Sorry, I'm Being a Bit Rubbish.

In my younger days on Boxing day (26/12/) I used to take to my bed with a bottle of whiskey and an armful of DVD's and not emerge again until February. In recent years I've managed to cut this down to a week and switch the whiskey for wine. In 2013 I even managed to swap the DVD's for a copy of the Egyptian constitution.

Obviously it's a bit hard for to complain while the people of Kobane and elsewhere in Syria and Iraq who have to deal with war up close and in fully technicolour don't get to take days off. However I don't think I'm being overly dramatic when I say that I very nearly passed out on the (UK) evening of the Sydney Siege. As a result I was really looking forward to taking some time off this year. Sadly that hasn't been possible.

The problems started on Boxing day night when it was really, really windy. About 5 minutes after going to bed I heard this really loud crash of something being destroyed by the wind. I quickly established that it wasn't any of the fencing around my property which only left the roof. Obviously it's quite hard to inspect a roof in the middle of the night so I had to spend the next few hours listening to beams creak and tiles scrap against each other knowing full well that it if a part of the coping had been blown off then much of the rest of the roof would quickly follow leaving me with a major construction problem that I simply couldn't cope with in the week between Christmas and New years. It had gone 5AM by the time I eventually got to sleep.

Obviously then on Saturday I woke up late which prevented me from getting done what I'd wanted before keeping a respectful eye on the Officer Ramos funeral in New York City. This was hampered further by the fact that CNN International were refusing to cover the event despite it being probably the only news story in the World that day. As a result it was one of those days where I didn't get anything done but expended a lot of energy not getting anything done.

On Sunday I again very badly overslept and awoke to both the Air Asia QZ8501 and the Norman Atlantic stories being in full swing. Later in the day my little brother came up to visit my father which would have been quite pleasant apart from the fact that by that point all I wanted to do was sit down and watch the "Homeland" finale in a way you just can't when you've got guests.

Monday was better but with a hangover I was rushing to make up for lost time. Tuesday of course brought a trip to the supermarket and the Palestinians deeply aggressive vote on statehood at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). This was so hostile that UNSC members weren't even permitted to discuss the motion before voting on it.

Wednesday was New Year's Eve. Due to hard won experience I much prefer to spend this at home with a nice meal and even nicer wine. However to do that I obviously have to cook and then clean up after the meal. Plus it's always a late night. On Thursday I couldn't sleep in because I had more cooking and housework to do. The same goes for Friday.

As a result I am now rushing to archive all my relevant 2013 of which there are many. I should be finished by the end of today but after that I think I need to have a little think about how to proceed. After all I somehow doubt that Obama will have suddenly become more decisive.

12:30 on 4/1/15 (UK date)

Edited at around 19:25 on 4/1/15 (UK date) to add;

One possible warning sign that I'm overtired and therefore quick to anger is that I've spent much of the last week going; "F*cking hell, there's far too much football on TV!"

I'm not saying that we need to introduce a mid-season break but if we have a full league program on Boxing day and a full league program on New Year's day do we really need a full mid-week program in between that is immediately followed by the start of the FA Cup. After all no matter how many times the BBC mention that they've got the rights to the FA Cup this year it's not going to change the fact that "Match of the Day" isn't particularly good anymore.