I'm an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.

So 12 months of being very hot, very cold, very wet, very tired, very lost or very full is over. Is it really the case that from now on there will be nothing? No more feeling obliged to damage my body in an attempt to haul it up to a level of mediocrity that allows me to do something that is totally superfluous to existence. No more cheap hotels next to sex shops or trawling the Internet for discount flights. No more writing excessively long blogs for my own amusement. Is it time to start living a life that flows rather than stutters from one underprepared episode to the next? And if so how do I wrap up my journal of the year? Ending is difficult. Far greater works than this have been ruined by a duff, clumsy or clichéd ending.

I suppose this post should be about what I have learnt from the year. So, what have I learnt from the year? Nothing. Take that life – I defy your attempts to force little lessons on people. You’re no educator, if you were then there would be no life for 6 weeks in the summer and any time it snowed. Mind you, I have realised, discovered and ascertained quite a lot. None of it could be called a universal truth, or even a local truth. And anyway I’m not going to list every development here. For the first time this year I am going to use judgment when writing a post and not bang on about something completely irrelevant. No incessant prevaricating, no sir, direct and to the point, like an arrow fired by Robin Hood. No getting sidetracked on a wild flight of fancy or getting into an aside that means I never make my main point - stick to the path Dorothy. The last post has to leave people with a good memory of this blog – it is likely to be the only one they ever read. So no wasting bandwidth on a number of points that have no relevance to the rest of the post. No. I will name just one thing that I know now that I barely knew before: when it comes to the meaningless stuff it turns out I like stuttering. I like new experiences. I like meeting the people involved in them, especially those with a passion for activities that are so often and so rightly seen as quirky, stupid or pointless. I don’t want to get bogged down in one thing that I’ll never be good at; I want to get bogged down in a whole bunch of things I'll never be good at. Embrace, devour and move on. I am an experience locust. That accursed gaoler known as life is going to prevent me from pursuing these things with the same obsession but I don’t think I can stop. Well I can, but I’m not going to (yet) – I have enjoyed myself too much. Maybe a Fourth Decade of Challenges. If you have an unfulfilled ambition and nobody will accompany you on it get in touch. I still want to write a sitcom, learn to tap-dance, star in a Chekhov play and take part in the Wacky Races. Only recently someone mentioned the paper, scissors, stone World Championship in Las Vegas – why not? And I’ll only be 34 at the next Olympics, that's a whole festival of nonsense.

Maybe I’ll write about it but not on this blog*. This blog was one year only. This is an ex-blog. If you have been involved in the year in any way, thank you. If you have donated, thank you. If you have ploughed through this and any of my other bleating, thank you.

And they all lived happily ever after/And then I woke up/The End….? [repeat to fade out]



*Actually I have found that I enjoy writing this junk so much that I am in the development stage of a new and altogether more rounded blog. If you want to know when it is up and running drop me an email.

The Obligatory End of Year Award Ceremony

You join me here in London’s West End for that most important part of any themed year – the Award Ceremony. We all know how these work, the organisers carefully arrange a gathering in which they pick a select few to nominally raise above others in what is, in reality, a self congratulatory publicity exercise. However I should not grumble as the organiser of this ceremony is paying for all my alcohol and food tonight, which I am making the most of as I await to find out the identity of the lucky winners in categories I am just about to make up.

I applaud enthusiastically as I arrive to make the announcements to myself. I raise my hands to quieten my cheers. I clear my throat.

“Thank me for attending tonight. It is a great honour for me to have asked myself to present the inaugural awards honouring some of the best things that have happened to me for the first time this year. And what a year it has been – the sheer number of new experiences means that just deciding on the categories will be quite a challenge in itself [I pause as I laugh politely at my weak joke]. Sadly none of the winners can be with me tonight but I am pleased to announce that I will be accepting on their behalf. I will also be pleased to know that this means I will not be giving any thank me speeches, particularly because we are already running late, it is nearly last orders and I need to get back for my after awards ceremony party before the kebab shop shuts. So without further ado let me press on with announcing the winners.

1. Best food tried for the first time
It is not easy to decide how good a new food is because it is so dependent on how it is cooked and what other ingredients it has been combined with. For that reason judgment has been reserved on impala and sardines (not together). Having so often sworn never to put a tentacle near my mouth surprise of the year has been octopus but the winner by virtue of a versatility that means it is now included in almost every meal I prepare is linseed.

