The resolutions of thirty-year-old men

So then, another year. Happy New Year to you all, you dwindling band of increasingly disappointed followers, searching in vain as you have been over the past few months for fresh posts on this raggy-arsed, semi-dormant excuse for a blog.

Apologies.

Someone who seemed to write fairly prolifically, though - and who didn't seem to let life get in the way, or whatever my excuse is for sitting on my arse and doing nowt - was the splendid Woody Guthrie (never heard of him? You probably should), and you may have seen the list of Woody Guthrie's New Year's Resolutions for 1942 that's been doing the rounds on Facebook etc over the past week or so.

He's written 33 of them in all, ranging from the fairly prosaic ("12. Change bed clothes often") to the rather wonderful ("19. Keep hoping machine running") - and not only is this list a delightful insight into a man "at the tender-but-just-wise-enough age of thirty" (according to the page the list's featured on. As a man of similar years myself, I feel a slight though nagging sense of inadequacy in comparison...), it's shown in the link here as mapped against Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, which I find rather pleasing.

But it's the new year now, just as it was then - Auld Lang Syne and all that, and a fistful of resolutions for the coming year. So seventy years on, what is this, possibly more prosaically-minded thirty-year-old resolving to do over the next twelve months?

• First - see above - I promise to blog more. If something's worth talking about, it's possibly worth writing about - and hell, I genuinely do think it makes me a calmer person when I'm committing my thoughts to paper(screen?). In any case, it certainly helps turn my messy half-thoughts into more considered opinions, and opinions into (at least semi-reasonably) crafted arguments....
• I also plan to tidy more (as I've a nasty, sneaky tendency to sit on my backside and fester instead of doing useful bits and pieces about the house). Get up! Get up and about and do things. If I've time to sit on the sofa, watch the telly and fart, I've time to run the bloody hoover round...
• ... and not a million miles from this, I'm hoping to de-clutter, clear the acres of accumulated crap I have sitting about in the house and shift it. Pass to friends, family, charity-shops, Freecycle, Ebay, car-boots or, indeed, the bin. It's stuff I don't use, need or really want, and I want it gone - mind, if I can sell a load of gear I don't need for money I do need, then all to the good, like. Won't complain at that.
• I want to get fit and lose weight - genuinely, seriously. I've not smoked since the beginning of Movember (there's a rather unpleasant irony, I feel, to puffing away on fags while one raises money for a cancer charity...), I think I feel somewhat the better for it - not as good as the NHS ads tell you, but better nonetheless - and I want to improve on that now. I've started a diet, am taking it very easy on the grog, and want to start doing some sport at least semi-regularly at some point not too much later in the year. See how we go, but yeah - I want this. Lots.
• I'd like to raise more money for charity! Managed to pull in £129 of sponsorship during Movember last year, and want to raise even more this year, one way or another. Can I hit maybe £300 this year? I'm thinking about it - it'd be nice to do something positive and make the difference; maybe support a couple or three charities and see if I couldn't raise a ton for each or something. Hmmm, work in progress...
• The final one should be easy - but it's not always, is it? I'm going to take time out, every so often, to treat myself. Doesn't have to be a big thing, doesn't have to be every day, but at intervals I'm going to start sorting myself out with a little bit of something nice. Because I'm bloody well worth it, kids.

And talking of treats - what about kicking off with something from Woody himself? Keep happy and upbeat, boys and girls - it's going to be a cracking year. Though you might want to have a second look and a bit of a think about Woody's Resolution no.33 yourselves. 

Thoughts and responses happily received, as always...