions this year: they mostly involve things which will improve my mental health. This is important: I have spent a lot of the last couple of years feeling stressed, embattled, and run down. I need to do something(s) about that, for my own sanity and the sanity of those I live with.

Ten Predictions:

1. The coalition will still be together at the end of the year. I think we're in this for the long haul.


2. Clegg and Cameron will still be leaders of their respective parties, but Milli(E) will be ousted. Slightly Pink Ed is a rubbish leader, the PLP don't like him, and there are rumblings of discontent from activists too. He doesn't seem able to lead in the fashion that a party constructed in the way the Labour party is needs. I'll be amazed if he lasts.


3. The AV referendum will be won by the Yes campaign, but by a very narrow margin. And there will be wranglings about it for a very long time.


4. Lib Dems will continue to slide in the opinion polls until after the AV referendum. This will be mainly due to the continued and continual misrepresentation of us and everything about us by the media, especially the Daily Fail. Such misrepresentation will continue after the referendum, but if the Yes campaign win then the public will further recognise that actually there is a point to us and we can achieve things, even in the teeth of total opposition from all segments of the MSM.


5. We'll see the first proper companion death in Doctor Who since Adric. But will it be Rory or Amy? My money is on Rory.


6. One of the big free internet services will totally collapse. Given the events of recent days, I'll say Skype, but it could be twitter or even Faceache.


7. Colin Firth will win the best actor Oscar for The King's Speech. And even though he's slagging off the party now, I don't begrudge him it.


8. The second series of Sherlock will be awesome. Yeah, I know, but I had to put in one total no-brainer.


9. I will fail to keep at least half of my resolutions above, but that won't matter, because...


10. magister and matgb and I are going to find a nice house we can all live in together. And it will have a garden, with a shed. And we can all look after each other and it will be ace.

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