2. Best wine tried for the first time
If, at the start of the year, you had predicted that the winner in this (or indeed any) category would come from Argentina I would have snorted derisively. But O. Fournier Alpha Crux 2004 has proven once again that prejudice makes fools of even the best of us. I will also mention just one of the many also rans - Lanson Noble Cuvee Blanc du Blanc, which taught me that champagne is more than just a rich man’s cava.

3. Best drinking establishment visited for the first time
What do you want from a great drinking venue? Good music at an acceptable volume? Friendly staff? A decent selection of drinks at reasonable prices? A pool table? Maybe sports on television but otherwise switched off to avoid distracting you from the engrossing conversations with the locals? Tosca Cafe in San Francisco had none of this* but wins by virtue of being so achingly cool that it does not even need to call itself a bar.

* Whilst double checking the name I saw repeated reference to the quality of the music on the jukebox at Tosca. I suspect it was so fitting that I thought my head was making its own soundtrack.

4. Best restaurant visited for the first time
This has been another difficult category to judge, not least because a good meal is dependent on much more than the food. This year I have discovered the pleasures of the American steakhouse (notably Ruth’s Chris in San Francisco, N9NE in Las Vegas and the Porter House in New York). Haweli in Twyford also deserves a mention (not least in the hope that my ban by proxy ends soon). But all I really want on the table is simple, good quality small plates of stuff and Dehesa in London epitomises that style of cooking. It is so good that standing around in the crowded bar area for an hour because of its no booking policy is not enough to stop it being the winner.

5. Best book read for the first time
It has not been a good year for books. The end of my commuting and beginning of my filling all my spare time preparing for other activities has drastically reduced reading time. However, qualifying by virtue of my managing to get through 30 pages before the end of the year and learning more from that 30 pages than I did from the whole of the hospitality course, the winner is Critical Mass by Philip Ball.

6. Best musical artist seen for the first time
If there was any justice Unkle would be the clear winner of this category. But there isn't and Unkle are second. Intensity, energy and excitement become irrelevant if you do not end the show by having two band members smashing metal beer trays over their heads whilst you hug the sweaty Irishman jumping up and down next to you. Well done The Pogues.

7. Best musical artist heard for the first time
Peter, Bjorn & John and TTC both deserve a mention for bucking the female singer songwriter trend that dominated my iPod. Ultimately though a woman was always going to win and anybody who can outweird Bjork and still sound good deserves recognition. Unfortunately for Lykke Li that recognition has come on an unread and soon to finish blog. Bummer.

8. Best irrational dislike developed for the first time
For most of the year the clear winner would have been brown leather jackets with cream stripes but in the last couple of months I became so irritated by people walking down the street carrying takeaway paper coffee cups that even the two tone cow skin was eclipsed. I’m not going to try to explain, that would disqualify it from this category.

9. Best sports event attended for the first time
For sheer entertainment value Arsenal (4) v Spurs (4) in the Premier League* takes some beating but I lost money on that. For a single great performance Kauto Star winning its third King George VI Chase was a bit special, but I lost money on that. As with live music, this has been decided not for the spectacle but for the occasion. The winner is the Athens derby, Olympiakos v Panathinaikos. A tedious 0-0 draw of a match but being surrounded by 70,000 people willing death on eleven men and setting fire to their own stadium is something I fully recommend. Actually just the tube ride to the ground is something I fully recommend.

* In case anybody has enough time to take issue with these things I have seen Arsenal v Spurs before but never in the league.

10. Best city visited for the first time
Fascinating, fun, beautiful, vibrant – I have used numerous adjectives this year to describe the fascinating, fun, beautiful and vibrant cities I have seen but only one has been somewhere I would move to without hesitation. San Francisco wins, end of category.

11. Best person met for the first time
It is so pleasing to be able to say that by far the majority of the people I have met this year have been fascinating, fun, beautiful and vibrant people. I owe these people so much more than I can ever repay (and if one adds what I owe the people I already knew then my emotional debt makes the credit crunch look like a few coins fallen down the back of the sofa). I am not naming names for fear of missing somebody so if I had any sort of contact with you this year I thank you. With that in mind you would think this would be the hardest of all categories but it is, in fact the easiest. Walking away with this prize, albeit with the aid of a conveniently placed item of furniture, is Fionn".

