Goodbye, 2008.

New Year's resolutions tomorrow, but, for now, here are a few things I enjoyed (or not) in 2008.

Books I Liked

Dad Rules - Andrew Clover
The Believers - Zoe Heller
Starter for Ten - David Nicholls
Karlology - Karl Pilkington
Collected Stories - Richard Yates
The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst
Bringing Nothing to the Party - Paul Carr
A Dangerous Liaison - Carole Seymore-Jones
On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan
North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People - Toby Young

Books I Didn't Like As Much As I Thought I Was Going To

That Old Ace in the Hole - Annie Proulx
The Understudy - David Nicholls
The Cement Garden - Ian McEwan

Books I Wasn't Expecting To Like, But Did

Northern Lights
The Subtle Knife
The Amber Spyglass

Films I Liked

Lars and the Real Girl
Knocked Up
Stranger Than Fiction
Lovely & Amazing
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Casino Royale

Film I Was Expecting to Like, But Didn't

Sex and the City

Most-listened to CDs (According to iTunes)

Amy Winehouse - Frank
Bitter:Sweet - The Mating Game
Noisettes - What's the Time Mr Wolf?
Adele - 19
Kings of Convenience - Quiet Is the New Loud
Cake - Comfort Eagle

Favourite/Most Successful Recipes

Rachel Allen's Lemon Tart
Gordon Ramsay's 'Perfect' Scrambled Eggs
James Martin's Banoffee Shortbread
Ina Garten's Cupcakes
And
(as always)
Raspberry & Blueberry Lime Drizzle Cake

A Random Assortment of Everything Else I Enjoyed

The best birthday I've had in years
Charlie Brooker's Screen Burn
Sarah Palin
The third series of Ugly Betty
My Kitchenaid mixer
Last.fm
Walking across the fields with the puppy most days
30 Rock
Krispy Kreme doughnuts
The endless hours of conversations with Alice

Being You - Mary E. Holmes

A nice article in the Mail today about a book I worked on earlier in the year.

Unfortunately, though, Austin & Macauley seem to have under-estimated the demand there would be for this feel-good book: Amazon, Waterstones and The Book Depository sold all of their copies weeks ago.

Kill the Wabbit! (...and the mouse)

I haven't seen this in maybe 15 years or more, and thought I never would again, but it was, of course, on YouTube.

To my mind, it is second only to this:



What discerning (and violent) taste I had as a seven year old.

I can smell...

I've had long enough to figure out my stance on Lily Allen's music, and yet still don't know what I think. But I love a good PR stunt as much as the next person. And nearly as much as I love a good cover.

Mark Ronson 'accidentally' leaked Lily's cover of Britney Spears' track 'Womanizer' on his East Village Radio show on Friday.

Her record company, Parlophone, are said to be furious that 'it is taking attention away from her new album, It's Not Me, It's You, which hits the shops on 9 February.'

So furious, in fact, that they have put it on the front of their website before the video for her not as good latest single.

'I am afraid your letter is most unsuitable for me at the present time...

...as I have just spent the entire weekend writing the novel that you have summarily rejected.'

I didn't get shortlisted for the Asham Award this year. I'm disappointed, but not surprised. I have since been reading Richard Yates' collected stories and now realise that what I wrote was merely a sorry excuse for an imposter of a short story. I'm a little annoyed with myself only because I should have know that my first person prostitute-with-a-heart-but-also-a-borderline-personality-disorder narrative wouldn't be the sort of thing they were looking for, as last year's winner was 1500 words about a girl climbing into a bath of cement.

Titles of shortlisted entries include:

Anubis Ate My Inner Child;
The Belle of Biloxi;
Chameleon Soup;
Colour Me Julie Christie;
and
JK who?

It's been a good exercise, though, in not only finishing something off, but also putting it up for critiquing too - neither of which I had done before September. And there's plenty of time to work on my quirkiness before the next one comes around in 2010.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

I've been working my, already quite small, behind off lately because I've taken on far too much, but my brother is coming to stay this weekend to swap presents  - he is going to his girlfriend's parents' for Christmas this year - and I knew that if there were no mince pies on the premises he would turn around and go home again. So I got up early and, eschewing all else, made some. That's just the kind of sister I am.

I cheated massively, of course. I used pre-made bought puff and Filo pastry and a jar of mincemeat. And I used (oh, the shame of it) a Jamie Oliver recipe.

I haven't made them before, though, and always like to try out new recipes when there isn't any pressure. I thought I'd crapped it up for a minute when the Filo stuck to the muffin tin and started tearing but I patched it back together with some melted butter, and they seem to have turned out quite well. I'm not a big mince pie fan myself, but these are delicious.

If you fancy making some, the recipe is here.

There's no place like home

In this month's village newsletter there is a copy of a letter sent to Cherwell District Council by the Parish Council, urging them to reconsider their proposal to build 200 new homes locally. They say that the village is unsuitable for development because of:

an already over-subscribed primary school

an already congested and historically valuable village centre with narrow unalterable bottlenecks

the presence of a major dairy farm with consequent areas ineligible for development

a relatively isolated position with poor road connections

an unreliable electricity supply

no mains gas

poor television and mobile phone reception

high radon emissions

low water pressure

All of which makes me wonder why we continue to live here, never mind how they are going to convince 200 new families to want to too. But then, there is the view.