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Geder · Site Admin Joined: 01 Jan 1970 Posts: 6005

<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/19688?ns=guardian&pageName=Lucy+Mangan%3A+So+long%2C+2009%2C+you+were%2C+overall%2C+a+pretty+good+year%3AArticle%3A1319333&ch=Life+and+style&c3=Guardian&c4=Books%2CNew+Year+%28Life+and+style%29%2CLife+and+style&c6=Lucy+Mangan&c7=10-Jan-01&c8=1319333&c9=Article&c10=Feature&c11=Life+and+style&c13=Lucy+Mangan%27s+weekend+column&c25=&c30=content&h2=GU%2FLife+and+style%2FNew+Year" width="1" height="1" /></div>'If you had told me in 1980 that this day would ever come, I would not have credited it'Well, hello again! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and New Year, and got all the train sets and tangerines, quality time and <a href="http://www.qualitystreet.co.uk/home/" title="Quality Street">Quality Street</a>* that your hearts desired.And now it is 2010, can you believe it? If you had told me in 1980 that this day would ever come, I would not have credited it. Mainly because I would have been in the throes of a profound panic about our imminent annihilation by nuclear war and clinging desperately to my mother's leg while I sobbingly tried to convince her not to go to work in case the four-minute warning sounded while she was gone.If only, if only someone had been able to tap me on the shoulder and assure me that humanity's would be a much slower, long-drawn-out death preceded by years of suffering as the hot hand of global warming reached down to crush us all! What childhood ebullience could have been restored...Anyway, it is best not to look too far back. A brief stocktake of the previous year should suffice as a restorative, as we remember the achievements and successes, and a potential prophylactic against repetition of the mistakes made in the twelvemonth gone.It has, overall, been a remarkably good year for me:1. I found my dressing gown cord.2. I met <a href="http://www.johntams.co.uk/johntams/index.cfm" title="John Tams">John Tams</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Miller" title="Jonathan Miller">Jonathan Miller</a> – the latter after he gave a lecture on humour as part of a series held by the Association Of Lovely People Who Go To Lovely Lectures Organised By Splendid People Who Organise Lovely Lectures For Lovely People Who Are Interested In That Sort Of Thing And Who All Have A Lovely Glass Of White Wine Afterwards. We had a conversation. Miller expanded on the theories of comedy he had just outlined, with a digression into the differences between masculine and feminine jokes and the usage thereof, and I said, "Nynggh, mmpff, thrfff." I hope I gave him something to think about.3. I successfully thickened gravy. Twice.4. I got married… no, wait, that was the year before. This year I stayed married – a far greater achievement.5. I survived a fairly serious bout of reader's block, and let me take this opportunity to thank you all for your very kind suggestions on how best to treat it. I now have a special shelf of all sorts of books that I wouldn't otherwise have bought, and look forward to sampling them in the new year. But in the end the book that finally unblocked my clogged mind-arteries came from the most unlikely of sources, a woman who to my certain knowledge has read only four books in her life – Jane Eyre (for GCSE), two car manuals and the one that she passed on to me in my hour of need, <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=Z9fGwOodOjAC&dq=Ella+Minnow+Pea&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=8KMnS_K4LZGI4QaNo8iwDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CDEQ6AEwBg" title="Ella Minnow Pea">Ella Minnow Pea</a>. It made my brain fizz, it re-juiced all my reading glands and altogether made the world once again a worthwhile place to be, even though part of me is still reeling from the knowledge that I am now in biblio-debt to my sister. That is a fact it is going to take me most of 2010 to absorb.Next year I am going to be 10% thinner (or taller), 15% fitter, 13% kinder, 12% more tolerant and 50% tidier. This will make me a 100% better person, and about time, too. Happy New Year!*The Mangans have traditionally been a <a href="http://www.cadbury.com.au/Products/Boxed-Chocolates/Roses-Boxed-Chocolates.aspx" title="Roses">Roses</a> family, but we are switching allegiance after the discovery on Christmas morning that the coffee cream has, with neither due warning nor consideration, been discontinued. <a href="http://www.cadbury.com.au/Home.aspx?skip=1" title="Cadburys">Cadbury</a> is now dead to us. <a href="http://www.kraftfoodscompany.com/pages/welcome.aspx" title="Kraft">Kraft</a>, <a href="http://www.hersheys.com/" title="Hershey">Hershey</a> – take it and welcome.<div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/new-year">New Year</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/lucymangan">Lucy Mangan</a></div> <div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div>
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