I applaud the winners, I sympathise with the losers. I empty my glass and leave. It would appear that I was successful in keeping the venue quiet from the paparazzi so will be able to continue the revelry without it being splashed all over the gossip columns. Shame.

Ain't no molehill high enough

If a leather skinned fortune teller had predicted that I would spend part of my birthday stumbling in the dark wondering if I was going to be sick, dancing to No Woman No Cry crackling from a portable radio as dozens of strangers trudged past and getting into a discussion with a Tanzanian as to whether Lil’ Wayne smokes more marijuana than Kanye West I would have been pretty certain the rotten toothed seer was referring to the final few hours of the night. I would have been wrong.

We left camp, located at 4600m, minutes before the date switched from 2 to 3 January. It was the start of a long, dull meander up the steep final 1300m of Africa. In the dark a snake of tourists traipsed in near silence with just the lights of their head torches to pick out the path. Under foot the ground fluctuated between trip inviting rocks and loose scree that made you slip backwards with each step, slowing the already sloth-like pace. So much concentration was required to keep your footing that looking up to admire the star infested night sky or the search light shooting from the La Liga night club in Moshi over 5km below were stolen moments of pleasure. Otherwise this was the only part of the climb that made me wonder if I could even be bothered to reach the top.

Hazy flashback style aside

The previous 5 days had followed a largely unchanging routine. You wake up as your waiter/porter brings you a bowl of hot water and soap. You wash, dress and pack your kit away. Your cook prepares a breakfast of millet porridge, eggs, sausage, toast and fruit. The porters pack away. Your guide and assistant guide lead you slowly along the track until you reach the lunch stop, where the cook has made soup and snacks that keep you going for the final few hours of the hike. You reach the next campsite, your tent has been set up and your waiter brings you a bowl of warm water and soap. You do clean yourself and lay out your own sleeping bag (oh hardship) but if you have arrived early enough you are given tea, or for me a warm class of Cow Bell powdered milk, and then relax, talk to other tourists or admire the view until the waiter calls you for dinner (soup and some form of carbs with meat sauce). You eat, it gets dark, you stare at the night sky, you get cold, you go to bed.

And football is just eleven men chasing a sphere. And food is just a collection of nutrients that allows us to live. And love is no more than considering a person the most appropriate for procreation and companionship (as oppose to a relationship in which a person might compromise the ideal in order to have reciprocation of these urges. Discuss – 35 Marks). It is easy to deconstruct any activity. In doing so all the life, all the passion is lost. Kilimanjaro was more than the previous paragraph suggested.

Our guide was Babuu (Swahili for grandfather) and our assistant guide was Joseph. Babuu’s given name was also Joseph; everyone called him Babuu. He was 29. The days were spent with one or both of them. They would tell us about life in Tanzania, we told them about how different this was to England. We admired the scenery, the changing ecosystems, the plants that looked familiar and yet alien. I won’t bore you with poor descriptions of the finer points, there are so many fantastic sights that your mental thesaurus quickly runs out of synonyms for fantastic and so you just describe everything as fantastic. Most of the time you are headed in an upwards direction. Now and then you scrabble up steep rocks that will remind you of English rock pooling holidays that you probably never really took. I feel like I’m saying nothing but boring you for the sake of it. Have a couple of anecdotes instead:

Anecdote 1 – Chris goes for a walk
We had made good speed on the second day, Joseph, who tended to walk quicker than Babuu, had led the way for most of the day. We were one of the first groups to arrive at camp (3800m) and sat down to have tea (Cow Bell) with peanuts and popcorn. We faced a long afternoon without much to do. Chris said he was going to have a lie down. I went for a walk around the camp. It was a slow walk but was soon over and I decided that I would also have a lie down. Minutes after I got into the tent Chris got up and left. Maybe 5 minutes later I glanced out the front of the tent (we very rarely closed the door of our sleeping or eating tents). Chris was sitting on the grass, in the drizzle. I have known Chris for long enough not to be surprised to see him sitting on grass in drizzle and thought nothing more of this. I left the tent maybe 15 minutes later, Babuu was standing outside. He asked how I was feeling, he asked if Chris had been at this altitude before, he asked more about Chris. I was not surprised we were talking about Chris, neither of the guides had come to terms with my name and I had quickly learnt to respond to being called Chris too. I answered the questions in a fairly glib manner.

Then Chris reappeared, looking pale.

