My top ten for 2006

In 2006 I resolve to:

1. Stop saying ‘I told you so’ to clients, now that I have so few of them left.
2. Lose 40lbs of ugly fat, ideally without having any limbs amputated.
3. Avoid using the words ‘downsizing’, ‘re-engineering’ and ‘optimisation’ in press releases.
4. Use the words ‘cicatrisation’ and ‘eleemosynary’ as often as possible.
5. Stop laughing at the misfortunes of others, when a big grin will do just as well.
6. Look both ways when crossing railway lines.
7. Buy The Journal every day.
8. Be as nice as possible to my godchildren, short of delivering the legacies provided in my will.
9. Start writing the novel that I know I’ve got in me (though it could just be constipation).
10. Take up smoking, purely to annoy Patricia Hewitt.

Ten things I’d like to see back in 2006:

Cinema organs, civility, Conservative politicians wearing ties, the Empire (British and the one that used to be in Newgate Street), half crowns, hereditary peers, iced caramels, the Royal Yacht, Tommy Cooper, trolleybuses.

Ten things I’d like to see the back of in 2006:

The Blairs (Tony, Cherie and Sir Ian), compulsory metrication, Endemol reality TV shows, the euro, health ‘n’ safety fascism, hooded tops, ID card legislation, public sector expansion, regionalisation, wind farm subsidies.

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.