Jottings from the Tropics: New Year's Day, 2014

I'm starting 2014 in the way I plan to go on: grumpy, but productive. I am going to make a sandwich board, write on it "go away — this means you" and place it in the drive way. I might excavate pitfall traps on either side to deter people who interpret "this means you" as "this does not mean you". Other deterrents I've considered include dropping bird seed on them as the brush turkeys walk past and making unexpected visitors watch the whole of Nicolas Cage's remake of The Wicker Man. I abandoned the bird seed idea because it would become too expensive; I abandoned the film because it was a disproportionate punishment.

I've made my new year's resolutions. Despite the opening paragraph, none of those resolutions include the words "Heart of Darkness" or "supervillain"*. I won't provide details — I find nothing kills personal plans as efficiently as discussing them — but I'll mention that one of them is to produce a blog post every day (except Tuesdays). That resolution doesn't specify minimum levels of clarity, coherence or cheerfulness.

I apologise in advance.

A happy, healthy, filled and fulfilled 2014 to you!

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* These are on the list for 2015.