2008-01-19 - 12:08 p.m.

Happy new 2008, or, as I�m campaigning to have it called, ZOOB.

Well, well, it was a, as they say, year. I started writing that sentence in mid-December, the year not over, of course, but the dreg-ends of December hardly ever throw up anything beyond office parties, and I�m too old for �antics� at these things, so as far as year ends go, I felt safe in calling it.

I could have won a Nobel Prize or had my legs amputated, but, predictably, I just got drunk a couple of times and hung out with my parents a bit.

L�highlight de 2007 (ZOOJ), I think, wasn�t really a professional or a personal one.

God knows, I�m no opera singer, but being on stage for 90 lonnnnnng minutes times four shows (= 6,000 people), riding by the seat of my tenor pants, singing some really quite musically complicated lines in one of the most famous and buttock-clenchingly intimidating venues in Europe (it dates back to 16, like, 83) and being close enough (and far enough up stage) to be hit by the arching saliva of actual leads from the actual NEW YORK MET was, well, kind of the best scary there is. �How did you remember all the music?� was the most common question. And I don�t know how, especially because I am a total idiot with the musical intelligence of an empty asthma inhaler. You just did.

Of course, this being January, there�s so much chin music from everyone in the world (me included in about 30 seconds� time) about personal development and making choices and stopping injecting pizza cheese and the like. And why not?

I realised last week that it had been a long, long time (perhaps since I last typed into this little box) that I had just written something for F to the U to the N. Work writing had taken over, which is all grandy and dandy, but I wasn�t falling over my keyboard to do it.

So that�s one thing. It might mean writing here a lot more, or some other similar webby corner, but using my fingers to put down thoughts of my brain = yes, please. And plus also, yesterday I was given a chance to write part of something that might become something bigger. I don�t want to jinx it, but it means writing funny for a wider public, so I can�t be all mouth and no trousers any more. I�ve been no trousers for a long time, I think.

So, yeah, that, really. Plus, re-sparking old friendships that have dwindled for no readily apparent reason, finding another way to sing at people and telling the truth at all times and not being afraid of anything ever and marrying someone unattainable I�ve yet to meet and inventing injectable pizza cheese that makes you thin�it�s going to be QUITE the year.