The highlight clip show probably hosted by Angus Deayton

Copy and paste Board post...


Book
This is a book I read this year rather than a book that came out this year. Although there was stiff competition from Nightwatch and A Time Traveller's Wife, the book that was blew me away this year was Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. It was full of Pratchett-style humour but also felt incredibly fresh and exciting. I was hooked on the book from start to finish and delighted in the way tangents and digressions could take over the plot.

Film
I actually cannot remember a single good film out this year. X3 was only okay and that was the big release (oh and PotC2 and Superman Returns but I have never been a fan of either). I saw Nightwatch in January (the US had a rather late release) so that wins for me even though it was a bit patchy. It was at least visually and thematically brilliant.

TV Show
Contenders are Heroes, Doctor Who, Torchwood, Six Feet Under (not of course new this year but new to me), Life on Mars... Possibly others too. But the winner kind of has to be Battlestar Galactica for being both a show I enjoy immensely and a show I am proud is getting made. Most of the other shows I have listed I think are just out there to make televsion... be a bit of fun or a way to earn a living. BSG somehow has become a work of art- an incredible look at humanity. What makes us human, where we come from and where we are going... Its themes are so huge in scope, I feel painfully unworthy to watch it at some times.

Personal event
I would love for once to have my highlight of the year be non-Hobbling related just to convince myself that I have a Real Life. Alas, my highlight was the New York/Boston Hobbmeet. Meeting so many people and living with some of them... well, who seriously thought we'd make it work? It was a massive event and ran near-perfectly thanks to our combined efforts. Thanks to every Hobbling... and honorary Hobblings.

Runners-up were the Hobbling Thanksgiving and a not-so-Hobbling event which was Fairie's wedding.



And the Board post from 2005...

Film
Like many here my favourite film of the year was based on a cult tv show. Yes, it's The League of Gentleman's Apocalypse.

Book
Of the 2005 releases, my favourite book was Harry Potter 6. But of the books I have read this year, G R R Martin's Fevre Dream.

Television
Ha. Doctor Who. I think. Oh, Farscape Peacekeeper Wars should also count as 2005. And also Battlestar Galactica.

Personal Highlight(s)
Three days of Hobbness last February when Em and jes accosted me in my own home followed by a large Hobbmeet in a bowling alley and then a day freezing in snowy London doing touristy things/ laughing at naked santa.

Also brainwashing skit into becoming Just Like Me.

Also... California baby!

And seeing the Milky Way, shooting stars and many constellations from the north rim of the Grand Canyon.

Seeing an awesome lightning storm in Arizona.

Gate-crashing Rian's Thanksgiving.

Mum always has her eyes closed

The annual family photograph. At least it isn't blurry like last year's.

It made me walk slightly taller

On checking in at SFO I was asked whether I wanted to use my miles to upgrade.

I was stunned.

For the best part of two years I had been saving the air miles to upgrade to Upper Class but when I came to book my Christmas flights I realised that it was a con. You cannot upgrade your seat unless you purchase an upgradeable ticket. This is more expensive than a standard economy ticket and even then it is not certain that you will be able to upgrade as it depend on availability of seats.

And so I had given up on that idea and was planning a holiday using air miles (the con here being that you can only fly when paying customers do not, i.e. off-season and at short notice). However, on checking in at SFO I was asked whether I wanted to use my miles to upgrade.

I said yes.

I held up the queue for a good twenty minutes as Michelle telephoned around, getting the rules broken for me. She explained that they had overbooked the flight (do they ever not?) and so were letting people upgrade even without the necessary ticket. I could not believe my luck and was expecting the news that it was a mistake any moment.

It was not and I was handed my purple boarding pass and an invitation to the Virgin Upper Class Lounge.

