My Life List is now something like two years old, and rather than the whole New Year’s Resolution thing, I like to have a quick look back at the things achieved this year, and then a quick look forward at what I hope the year ahead will bring. It’s fair to say that this year has not been as full of Life List success as I would have hoped, mostly because it was full of months of soul-searching, making life-changing decisions, and forging ahead with book-writing.

I ran on Christmas Day, and now I have run on New Year’s Day as well. I had plans to run in between but as ever, they didn’t quite work out. Already, amazingly, the daylight is creeping in of an evening. As soon as we had the shortest day, it felt like the difference could be seen - but perhaps that is a psychological thing. I have found a route filled with street lights and such, so I may be able to run during the week sooner rather than later. I make no promises on this front, but it is my intention to up the once-weekly schedule!

One of the intriguing things about the LibriVox project is that all the works are from the public domain and all the recordings are put straight back in there as well. Hundreds of recordings are completed and head straight into the public domain for anyone to do anything with. It’s a decision that creates plenty of debate over in the forums, but is ultimately a good one. The works are there for the greater good, and shouldn’t be locked up behind copyright.

I managed to finish watching the last five episodes of The Killing and have spent a little while pondering the entire prospect. Firstly, it wasn’t until I had embarked on the second half of the series that I realised it was only ten episodes - half the length of the previous outing. That being the case, the end felt quite abrupt. I had been anticipating something a little more drawn out, and then suddenly it was all ramping up to the big finale.

This year’s Christmas special was in a difficult position - it had to be light enough to be enjoyed at prime time on the main festive day, but equally it had to hold enough gravitas to follow a very heavy series. I think this one managed to do a really good job, and improved on the fairy tale style of last year’s Christmas outing.

Mmm, running on Christmas Day. There were just a few people out and about, mostly those walking their dogs. Gloriously quiet and only a little bit of drizzle. I hadn’t actually intended to go out, but then I saw a couple of inspiration tweets from friends, including:

A couple of days ago, I posted this story of a good deed to my Google+ account. You may have already read it, in which case you don’t need to do so again - it’s here word for word: Today I braved the crazy Christmas shoppers in the supermarket for my own regularly scheduled food purchases. I was not looking forward to it, I’ve seen a fight break out in front of the brussels sprouts before.

Here is my to do list looking quite a state. I have made it mostly hard to read because there are some quite fun and fabulous and secret upcoming things on there. Christmas provides a few days off, and I intend to get this list down to a more manageable size. It used to hover around the three quarters of a page length, and that I could deal with.

I’ve had my iPhone for almost two weeks now, and I love it. All those hideous and disgusting phrases like “it just works” and “it makes me want to do more with it” are all true. I’ve got posts in the pipeline (by that I mean in my mind) regarding the highs and lows of life with Siri and what a revelation the camera is, but a quick summary is… it’s great.

When I wrote my Life List, one of the first items on there was to bake the perfect loaf of bread. Then I watched two series’ of the Great British Bake Off and realised that I am never going to be a very good baker. So, instead of making the same loaf over and over again in search of perfection, I thought I’d change the task. Instead, I’d like to try making a variety of different types of bread, settling for the adequate and tasty product instead of the marketable ideal. Who decides what perfect is anyway?

So, first up, the new Batman trailer. The Dark Knight Rises I like the idea that this is a set of Batman stories - a trilogy of Batman, not trying to keep the brand alive forever, not trying to take it over and push it in a new direction forever, but just taking the characters and telling a story and then moving on. Of course, that is until a fourth movie comes out and this all gets blown out of the water.

A week or two ago, I posted about my favourite Quality Street options when presented with a tin of the delicacies. I had a few messages suggesting that Quality Streets were an unknown, but Roses were more popular. For example, Amy said: I have no idea what Quality Street is but I know what Roses are and I know what Cadbury Favourites are so I’m assuming they’re along the same lines, only Britisher.

Finally, the second series of The Killing has begun airing on BBC4. I say finally, but as I watched the last series so recently, it doesn’t seem all that long ago that I was cheering on Sarah Lund and friends to find the murderer. At the end of the first series, Lund walked out of the police station and into the sunshine - presumably to a happier and better life.