My description of what happened between Chris leaving the tent and his ghostly hue upon reappearing is pure hearsay. I do not guarantee the details are correct. I understand Chris went to lie down because he felt unwell, I understand just after he left the tent he blacked out in the middle of the camp. I understand guides went to his aid and I understand that he was not sure what direction liquid would be leaving his body. That night Chris woke me up and told me to move. He had just redecorated our tent floor with semi-digested peanuts and they were floating downhill towards my head. I moved and to Chris’s credit, despite feeling ill, he cleared up as best he could.

The next morning Chris still looked terrible and was not eating. We started our trek, this was scheduled to be the longest day other than the summit climb. We stopped regularly and by the second of these I was taking stock of what Chris had which I would need to take from him so that I could carry on (I’m not as big a bastard as that sounds, we had agreed that if either of us should drop out the other should continue). A number of people who had seen Chris also thought he was going to drop out. What actually happened was that Chris demonstrated an impressive level of fortitude. He wobbled onwards, actually getting stronger as the day progressed. Indeed, just after lunch he managed to scale a lava tower of maybe 50m without actually needing to, that was just for fun. It was a great relief for me that Chris recovered, I had been so concerned about insulting the cook (who had not reduced portion size during Chris’s illness) that I had pretty much doubled the quantity I was eating.

Anecdote 2 – some people sing a song
Chris’s long walk took place on New Year’s Eve. There seemed no reason to stay up until midnight and so we didn’t. Just before midnight I woke up with a stomach like a washing machine on spin cycle. In the dark I cleared a carrier bag. A few people celebrating midnight started to felicitate each other. Then a call and response song in Swahili caused all other noise to stop. It was a traditional New Year’s song being sung by the porters, it was haunting. It made Auld Lang’s Syne sound like a meaningless dirge penned by a sickly Scottish farm labourer.

End of aside.

And then we reached Stellar Point. The start of the summit plateau at about 5795m. As is British mountaineering tradition we celebrated with a mug of tea (our guide didn’t bring Cow Bell, 150 years ago he’d have been horsewhipped, I just hugged him, which considering the lack of showers on the mountain was probably worse). It was still night and still cold. Altitude had not affected us and we moved on to the highest point, Uhuru Peak at 5895m. Babuu led us and we got to the signpost informing us we were at the top of Africa some 30 minutes later. The sky in the east was just beginning to lighten, red, shepherd’s warning. The sun rises quickly near the equator and soon we could see glaciers and ice walls, reflecting the morning light. It was…fantastic. The day was glorious, stupid shepherds. Challenge complete, year complete.

What to make of this one? I know I have done a feeble job of describing the climb. I can’t really be bothered and this is more to jog my memory than create glorious images in your head. It is one of those things that is great to do but dull to read/hear about. I strongly suggest you do not watch a documentary that might be broadcast this year describing how a load of celebrities climbed Kilimanjaro for Children in Need. If you want to know what it is like just go, if you want to see pictures of the vistas use the internet, if you want to hear someone with nothing to say spout self-important drivel phone me and if you want to see a bunch of fame crazed pop stars throwing up follow them to the toilet after they have eaten at the restaurant du jour.

A lot of people called it life changing. My life has not changed. Others felt terrible at the peak and could not enjoy it. I enjoyed it. Provided you are reasonably fit, adequately agile and want to do it then I fully recommend climbing Kilimanjaro. The only thing that will stop you is the altitude. This is climbing in luxury. Everything is done for you. The only horror is the toilet. A long-drop (incidentally this seems to be a phrase adopted by other languages without translation). If you found one that was ventilated, with a door, with a lock, and had not been used by a tourist with bad aim you had long-drop utopia. But even with the luxury you often find it hard to believe you are actually standing on the side of Kilimanjaro. I suppose it is this realisation, this complete escape from your life - the only news I heard all climb was that Didier Drogba had been fined by Chelsea and that Derby beat Forest Green in the FA Cup - that is most stark. Maybe the opportunity to spend hours thinking leads to life changing conclusions. My only conclusion was something that I already knew but never summed up succinctly. I am the sort of person who spends ages packing and checking kit but not finding out which hemisphere Tanzania is in. I make sure I have lots of anti-bacterial toiletries but don’t care when the co-occupier of my two man tent gives it a peanut and stomach bile carpet. I am (as Chris put it) impeccably anal. Fortunately the stuff outside my head was better than the stuff inside.