With a suppressed squeal, I skipped to the lounge. A Virgin representative gave me a tour of the facilities. Computers were of course present. As were showers. Between two seating areas, stretched the bar. The lounge looked out over the planes with the runway in the distance and had the sun streaming through the tinted windows. I parked myself bathed in blue light on a sofa and listened to the gentle jazz playing in the background. A waiter in black with a jaunty black cap on his head brought me crisps and an appletini (I have been watching too much Scrubs lately). Overwhelmed by the aura of the place, I found myself preceding my food order with the words "I was interested in..." rather than the usual "I would like...". And so I found myself with a cocktail and a Caesar salad (I wasn't hungry but I had paid for the service after all) idling away an hour before the flight.





Usually when I board a plane, I feel no rush to get on and look at those that push forward in the queue with some confusion. It can take between 30 minutes and an hour to fill the 747 and there is never any reason to be seated in your ridiculously small area for that additional time. However, with an Upper Class seat, I was eager to hop on.

And I am glad I did because it certainly took me all that time to catch my breath with the whirlwind of it all. There were twenty-four seats in my area (twelve rows of two) plus a massage area. My seat was wide and leather with a footstool at the end. The seatbelt was padded. My flightsocks were cotton. The headphones were noise-cancelling. I had toothpaste and a toothbrush (and the option to have moisturiser if I knew what it was for). But most amazing of it all were the pyjamas, black and soft. Once we were in the air, we all went into the toilet to change into them becoming quite the cult in our matching clothing.

Back in economy, I always smirked at the way the introduction to the entertainment included the line "if you are lucky enough to be seated in Upper Class, you should already have been introduced to your Freedom Menu". I can say that it was no laughing matter when actually lucky. I had to choose between the most exquisite sounding dishes not to mention the full wine and cocktail list. I believe I made a mistake in trusting the steward with his recommendation of the Christmas dinner (turkey outside of the US is always nasty) but my other dishes were superb. The meal started with a steward bringing out my table from its stowed position and laying a linen table cloth on it. A (linen covered) tray was brought out with a fancy swirl of butter and salt and pepper shakers in the shape of planes. We were offered bread from a large selection and to my delight they had wonderfully warm garlic bread (with what looked like a whole clove chopped onto each slice). For my first course I had a leaf salad with slightly pink beef. It was without a doubt the best salad in the world. I only wish I knew what they had in it. I couldn't even identify the white salad ingredients. After the rather standard Christmas dinner I skipped the cheese course and had dessert. The Christmas pudding option sounded like it could have been another disaster (but the foreign gentleman behind me declared it wonderful with much surprise) so I plumped for the vanilla icecream. Of course, it was not served plain but with a strawberry, mint and black pepper compote that was an exciting adventure with every spoonful. And also three Cadbury's chocolate fingers. Which was an... interesting touch. Meanwhile, I was savouring a Shiraz. In economy I take the view that I need to get as much alcohol in me as possible to send myself to sleep but here I was so much in love with the deep red nectar that I was content to let it sit for hours.

After the meal was cleared (with impeccable service I should say that neither rushed me nor left me with dirty plates for very long) a stewardess made my bed up for me (a fairly complex procedure of flipping the chair and getting the sheet and duvet on) and I attempted sleep. It was comfortable and I had room to roll so I could have been successful if I wasn't still jetlagged from Japan and hence totally on the wrong time-zone. Actually I would guess that I achieved some sleep as the first hour sped by pretty fast. However, I gave up before breakfast time and enjoyed myself watching more television from my recumbent position.

Breakfast involved choosing from varieties of cereal, bread/cake goods, meat-based items and others like fruit and yoghurt. Aghast at the choice, I only requested two items: fresh fruit and a bacon sandwich. The fruit was indeed fresh; pineapples, strawberries, blueberries and oranges. The bacon buttie was disturbingly healthy though. Do they not realise that its entire appeal is in the fat soaking into the bread? The tea that came with it was not going to win any awards however.

After breakfast there was a rush to get changed into street-clothes before we landed and to go through the usual motions of washing and brushing teeth. And then a horrible wait in a holding pattern for the brave souls in air-traffic control to guide us down through the fog. I almost felt regret to leave the plane. How strange is that?

