In Summation, 2005

[f4f3]

2005


Gacked (is that a word?) from itchyfidget:

1. What did you do in 2005 that you'd never done before?

Went to a Worldcon, was a Best Man, went to Africa

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I think so… I gave up drink for a month, and will probably do the same this January.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Not so that I noticed…

4. Did anyone close to you die?

My aunt, at the shockingly early age of 45.

5. What countries did you visit?

Um, Morocco and Ireland. Paris was last December.

6. What would you like to have in 2006 that you lacked in 2005?

A porpoise. Or failing that, a purpose.

7. What date from 2005 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

July 7th, I think. It was my sister’s 40th birthday, too.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Getting my blood pressure down to normal, exercising regularly.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Not acquiring a porpoise. Not winning the second pub quiz I’ve ever entered, thus blowing my 100% record.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Still diabetic, but seemingly well controlled this year.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Gym membership.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

My mate Bill, getting married and branching out in his authorial life.

Mike, who got home without Bill and I having to do an Escape From Moldova style raid (although he loses points for taking up smoking)

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

No one, really, on the basis that no one can make you feel depressed. Appalled by people who think it would be a good idea to give the Tories a turn…

14. Where did most of your money go?

Petrol, books, meals out.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Weddings, Dublin, Essaouira


16. What song will always remind you of 2005?

Cannonball. No, wait, that was 2004. Steal Away, by Ezio.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

i. happier or sadder?

This time last year was an extraordinary time… Let’s think, I’d just left London, so I was sad… Happier, then, I guess.

ii. thinner or fatter?

A bit thinner

iii. richer or poorer?

Overall richer, since this year has been about reducing debt, but in terms of money in my pocket about the same.
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Relaxing – just sitting on a sofa, with a glass of wine and my head in someone’s lap.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Travelling, working, worrying.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

Christmas Day in Newcastle, then Santa’s sleigh ride around Glasgow, then up to Argyle for New Year.

Where IS number 21?

22. Did you fall in love in 2005?

Yes. Every morning.

23. How many one-night stands?

Was it a leap year? No? 365…

24. What was your favourite TV program?

Another vote for Top Gear, but Dr Who was probably my favourite show.

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

Nope, don’t hate anyone.

26. What was the best book you read?
The Serpent Tower by William King,
With a strong vote for Vellum by Hal Duncan
and River of Gods by Ian MacDonald

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Jackson Browne, eventually

28. What did you want and get?

Surprised

Where IS number 29?

If number 29 is 'what did you want and not get?', to which the answer is obviously a porpoise.

30. What was your favourite film of this year?

Loved The Fantastic Four and Batman Begins, but nothing this year really grabbed me.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

41, and I honestly can’t remember.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

A porpoise.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2005?

A smaller waist size.

34. What kept you sane?

Stubbornness.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Keira Knightley

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

Iraq

37. Who did you miss?

No one, my aim is true.

38. Who was the best new person you met?

None of them were new, they had all been around a while


39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2005:

You should always have a plan.
40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

”Get down off your cross, we could use the wood.”
Tom Waits, Come On Up To The House.

Comments

[blonde222.livejournal.com]

I hate the word gacked, but I do think it would be a good idea to give the Tories a turn.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

I tell you what, I'll promise never to use "gacked" again if you promise to seriously consider the SDP as the official opposition...

[blonde222.livejournal.com]

the SDP? is that a serious question?

Wait and see. Over the next three years the Labour party is going to make the last years of the Major government look like smooth seas and plain sailing.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

I suppose one of the problems is that when some people think "Conservative government" they think of poor old bumbling Major, a vaguely Pooterish, ineffective figure struggling gamely against entropy.

Whereas I remember Thatcher.

[blonde222.livejournal.com]

oh you mean THATCHER, the one who presided over possibly the single biggest redistribution of wealth from rich to poor in British history, in the form of allowing council house dwellers the right to buy their homes at massively discounted prices?

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Hmm, leaving would be council tennants with no where to go, and instigating the biggest inflation of property prices ever.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Actually, I have to apologise - i was in a hurry earlier and tossed off quite a glib reply when the council house sell off really requires a bit more attention.

Buying your own council house did not make you richer - a house is somewhere to live, not an investment. If you sell it, where are you going to live? Espescially if you can't afford to buy an equivalently sized, privately built house.

Taking the self-selected best housing out of the stock of council housing made it much more dificult for new tennants to get houses. Counci's couldn't refuse to sell, and, in a lovely Tory double-whammy, they were forbidden to spend the proceeds on building new council houses. Got to love it...