When I visited Edinburgh for my Alphabet Adventure, I very much liked it. Which is lucky, because the zoo have recently taken ownership of two pandas - on loan from China. I remember the Park & Ride bus stopping at the zoo on the way back, and I considered getting off but it didn’t look all that impressive from the outside. Now, it is one of my top destinations! I loved hearing about the pandas arrival - being flown in on a FedEx plane, and being nicely secured in see through FedEx crates. Who knew you could just FedEx a panda? It would have been brilliant if that had been one of the packages Tom Hanks had been left with on Cast Away.

This week, I caught sight of a public spat between Paul Irish and Jeffrey Zeldman - two heavyweights in web standards evangelism. I know of them both from a vague distance and I follow some of their work but I can’t pretend to know anything about web standards. I’m not even 100% sure what the argument is about and I certainly don’t know what a blue beanie is. My opinion on the matter is pretty moot as I don’t know of the history between them or the big things they stand for other than skimming the surface of their output like I do. From my point of view, one party came out of the argument looking better than the other, and it’s not Paul’s podcast that I’ll be unsubscribing from. Of course it helps that he is cute as anything.

A few days ago, Amazon announced two brand new stores for Kindle, bringing the total up to six individual destinations now. The two new countries added are Italy and Spain, via Amazon.it and Amazon.es. All three of my books are currently available in both, with any searches bringing up the results with Euro currency. Christine Blachford on the Italian store Christine Blachford on the Spanish store The two news stores join the recently introduced French site, along with the already existing US, UK and German stores.

It seems to be a time for history to start catching up with the villagers in Ambridge this month, with all kinds of long-lost relatives being unearthed and rediscovered. First up in the main show, it’s all about Pat, Tony, Helen, Tom and what could be their new grandson/nephew. After Kylie appeared at the funeral for Ivy, she started talking about a brother and Pat got very suspicious. I don’t know who Kylie or Sharon are. I don’t really care that they have another relation at all. But Pat wouldn’t let it drop, and after stalking the poor chap on Facebook has decided he looks the spitting image of her deceased son John and therefore must be his. This all seems very sensationalist for a soap like The Archers. It’s not like Pat and Tony didn’t have enough going on at the moment. What with Helen and her baby, plus the Bridge Farm brand going down the tubes, they seem to have dominated most of this year.

It’s starting to get quite tricky, and motivation to go out is hard. I gave it some thought and decided that the couple of weeks when I first stopped running quite so regularly were good because my body was like: “Oh, cool, I’m nice and rested, I’ll go faster.” Then, give it a few more weeks, and my body is now: “Oh, wait, you want me to go out? But I’m so used to inside!”

After my posts just over a month ago, wherein I decided to give my Android phone one last chance to convince me to replace it with another similar model, I had some fantastic suggestions of apps to use. Dolphin Browser and Fast Reboot were a revelation to me, and made for some more interesting minutes spent browsing. However, the irritations are still there, and after six weeks, I finally made the decision and ordered my upgrade - the iPhone 4S. I can’t say I’m 100% looking forward to it, I like the variation of having a non-Apple device, but having said that, not having to carry a phone and an iPod separately is also appealing.

It is that time of year again, the one where the seasonal aisle in the supermarket becomes full to bursting with sweet treats - chocolate and Christmas puddings galore. In honour of the occasion, and because wherever I turn there appears to be a new tin of Quality Street, Roses or those Miniature Hero things, here are my favourite five Quality Street sweets. Fudge. Clearly, because it is just like a mini fudge bar, and everyone knows a finger of fudge is just enough to give your kids a treat. And by your kids, I mean me. My only complaint is that it’s in a pink wrapper which just doesn’t seem to suit the fudge thing. Not pink, surely? Orange chocolate crunch. It’s no secret that no one likes the orange sweets or the strawberry sweets, but the orange chocolate crunch is different. It’s just like chocolate but with an orange tang, rather than a weird mess of fruit flavoured creme stuff. The green triangle. An odd shape for a sweet but delicious nonetheless. Come to think of it, I’m not really sure what is in this one. Sort of, squidgy chocolatey stuff. I know they made giant green triangles at one point, but I was not brave enough to try one of those. Toffee finger. There are far too many toffee related items in the Quality Street tin - three, in fact. The toffee penny is a surefire way to need a dentist, but for some reason, the toffee finger is a bit less dramatic. It’s still chewy, and you still have to be careful of your pearly whites, but it’s the best of the three options. Milk choc block. This is a new one on me, I don’t recall there being a single slab of chocolate in these tins before, but I quite like it. I always find that a full bar of just chocolate can be quite dull, but if you get the occasional block here and there, it is definitely a treat to enjoy it by itself. Mmm, chocolate. It’s such a shame that I had to open a new tin of Quality Street just to make sure I was doing full research for this post. Maybe next Friday I’ll have to do my top five Roses. That would be a shame too.