Needless thing

I may have only had it ten days, but that decorated er... branch... was well worth it. Those of you playing the game at home will note that I did indeed leave the lights from last year up all year round.

You may also note the actual needless thing perched on the fridge.

Forget the year

The Japanese idea of fun:



My idea of fun:

Anything else. Yes even...



Though to be fair, it is always fun to take pictures when other people are doing work. Even if it is nearing midnight and you have a flight to catch the next day.

Porn-free in Tokyo

Photobucket

From an email:

So Tokyo. Well, x'ina and I set off at 10 which is remarkably early for me. Little Green Car took us to Tsukuba Centre by a very roundabout way as x'ina was directing via a GPS that only stored and displayed waypoints. But we did get there so I was quite impressed. The trick with navigating is to always sound sure and she did. So that was good. We parked in some multi-storey and caught the Tsukuba Express.

I should mention that it was raining. Nice heavy rain. Ugh.

We got out at Asakusa and found ourselves without a clue as to where we were. We randomly went up and down streets if they looked interesting. Popped into McD to satisfy our addictions (coke for x'ina, tea for me) and explored a few shops that sold teapots. Eventually, and with very soggy jeans, we saw a five storeyed pagoda in the not-so-distance. We headed towards that and found the Buddhist temple that we were wanting to visit hence getting off at Asakusa. It was pretty grand and we took lots of photos of it which I can show you next week if you want. Outside the temple there was a street market type affair full of food and tacky souvenirs. We bought some freshly baked cakes. Piping hot and quite nice if a little bland in taste. We had lunch at a noodle place and then moved on.

We went to West Shinjuku (though it took us a while to figure out the tube system, losing a couple of dollars in the process by buying the wrong ticket). Once there we were disoriented yet again but soon found our bearings and a department store. x'ina was surprised at the many many huge levels of electronics. Once out of that place, we braved the rain to see the Tokyo Metropolitan Building or something. I think that was its name. It had two towers and looked rather imposing. The guidebook said that it was meant to be somewhat gothic but of course just ended up looking Japanese.

Then we walked to East Shinjuku and hit another department store. When we came out of there it was 2cp and pretty dark (mainly because the sun was setting but honestly it had been dark all day because of the rainclouds) and the neon was all lit up. We wandered the streets for a while searching for the most neon dense areas we could find. Finally we struck gold- nowhere could have been more garishly lit that this particular street. Happy, we stopped off for lattes at a cafe and then went back on the tube. Yet again purchasing a ticket and then not being able to work out which line we were meant to use and so having to buy yet another ticket (they seem to have separate systems so one ticket does not work on all), we made it to Akihabara. That is Electric Town and we wandered around to see the neon and odd electronic goods there.

Then we went back on the Tsukuba Express. I felt so sick from the journey. It was hot in the carriage and I was worried that I was on the verge of hurling. Not wanting to drive in that state, when we got into Tsukuba we went straight to a little Italian restaurant for dinner. Sitting down and sipping water helped as did the pasta. I couldn't eat much but it dispelled most of the sickness.

x'ina was not as good with the GPS this time and we spent some ten minutes lost in tiny backstreets that wouldn't go where we wanted. Nevermind though- we still made it alive. It is a hard way to navigate and I was happy with how she did. In fact, during the whole day she didn't babble much and she proved to be good company. I still would have preferred to be utterly alone with my thoughts but hey ho- she couldn't have had her first trip alone.

Sigh. I was tired and still a little queasy so I went straight to bed. Alas, feeling ill made it hard to get to sleep but once asleep, I slept well.

I dreamt about Nevare oddly enough. But actually he was Harry Potter. And Harry Potter's girlfriend was Mary-Jane Watson and she wondered over how he had lost all of his weight. Anyway, the last 100 pages of the final Harry Potter book were Harry's diary. The story finished and then we were treated to his perspective which explained his odd methods in the thrid-person section. The film came out at the same time and I saw the film first which was kind of a shame but I didn't want to miss the opportunity to be the first one to see it (it was a preview held at my library and my mum and I snuck in pretending to be reporters).