2011, what a year it was. The year got off to a bang in January when a lunatic cut my chest open with a team of nurses and tinkered with my ticker. Following a few days in intensive care attached to 2 giant buckets of blood, not to mention a tube up my willy, kidney failure, pneumonia and got knows what else I was ferried back to Penzance where I sat in the arm chair for 2 months. In February 2 weeks after my operation my delightful wife decided to fuck off to Japan for a 4 week holiday meaning I had to go and live with my equally delightful parents who spent the entire month winding me up like a top. By the end of the month of course, the planet’s Arab population decided to kick off the yoke of their oppressors. Starting with Tunisia and spreading to Egypt, Libya and the rest, the people rose up and challenged the western sponsored dictators that had been crushing freedom for decades. March therefore, saw me glued to Al-Jazeera as the battle for Tarir square kicked off, running battles, camels, riot police, all excellent TV. The best bit of course was the hope, I like hope. Anyway, by this stage I am still as disabled a dog with one of those wheel things on and only able to trot to the shops to buy the occasional diet coke. By the end of the month a major triumph ensued when I walked to my parents house in a astonishing 30 minutes (usually takes 10 minutes). Sadly on March 11th, we had the terrible sight of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. Having so many friends in Japan, not to mention family of course the household a tense 5 or 6 hours, thanks to the power of skype we managed to get through to loved ones and thankfully the only injury was to my mother in laws dance trophies. April of course brought us the wedding of HRH the Prince William and Katherine Middleton. During the event I booed myself hoarse over the blatant display of privilege and wealth that still blights our nation in the 21st Century. Other nations Royal families and heads of state would never, ever dare to lump so much cash into an event for someone who isn’t the head of state. I also marvelled at the bizarre frenzy of patriotism on twitter where one user claimed “anyone who doesn’t support the happy couple should be shot”. Of course the main talking point of the day was Pippa Middleton’s arse, aesthetically pleasing but in my opinion, nowhere near round enough. Of course while Pippa was wiggling her assets, evil dictator with no mandate, David Cameron, was taking on evil dictator, Col “Where’s me marbles” Gaddafi. Following the brutal crushing of the Arab spring, the enlightened French, British and to lesser extent USofA, decided to bomb the shit out of the Libyan army to save the lives of protesters, well done to all involved. May arrived and I strutted out in public for the first time since the whole heart surgery nonsense taking part in the Penzance May Horns, a very pleasant evening was had by all, despite a massive sulk from certain former participants. A few weeks later, warmongering, formerly popular, US President Barack Obamba decided to send in the A-Team to blow away evil terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden. Grotesque celebrations erupted on the streets of America people chanting “U-S-A” as if the whole thing was a bloody game, not that I shed one tear for that mass murdering git you understand. June saw me back in Hospital for another operation, as spectacularly incompetent hospital, Treliske decided to blast my eyes with a laser under general anaesthetic, it bloody hurt. June also saw the Golowan festival in Penzance hit new levels of tat, with the introduction of Pirate day, the least imaginative idea ever. Penzance was strewn with 1000′s of kids with eye patches and fake parrots, all things piratical has now spread to every other feast day and festival in West Cornwall, in fact you can’t fart in the street without a bloody pirate walking past. I have to confess I did enjoy the later stages of Mazey day as the pirate kids buggered off and I got wazzed in the White Lion with one of our towns finest civil servants and friends. August saw the single bravest event ever recorded by a news crew as SKY news’s Alex Crawford reported live from the fall of Tripoli. Alex is our nations finest reporter by miles and the events unfolding in Tripoli were all at the same time, terrifying, jubilant and extraordinary. The reporting the next day highlighted just how brave and funny the Libyan people are, ordinary volunteers sporting the mad dictators uniform in the most comic fashion, while their comrades fought like hell to free the city from the grip of tyranny. August also saw the single most stupid own goal in history as a load of rioting numpties trashed every Argos and Sports World in London giving that bastard David Cameron a perfect excuse to peddle his broken Britain crap. Criminal behaviour was everywhere this year of course, with the banks continuing to take the piss out of us normal folk, paying themselves huge bonuses while the economy is going to hell in a hand cart. All this greed led to the rise of the occupy movement, which continues to fight against this iron grip of the financial elite. October of course included my Birthday , I had a special Birthday present this year as “Mad Dog Gaddaffi ” was found in a drain, sexually assaulted and shot. Nice to know American style justice is spreading around the world so freely. October also saw the rise of the Cornish Gazette, my pet project to rid Cornwall of spin and bullshit. So far I have received only one legal threat, and a number of outraged emails. Strangely some people don’t understand the concept of satire at all, and have taken some of the articles so very literally. November also saw my wife taking another month off to bugger off back to Japan, thanks. December was OK, if you like that sort of thing! So as the year draws to an end what are my predictions for 2012.
1) My wife will spend at least 3 months in Japan.
2) More operations and illness.
3) The financial elite will still screw us over.
4) The Euro will go into meltdown leading to the deepest depression in history.
5) The coalition will come to a sticky end leading to a general election that the Tories will win, Lib Dems will be consigned to the bargain bucket of history.
6) SKY News will become so right wing that it will start sponsoring UKIP.
Happy New Year one and all!!