Fully covered

Standing in front of the student at Boots, two packets of Imodium and anti-bacterial wetwipes in front of you on the counter. Do you:

(a) explain it is precautionary because you are about to catch a flight to Kilimanjaro; or
(b) let her assume you have overdone it severely at Christmas?

Not yet nervous, I confess not knowing what to expect is causing me some concern. Have I got enough stuff? Have I got too much stuff? Will I be warm enough? Will I overheat when not on the mountain? It's too late now - I leave in 30 minutes.

On the positive side my beard is just about adequate. look at photos of successful mountain climbers of years gone, they almost all have admirable beards. Therefore (QED) all you need to climb a mountain is a beard. I am only hiking up a mountain, which is fortunate because I can only achieve an unkempt and patchy chin covering but I think that will be enough. That and the goretex jacket Edward rushed home for yesterday. There was a bit of concern when it was discovered I was planning on going onto the snowy -10 degrees (-16 with windchill) peak without a coat.

The cost of being polite

It had to happen at some point - a challenge that failed through not even taking part.

I had written two poems that I thought would at least not be considered rubbish. One of them even name checked Ronnie Rosenthal. I had practiced reading them out loud (alone) and almost knew them well enough not to need them written in front of me. I went to the venue to register at 7pm exactly as instructed. I paid £6 to go in and as I walked through to the foyer an announcement was made to queue at a table for registration. Out of politeness I let a few others in front of me in the queue, assuming we would all get to take part. I got to the front of the queue, I was told I was 14th and there were only 12 places. I put my name down as second reserve but it clearly wasn't happening. I had somewhere else I could be so stayed and watched the first couple of people and left.

Manners cost me my chance. If I had not let the woman with purple ribbon in her hair and the man with an artistic goatee in front of me I would be regaling you with a tale of how women were stunned and men swooned at my revolutionary use of a novel variation on iambic pentameter. I am disappointed, of course. That disappointment is tempered by relief. The standard of the people I saw was phenomenal and they did not read from paper. I would have been embarrassed. However, I am going to do this, it will be outside the challenge year but I am going back, this time with them properly memorised.

The only thing we have to fear is poetry

Whilst the order may vary the content of a list of the most common phobias is quite predictable - it's a category I would chose to play on Family Fortunes. I'm confident that spiders, flying, heights, death, open spaces, enclosed spaces, vomit, snakes and water would all be included. The raspberry wouldn't come for a while.

If I have a phobia I am not sure what it is I quite like water, spiders and snakes and have something of a talent for being sick. Spaces of any kind are irrelevant to me. I just accept the others as being part of life (except death which I suppose is not part of life per se but the two things are traditionally closely connected).

Public speaking will be on that list too. Most people get nervous before public speaking, that is not a phobia that is normal. At some point for some people the nerves must get uncontrollable and then it becomes a phobia. I don't now when that is but what I do know that I am metaphorically crapping myself at the thought of tonight's challenge. A poetry slam. Standing up in front of a group of strangers, performing a poem I have written and then being judged on that poem and performance. It's beyond public speaking. Nobody has ever scored one of my speeches. Also I'd be a lot happier if I thought my poems were any good and if I had ever seen or heard a slam poem before.

Part of me is hoping that I will be too late to register (you can only sign up on the evening), part of me is thinking about just not bothering, part of me is saying this is the point of the challenge year get on with it. I have to answer a crucial question, what is worse - the fear of the challenge, the fear of failure or the fear of not trying?

The Money Shot

What do (approximately) 4,000 people attempt, 1,400 achieve and 100 die doing each year?

What do I have in common with Gary Barlow, Ronan Keating, Alesha Dixon, Chris Moyles and a few other "celebs" that I can't be bothered to remember?

What was the main character doing that led to his death in a short story by Earnest Hemingway that I read years ago and made this an ambition of mine?

What challenge is going to see the culmination of this year?

Answer to all 4: Climbing Kilimanjaro (in the case of the celebs put "planning on" before the answer, otherwise it just doesn't make sense).

If all goes well I will be standing on the roof of Africa on my 31st birthday, if it doesn't I will have spent a lot of money on a wasted trip. And possibly be dead. And, even worse, face the rest of my life knowing that Chris Moyles (potentially) has achieved something I couldn't. I'm thinking bear traps might be the answer. Even if I don't get Moyles I might manage to take out enough people to stop a couple of reality shows next year.