After the body-swapping of the first DT episode proper, we know are faced with the Doctor swapping his accent - for Tennant’s native Scotland. It filters in and out, is startlingly out of place to begin with but soon feels very natural so that I didn’t notice he’d stopped, even though Queen Victoria did. It’s always a risk for Doctor Who to take on historical figures, sometimes it works very well, sometimes it doesn’t. For the most part, the series has done a good job. Charles Dickens is a great character, and later on, Vincent van Gogh is handled particularly well.

To celebrate 1000 episodes of F1Minute, I baked a cake and iced it. It was my first attempt at icing, and the whole concept is quite new to me. I was inspired by a colleague at work who makes some pretty outstanding baked goods, and is the go-to person when it comes to celebration cakes. I think at the moment she has orders from at least three people for at least five different birthdays.

The BBC have introduced a new trailer for their Christmas output - well, it’s more like one of those feel-good ones that has no specific content and just a lot of famous faces beckoning you to stay with the Beeb over the festive season. Works for me! I can only say that seeing The Doctor playing Twister with a Cyberman may be the best three seconds of TV that I’ve seen in a long while.

As their Book of the Week recently, the iBookstore featured the new Michael Crichton novel called Micro. Except, it’s not really a fully baked Crichton book. I’m a massive Michael fan, Timeline is one of my favourite books of all time. Some of his later works turned out to be a bit hard work, but Jurassic Park, Congo and Sphere are all great pieces. I was very sad when he died and paid tribute to his back catalogue, before finding a new book of his - Pirate Latitudes. This one was practically finished and just had yet to be published before he died, so although I felt a bit weird reading it, it was understandable.

This week, Jeffrey Tschiltsch posted a fabulous update on Google+ that pondered the concept of stories within racing games, particularly the new Formula 1 epic from Codemasters. Here’s a sample of Jeffrey’s thoughts: So after finishing +Christine Blachford’s Between the Lines (Formula Primo Confidential) last night I suddenly realized what Codemasters’ F1 2011 is missing in its career mode: a compelling story line. The generic emails, state-the-obvious “headlines” and contract offers you get throughout your season are a feeble attempt at narrative, and the responses given during the “interviews” really don’t seem to do all that much.

I think the Beeb would say the halfway point was a week or so ago, but I’m working on the fact that 14 dancers started the competition and only seven remain. Several will make it into the final, but here’s my thoughts on the dancing so far. Those that have been knocked out Edwina Currie I sort of missed her big outburst during the show itself, but wasn’t particularly sad to see her go either. It’s always hard to be the first one to leave the competition, and it’s not always clear whether the right person has gone or not, but I think it would have been hard to keep on watching the show with so many Ann Widdecombe comparisons.

It’s been a pretty tiring week and I wasn’t really in the mood to go running today, but I pulled on my trainers anyway. Nice and foggy outside to really lift the spirits, but once I started it wasn’t too bad. It’s also been something of a frustrating week, so getting out there and clearing my head was kinda good. I wasn’t particularly fast, but I also wasn’t expecting my progress so far to continue forever. You can’t keep running once a week and expect to keep on getting faster every time.

Today I was supposed to go to the next destination for my A-Z Alphabet Adventure. I have reached the letter O, and I had intended to visit Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. My adventures had come to something of a standstill until recently, as it’s been a busy and thrifty latter half of the year. However, I was aware that Osborne House closed over winter, and that if I didn’t get there, I wouldn’t be able to do anything on the adventure until March at the earliest. That wouldn’t necessarily be a problem, I don’t know if I’ll get through any more of the alphabet before then anyway, but it’s always nice to have the option.

In Time This concept seems very intriguing - not quite the time travel that I love so much, but using time as a unit of currency instead. I’ve never quite been convinced of Justin Timberlake in the lead role, but he was good in the Social Network, so I can’t hold his Michael Jackson dance moves against him. The three women of different generations all looking the same freaks me out just a little bit though.

