140

Spicy beanburgers, mashed potatoes, swede, tomatoes, mushrooms.

I want to be totally absorbed in the eating experience. I want to get inside my food.

The paradox with food is that I put a lot of effort and thought into buying it in the shops, I get hungry and look forward to eating it, I spend a long time preparing it all, after I've finished I think 'oh, that was nice', but while I'm actually eating it I'm nearly always thinking about something else. If only I could savour the pleasure in the moment a bit more, what a happy man I would be.

139

Do you prefer animals to plants, or do you prefer plants to animals?

138

Isn't it nice when people say 'thank you'? I wonder how may times 'thank you' has been said or written today, in whatever language. It's heartening to imagine people all over the world, from the Arctic to the Antarctic, saying 'thank you' to one another. It's good to think of people helping each other in this difficult life, and in turn appreciating each other for this help. Let us savour the contributions people make to keeping ruthless selfishness, cruelty and sheer misery at bay. For what is benign always seems vulnerable, in peril.

137

There are now definitely too many pairs of scissors in my house.

136

It really is the case, isn't it, that all the blue pens turn black when you want a blue pen, and all the black pens turn blue when you want a black pen?

It de-pens...

But maybe twenty-first century modern people don't use pens anymore.

135

I don't mind watching the telly, as long as it isn't actually turned on.

134

As an alternative to the introvert/extravert axis, one could distinguish between those who most like having good experiences and those who most like talking about their experiences.

Would you rather do something good and not get any credit for it, or be given a lot of credit for something which you didn't actually do?

133

We are brought up with certain values. These values are made of stone. It didn't matter what we felt about them: they were there, they were real.

And so, in some ways, they remain. Within us, throughout our lives.

We develop our positions in relation to them. We rebel, or we develop individually away from them in a more thoughtful, discriminate way. Maybe returning closer to them after a while, maybe not. Yet our development is in relationship to them; they remain part of us.

So when society's values change we feel orphaned. The values we have molded ourselves around become just a curiosity of history. It was for us to develop away from these values, not society. We feel displaced in a strange world, a world that in some ways seems less real that the displaced reality of our childhoods. A valueless world, since the new values have no solidity, no roots within us.

But when was I entitled to use the royal 'we'?

132

What do you know? We've just got through one year, and before we can even pause for breath, straightaway another one begins.

It's a hard life, isn't it?

On 1 January 2008 I wished you all a happy New year. So perhaps, if you had one, my good wishes can take some of the credit. If you didn't, I'll try to wish more effectively this time.

It remains for me to quote Jude Simpson again:

Will it be a blue year, a true or an askew year?
a yabadabadoo year?
or yet another getting-in-a-stew year?
I haven't got a clue, dear, but have a happy new year.

Good luck, everybody.