Bribing people to buy houses built to provide cheap social housing, removing that housing from the reach of other tennants is a lovely example of the attack on society and encouragement of selfish short-termism that took place under Thatcher.

c.f. Privatisation.

[blonde222.livejournal.com]

"a house is somewhere to live, not an investment"

Maybe in other countries, but not the UK!

Of COURSE being allowed to owning your own house makes you richer. It is essentially a gift of equity capital, to which you can add to in terms of investing in your own property by making alterations and improvements, or to realize some or all of the capital by selling it and buying or renting somewhere else, or to borrow against it. And of course your dependents inherit the capital when you die, the effects of which we are beginning to see now.

As far as not being allowed to spend on new housing, true, but that encouraged councils to get out of the business of being domestic landlords altogether, which on the whole I think is a good thing: housing associations can be more flexible and generally do a much better job.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

I think I'll try to keep this to council tennants buying their own houses for the moment - the wider question of whether property ownershipin general is a good idea is more fun, but less clearcut.

Selling houses which were built as a resource for all local residents to individual tennants was morally a bad thing: the money to build them came from everyone's taxes, councils couldn't use the money raised to replace the stock - it was just a bad, ideologically driven thing to do.

If the only impact had been to transfer the burden of caring for the properties from the council to the individuals, it would still have been a bad thing. For the majority of tennants, improvements (or repairs) could only be financed from whatever equity they could realise on their new homes. This increased repayments, and, in the majority of cases, didn't raise the value of the home by the cost of the improvements. And, again for the majority, selling homes in ex-council schemes was a dificult proposition.

The result of taking councils out of the landlord business has helped the private sector rental business grow. As far as I can see the gap has been filled by private landlords and by housing associations. I've no particular axe to grind with housing associations - at the moment they seem to be taking over council tennants, subsidised by sweeteners in the form of improvements paid for by the council, and rents paid for in a lot of cases by housing benefit, using the same staff who used to work for the councils. I take it back - previous experience of these outsourcings hasn't been great for tennants, staff, or the tax payer. It's a daft idea, adding an extra layer of costs on to the provision of social housing. Sayign that they are more flexible and generally do a much better job is just wrong. They are profit driving organisations which have no compunction about evicting non-paying tennants, throwing them back on to the dwindling public sector or onto the streets. Their flexibility is demonstrated by their success in lowering terms and conditions for the TUPE'd council staff who have to transfer to their employment.

As for private landlords, well, not all of them are Rachmann's. An increasing amount are buy-to-let speculators, driving up house prices and letting tennants who can't afford to meet the inflated prices pay off their mortgages for them.

The success of this shift from public to private ownership is obviously proven by the hordes of happy first time buyers in London and the Home Counties, and the swathes of affordable housing in the South East for average wage earners.

Actually, I've just realised something that's caused me to stop in mid-stream.

I'm thinking here of council sell-offs in Scotland, and in Glasgow in particular. The situation may have been entirely different in the South East, where council ownership was at a lower level and it might have been much easier to resell a house in a small pocket of council houses than in the vast schemes we have up here.

Glasgow District Council was the largest land-lord in Western Europe at one point. Massive slum clearances created housing schemes all around the city, with Easterhouse, Barlarnock, Drumchapel and Castlemilk the biggest. Attempting to sell off these houses was a joke, and what tended to happen was that the best houses bordering on middle-class areas were sold off, leading to tennants being concentrated in ghettos of unsellable housing, and councils with less money to spend on the upkeep of these areas (by government fiat poll tax couldn't be increased to pay for housing, and, of course, proceeds of sell off couldn't be used in that area either). The spiral was pretty severe, and pretty rapid, and many areas went from being basic but liveable areas to no-go areas in a few years.

It strikes me that my experience might be atypical, and that, in some parts of the country, the house sell-off might have had a different outcome. If that's the case, then my argument, as far as I'm concerned, still holds, and is even more illustrative of Conservative policies, which were always prepared to buy popularity in the south while ignoring the impact on the North.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

Your porpoise is stealing all my wombat's lines.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

As long as they're baited with porpoise friendly tuna.

(One of my all time favourite Tim Curry Rocky Horror lines is "So you came here, with a Porpoise!")

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

It's not often we receive visitors, let alone offer them wombat brutality.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

"He's a wombat, you're a wombat, we're ALLLLLL wombats!"

[pshtaku.livejournal.com]

Plans are good - but I would say that, I'm a project manager ;0

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

Gacked, I'm not sure about. Ganked, however, is practically canon.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

And I get flack about made up words.

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

This is an internet word. They're all made up.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

But they are here all the time.

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

*drinks*