2010 New Years Resolutions

01. Cease morbid obsession with sad things. Stop being obsessive actually altogether. People at department stores really don’t appreciate it when you switch off their unused electricity sockets.

02. Find another ~150 corks to finish of my second cork board before the year is out.

03. Don’t lose a single umbrella all year.

04. Listen to happier music – ban James Blunt, U2, Five for Fighting and Michael Bublé altogether.

05. Be less tolerant with people who are late – stick to your guns. Since this annoys you immensely you ought to say so rather than submit to the inevitable lateness of rude friends.

06. Eat as many winegums as your heart desires and don’t worry about the price anymore. If you don’t make it to 2011 you’ll be glad to have kept this resolution.

07. Get a better fashion sense. Current theme of ‘wear whatever is clean and ironed’ clearly isn’t working.

08. Arrive punctual and happy to work.

09. Limit drinks during the week to a ‘sociable’ minimum.

10. Cancel Orange Broadband Dongle – out of contract, hardly ever used and now just a waste of good money.

11. Reduce clutter. Scan in all old paperwork and recycle the lot.

12. Throw away receipts older than two years. I have complete personal receipts back to age 16 and that takes up many, many shoeboxes. Get rid finally.

13. Make at least one iPod work again.

14. Buy a decent pair of headphones.

15. Play more games. Brought back Risk, Monopoly, Othello and Backgammon from Wales this Christmas. Play them all, as frequently as possible. Invest in a set of “Go”.

16. Improve Chess skill level substantially. Learn to play a new board game regularly. Avoid learning too much about card games.

17. Take the next level of French class on completing the current one.

18. Begin some sort of professional vocational qualification – either in finance or computing. Decide which.

19. Dust and vacuum more often. Once a year would be an improvement. Find someone to do this.

20. Eat less cheese and try to make sauccisson bought at Borough Market last more than a day.

21. Invite more people to dinner. Try to eat alone less frequently, especially in restaurants – it’s not very becoming, really.

22. Replace mobile phone. Sell old one to someone in Africa.

23. Don’t call call-centres unless absolutely essential. Write no letters of complaint whatsoever.

24. Re-arrange living situation – need a double bed and an electric blanket.

25. Stop drinking red wine in bed. Duvet covers are too expensive to be disposed of weekly.

26. Find out how to strengthen nails without making them shiny with gunk bought. Buy something to remove shiny gunk.

27. Take a minimalist’s approach to bunch of keys. 11 are surely not actually needed on a daily basis.

28. Reduce the number of bottles on my now fragile bathroom shelf. 90% aren’t used any more. Perhaps there’s an eBay market place for half-used expensive (but useless) hair stuff? Look into this.

29. Drink more tea. It’s all been down hill since you reduced your tea intake. Stop taking sugar with tea.

30. Forget all of the boys who have sensibly forgotten me.

31. Work out a standard spiel for graciously and sincerely accepting compliments without being offensive or dismissive.

32. Accept that there are limits and that you too are bound by them.

33. Re-pot my beloved and only house plant. It’s twice as big as it was 5 years ago when I bought it whilst at University.

34. Consider re-evaluating policy of having mobile phone switched on 24/7.

35. Go to Wales a maximum of twice this year. Your family are just as capable of travelling as you are and would likely benefit from a change of scenery. Encourage them to visit London.

36. Really make the most of the weekends. This doesn’t mean be drunk and/or sleeping from 6pm Friday to 6am Monday.

37. Have the lovely Amazon people send a book per month sent to your twin brother. He likes reading and his total abject poverty shouldn’t stop him.

38. Buy a stamp, at least once every 3 months. Not knowing the price of a stamp is not funny. I can’t believe they’re 39p. They were about 21p last time I bought a stamp.

39. Engage a lawyer to draft a Last Will & Testament – “End of Life Issues” are neglected by most young(ish) people – don’t fall into this statistic.

40. Keep your food cupboards better stocked. Commence a phased reduction of ridiculously vast personal stationary store.

41. Replace bicycle helmet.

42. Try Hydrotherapy.

43. Learn to cheer yourself up. Quite good at cheering others up – can’t be hard to project that inwards as well as externally.

44. Take a proper holiday and really relax. Leave Europe on holiday at least once. Perhaps it’s time you visited Egypt?

45. Visit Kew – the Gardens and the National Archives.

46. Try to eat breakfast most days.

47. Close Blockbuster account – they have cripplingly high late fines.

48. Finally visit The Château de Chenonceau and make sure you do so at a time whereby you can row a boat down the river. Procrastination alone stopped you from doing this last year, idiot.

49. Design and deploy a Twitter Background.

50. However reluctantly; consider investing in a television.

51. Be yourself and enjoy 2010.