After last week’s experiment/disaster, I was back on my home turf this weekend. I didn’t manage to run at all during the week like I had hoped. It was a week full of sleepless nights and so early mornings were something of a no-no. I find myself sitting at work and dreaming of how good it will feel to have done a workout for the day. The reality is something far different.

The Red Arrows have had a terrible year. I had never heard of a Red Arrows pilot dying before, and now we have seen two fatalities in the space of four months. Although there may be slight consolation in the fact they “died doing what they loved”, there’s no escaping the fact that it’s a tragedy. It’s made worse by the fact that the Red Arrows is a display of incredible skill, determination and bravery, and manages to show off in one of the few ways Britain can. When it comes to other adventures - sports, singing competitions, more sports - we try hard and mostly fail. The Red Arrows though, they’re a symbol of us being good at something.

I go through earphones at a rate of knots. Sometimes they lose the sound in one ear, occasionally I leave them places, often one end of the cable breaks and becomes unusable. Considering the amount I use them, I’m okay with that really. They have become more of a consumable than anything else. I’ve tried expensive ones, I’ve tried cheap ones, and in the end, I just go with whatever I can find. My most recent headphones came to an early demise with a lack of sound in one ear, so I made an emergency evening trip to the supermarket to grab a new pair. Mr C raised the idea of buying one good pair for office duties, and then another pair for running and sleeping with.

365 F1 Stories chronicles a tale from Formula One’s vast history for every single day of the year, with a variety of different topics on offer. From driver birthdays, to important races, to those little moments you might have missed, there’s plenty on offer in the books. If you’re not completely convinced, or have bought the books but haven’t read through them all, there’s a quick way of getting a teaser for what’s happening on the day in question. The 365 F1 Stories Twitter account has a daily teaser update for you, posing a question related to the relevant story in the book itself. For example, a couple of days ago, this was the update:

It’s been a while since Baby Panda Thursday ceased to be updated on a regular basis, but that doesn’t mean that I’ve stopped looking at all things cute and panda shaped. Lots of people tweet me panda related items and I love it! I also particularly love apps and games that involve pandas. If your app has a cute panda as the icon, then you’re very likely to make a sale.

Back in August, I wrote about my new enthusiasm for being a football fan, after my first visit to a match earlier in the year. At the end of summer, I was all excited about following along at home - checking in with the app, catching up with Match of the Day, and trying to keep up with the scores. I figured now was as good a time as any to update how it’s going being an Aston Villa fan.

After my successes in the last two weeks, I thought I’d treat myself with a visit to the countryside. Rather than pounding the pavements and wondering whether people are looking out their windows and laughing at me, I decided to head towards the trees. This meant getting in my car, and for a while I worried that having to drive to a destination would lessen my enthusiasm - there’s something unavoidable about donning trainers, stepping out the door and being on the “track” already.

Over the past few years, I’ve had my own personal campaigns against some of the major national holiday celebrations. I’ve vented my distaste over Valentine’s Day, birthdays, and of course, Christmas. Ultimately, my aim has always been to get people to accept the fact that I don’t like these things even though they do. It’s a personal choice, and they’re free to get on with their celebrations, leaving me not to.

The big news this month in Ambridge is that Clive Horrobin is back. He’s getting much more attention in Ambridge Extra which returned in October (more on that later), but his appearance is reverberating around the whole village, in the main show as well. I am aware of Clive’s work, but haven’t actually heard him in the show before, and he seems like a nasty chap even when he’s supposedly turning over a new leaf. Handily, however, there was gossip spreading around the village, and the new barman Rhys had all of Clive’s misdemeanours explained to him, so that those not in the know could be brought up to speed. Sneaky. Clearly we are not to trust him, and his hooking up with Matt immediately makes me very concerned. Who knows what scheme he has planned this time?

A while back, I discussed the new Sims Social game - a Facebook only game that was clearly developed to generate cash whilst fostering relationships at the same time. I wasn’t sure about it at all back then, but was willing to give it a few more days. I have played it quite a lot since then, for a week or so I was checking in every day. It is fun seeing what you can do and interacting with other people, but I think the charm has worn off now. I’m not sure I’ve played it at all this week, and I think I’m probably over it.

