Back to life, back to reality, so the song goes, this sums up the feeling that everyone must have been feeling this morning. The few remaining Christmas trees looked out onto the passersby with an air of sympathy at the fact that today was back to work day. As the tram rolled into the Market Square at about ten past nine there was already a team of workers dismantling the Winter Wonderland, yet the Christmas tree still had its lights on; the Christmas trees clearly were taking the piss out of everyone because they were going back to work.

Last night we took part in a now traditional viewing of one final Christmas film with a supper of Christmas food that needed finishing. We watched Patrick Stewart’s version of A Christmas Carol, a made for television film which although true to the story does suffer slightly towards the end thanks to some very hammy acting on Mr. Stewart’s part. As I still technically have tomorrow left of Christmas, I will watch Ebenezer on my own as Mandi doesn’t like westerns. Neither do I to be honest, but I have to watch all versions of the story, it’s the law.

I don’t think you can fully embrace the New Year until the end of Christmas as there is still the whiff of festivity everywhere you go. You can go running or join a gym on New Year’s Day to show the world that you’re making the effort, but you still go home to cheese and biscuits, mince pies, alcohol, and other assorted party snacks so why bother even pretending that your good intentions are anything other than showing off to others? As far as I am concerned, 2015 started this morning as I took the dog for a walk before boarding the tram with everyone else. Having said that, I have made good on my resolution so far.

My new year’s resolution was to do something creative and career orientated every single day in order to get several long-standing work projects out of the way and so far I have managed it without resorting to using the blog as a fall back. The blog doesn’t count as work because it is something I largely do for myself (and the people who read it) although it does bring in a small numeration thanks to the PayPal button. To keep myself in check I tick every day in my diary once I have completed a task and that will stop me from becoming complacent. At the moment I am writing my share of a radio comedy pilot that I hope to record soon, the trouble being that it is being ‘ghost written’ by myself and a collaborator so I can’t say too much about it. Once it is finished it will be uploaded anonymously for people to stumble upon and our names won’t appear anywhere near it. Also so far I have released The T-Shirt Wearer’s Guide To The Ramones, changed the shop page on this site (it counts), recorded the first podcast of the year, and archived some more of my audio output onto CD. This is hopefully going to be a pretty big year for me career wise, especially as I turn 39 this summer which only gives me another year until my 40^th which is when I plan to sit myself down and decide what direction I wish to take.

The good/bad/indifferent news is I’ll be writing about it every fucking day.

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This week’s edition of The Sunday Alternative is here.