Goodbye Annus Horribilis

Although world famous blogspot Papasgotabrandnewblog follows the Chinese New Year tradition with more interest than the Roman calendar, midnight on December 31st is still a good date to chase out the ghosts, turn over those new leaves, and reflect on the last 12 months. In terms of news, the first "scoop" of the year "Blog Editor to Sack Himself" wasn't even true but still managed to clock up a healthy 17 comments. This out-did the number for an original photo of a captive cheetah from Wellington Zoo which managed a measly 2 comments. Funnily enough, this is the same number as the epic photo piece "A Family Affair" (March) and the PGABNB endorsement of Naturally Fresh Deodorant Crystal (May. Obviously, the year was dominated by The Royal Wedding (April thru July) and a number of new arrivals in the shape of Amelie, Isla & Pixie (although despite the coverage these and other youngsters received they haven't repaid it with a single comment!). 2011 was definitely video year: Joe C set the ball rolling back in February, followed by Experiment SH1310 in March & Bristol based artist Colin H in June. Further videos made the Papasgotabrandnewblog pages in July/August in the shape of The Wedding We'll Never See by up and coming New Zealand outfit the Hope Higgies, and the Danny & the Uncles White Wedding (Watch Out!) video single, both Royal Wedding tributes. Another 3 videos; Freight Train Demo - in August - Kat Eyes and Diamonds - in September all by experimental musician Experiment SH1310, failed to capture the public's attention amassing an embarrassing 9 comments in total. Arguably the most shocking story of the year was Bristol Toddler Exchanges New Sister For Gorilla Spiderman, a saga that kept the public enthralled during the latter days of the British summer. As always there were a lot of birthdays which were generally celebrated on the corresponding date despite the occasional editorial hiccup. The Seven Year's Hitched anniversary post with original prose was deemed uncommentworthy by the majority of the PGABNB readership with only 5 comments including a rather nasty one from, we suspect, a Mr Pepe Idontkerr, a notorious old-school school teacher in the Barrow-in-Furness region who delights in bullying his pupils (so much so that he is reported to be cross-eyed). The most depressing point of the year for the PGABNB team was the lack of comments on September's One of those days post. The call for musical relief and enlightenment pulled in a solitary comment (obviously coming from full time comment writer Ms Bird from Bristol who constantly keeps the comment flag flying). The Papasgotabrandnewblog editor was particularly cut up by November's Blog Edit Knifed report, not in the least because it should have read Blog Editor Knifed but you just can't find decent staff these days. All in all, from a blog point of view this was a bit of an Annus Horribilis (especially for comments) and we are quite happy to see the back of it. Furthermore, to end on a low point, Papasgotabrandnewblog didn't hit the 10,000 hit mark. However, looking on the bright side, there's still the chance of getting there before the Chinese New Year which starts on Jan 23rd. Get those fingers clicking!! You can begin now by voting for post of the year! This post is accompanied by a not-quite-finished-yet, never-seen-before, nonsense experimental video project called LightseekerZ