I thought I would end my un-noticed and un-remarked blogging hiatus with a few belated comments about 2012.

On the whole I didn’t like it much. There were plenty of individual things I enjoyed but the overall experience was not great and that is partly because I spend a lot of my time at work and that was more or less the total opposite of great for the whole year and for 12 months nothing changed. It was like being put on hold for a year.

On a more positive note I re-discovered reading in 2012, partly because of the Kindle I got for Christmas 2011. This year I read (I think) 47 books and 29 of them were on the Kindle. Many of them were free download or heavily discounted deals-of-the-day and some of the most enjoyable ones were actually open source books. Of the 47 books 15 were non-fiction, including at least 4 on psychology/behavioural economics/decision theory.

I know that electronic books are not everybody’s cup of tea, but the books I have read on the Kindle this yea, plus the ones I still have in the ‘unread’ folder would have taken up at least three feet of shelf space if I had paper copies and that is three feet of shelf space I just don’t have any more.

I don’t think I listened to a whole lot of new music in 2012. I gave quite a few new albums a bit of a listen on Spotify but very few grabbed my attention. The ones I actually returned to are VCMG, Paul Weller, Toy, Ultravox, Madness and Donald Fagen. Oh, and Tame Impala, Elton John vs Pnau and Kid Koala.

The highlights of the year were obviously the London games, especially the Olympic opening ceremony, getting two extra bank holidays and giving in to Jayne’s begging to get a dog. I was worried about having a dog again but Diablo has turned out to be brilliant. He keeps us amused, gives us lots of exercise and because of him Jayne and I spend a lot more time together.

The low point of the year was failing to get tickets for Kraftwerk.

No resolutions for 2013 as such, but I do intend to come out of my shell and get out of the rut I have been in for a couple of years. In 2012 I hardly crossed the borough boundaries of Crawley. In fact I think I only got more than 5 miles away from the house a couple of times in the first six months. Things are looking up already. It is only January 8th and I have two job interviews lined up for this week. If anything comes of them I think it will act as a catalyst for me.

To the few people who still persist in reading this blog, Happy New Year for 2013.