Meme to review 2008

A meme from that excellent woman, Emerging Writer

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before? walked 13 miles

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next
year? No and yes

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Yes - a lovely new baby boy born to a good friend

4. Did anyone close to you die? No, for which I'm grateful

5. What countries did you visit? USA, Finland, Germany, France

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008? An agent

7. What date from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? my memory remains unetched

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? I learned, or started learning, how to write short fiction

9. What was your biggest failure? an unpublished manuscript

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? nothing major

11. What was the best thing you bought? an ipod. Man, they're brilliant little things.

14. Where did most of your money go? paying the mortgage and feeding the babas

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? lots of things, actually

16. What song will always remind you of 2008? I think it's an 07 song, but Amy Winehouse's Valery

18. Compared to this time last year, are you richer or poorer? a little better off, maybe

19. What do you wish you’d done more of? writing

20. What do you wish you’d done less of? faffing about on the interweb

21. How did you spend Christmas? happily at home with people i love

24. What was your favourite TV program? I'm almost without one now. Have been watching Survivor, though, on TG4

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? Zionists

26. What was the best book you read? Cloud Atlas

28. What did you want and get? lots of things. It was lucky like that

29. What did you want and not get? a publisher, an agent, etc

30. What was your favourite film of this year? saw it on DVD, but Hotel Rwanda

31. What did you do on your birthday? taught

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? again with the no-publisher story ...

34. What kept you sane? family, friends, ocean

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? I remained faithful to George Clooney

36. What political issue stirred you the most? Gaza

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008. I don't actually have to do everything

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.. not a song lyric, but Auden's September 1939 sums it up nicely