Two weeks into my new and sparse running routine, and somehow I am managing to run better than ever. I cannot explain this. Last week, I was desperate to go out, I was feeling all cooped up and ready to run. I wasn’t 100% sure how far I was going to go when I first headed out, because it was the first run I’d done for a while, but eventually I knew I wasn’t doing a short, fast pace, I was going for distance. So, a 5K it was.

In my school days, one of my very best friends introduced me to two important things. First, Doritos and dip. Mmm. That’s a staple of our Film Watch evenings these days, so if it wasn’t for that early introduction, I don’t know what we’d be munching on. The second thing was Tomb Raider. We used to wrap blankets around us, sit on the living room floor, and pass a laptop between each other, working our way through Tomb Raider 2. I may have seen the game thanks to my brothers, but it was the first chance I got to really sit down and play it all the way through. It was brilliant.

When Amazon announced their new line of products - ereaders and tablets all - we decided it was about time we became a Kindle-owning household. I’ve never really been fussed about the Kindle really, settling for the gazillion apps I have spread around the office. There’s never a time I’m very far from a book these days. Still, the new range of products made them more enticing, and as a Kindle book writer, we sort of needed one for testing. That’s the excuse I’m going for, anyway.

I’ve been using the RunKeeper app for a while now, and aside from the odd GPS related issue (mostly to do with my phone), it’s been a dream. Not content with providing me with statistics, maps, graphs and plenty of motivation, RunKeeper went one step further and gave me a platform to share my story.

The conversation that kicked off after my post earlier today made me even more sure that I’ve not been trying hard enough with Android. I can’t really stress how much I want to stay on the Android platform, but equally I know for a fact I’d get more use out of the iPhone. Either way, I’m not going to be splashing out on either for a month or two yet, and that seems like a good period of time to knuckle down and try and get the best out of my Android phone. If I can prove that I can do whatever I want to do with the Desire I already have, then there’s no reason I need to change.

For the last eighteen months, I’ve been using the HTC Desire as my mobile method of contacting the outside world, but my contract is due to expire soon and that leaves me with something of a dilemma. These mobile phone contracts are so long that choosing the next device is quite an important decision. At the moment, it leaves me scratching my head. Just a hunch The iPhone has never really done it for me and I’ve never been able to explain why. I’m a happy iPod and iPad user, never really taking it for granted how much they brighten up my day, but the iPhone doesn’t grab my attention the way I might have imagined. Recent updates to the camera, and the great stuff that iOS 5 brings to the table make it a much more interesting prospect, but I’m still not 100% convinced.

Mmm, I love sandwiches. They’re one of my favourite foods, although it probably doesn’t count as just one given the number of fillings you can have. That, in fact, is what this post is all about - my five favourite sandwich fillings at the moment. My tastes seem to change all the time at the moment. I used to love prawn sandwiches but have gone off them quite a lot recently. Weirder combinations have taken the prawn’s place. These are my favourite at this moment, though.

With this episode, the Tenth Doctor gets his reign underway proper, after spending most of the last episode in his pyjamas. No more of that - he’s got a suit, he’s got a TARDIS, and he’s got places to be. New New Earth for a New New Doctor. The first few scenes really cement the relationship between Rose and the Doctor. He’s brand new, but she’s willing to stick with him. In fact, she’s already showing signs of liking this Doctor more than the previous one. They’re like a new couple on a date, picnicking on the applegrass. Mmm, applegrass.

This evening, I came home from work and went for a run. It was a bit chilly out there, and getting dark, and it’s very clear that there won’t be many running hours left after work for much longer. Even with the impending time change. Mmm, GMT. This was my first run for twelve days, which seems like forever. Did I say I wanted to run more times than ever before in October? Ha ha ha.

Google have confirmed that they’re axing a few more of their side projects, including the terrible Buzz and the less terrible Jaiku. I was a big fan of Jaiku in its days pre-Google, using it as an alternative to Twitter. As Mr C commandeered the @sidepodcast Twitter account, I was looking for another way to represent Sidepodcast in social networks. I headed straight towards Jaiku, and was impressed with what I saw. I liked the little images you could use to demonstrate what kind of update you were writing, and I really liked that it had direct commenting on each status. It was slightly easier to follow a conversation than on Twitter.

My first week at my new job has been and gone, and it was mostly alright. I mean there was this, of course: …and that did go on for a couple of days, but I am not really complaining. It’s all good.