New Earth, new me...

Well, ok, not really New Earth, just a new year. And ok, not really a new me, either. Just the same me from last year, with a few more wrinkles. Actually, on the subject of wrinkles, I did notice a new one on my forehead last week that has been created by the arch of my left eyebrow. I even have sarcastic wrinkles. I will get around to posting visual proof, as I am now the owner of a mobile phone which does that sort of thing.

For further proof that I am slowly losing my Luddite tendencies, today I worked out how to photocopy on our printer, which means I am now flushed with a sense of power, and able to provide worksheets a-plenty to my eager children.

Armed with these new technological abilities, and an eyebrow that can scorn at twenty paces, I have a few plans for the year. Not world domination, you'll be pleased to hear, though my dislike for the current James Bond has turned me into a cartoon baddie in my imagination.

No, this year, I am going to learn to drive. I'm giving you all advance notice, because of my concern for public safety. Frankly, I'm somewhat terrified, but excited enough by the possibilities to overcome that. Actually getting to the women's meeting at church is going to be a real possibility before 2010 arrives.

I'm also going to try and iron out exactly what I believe regarding the 'end times', which isn't putting much of a drain on technology, because I'm using the terribly old-fashioned medium of real books. I know. You're shocked.

This is largely because I'm trying to simplify my head. I appreciate that filling it with lots of information about eschatology might not seem the most straightforward way to simplify, but really, it is. I have a tendency to immerse myself in the things which interest me, which can be really rather unhelpful.

At the moment, I'm having to completely pull back from my interest in current affairs. The media is about to convulse with squealing joy over Obama, and I don't have any anti emetics in the house to combat the effects, and the daily headlines seem to be one endless stream of misery.

I have children to educate and a house to maintain - I don't have the spare headroom to be trying to process all that mess as well. I don't even really have time to blog it out, so I'm afraid you probably won't see a lot of it on here. What you probably will see is my attempts to wrestle with eschatology, and my quest to generally simplify in all sorts of areas that are just crammed to the gills right now.

I'm going to steer clear of polemics that I just don't have the stomach for anymore. Englishmusings probably isn't going to become the homey sort of blog that I enjoy reading, but don't write. I'm still opinionated, after all. I might put a few bits of my fiction in amongst everything, who knows. You'll just have to wait and see.

Maybe it is 'new me' after all. :-)

teenDoc

If you listening carefully, you can hear the sound of plaintive wailing. I'll probably stop eventually. For now, I can't quite get past Doctor Who becoming Doctor Who Junior, with a leading man who looks like a square-jawed emo teenager just like so many other leads in fantasy sci-fi.

I'm hopeful it won't become Smallville/Buffy/Whatever, and that the new management know what they're doing, and haven't been swayed by focus-group demographics. But oh, gracious me, he looks seventeen, and with as much authority as a drama major reading his own florid poetry.

I'll give him a chance, of course I will. I'm trying to be optimistic, really I am. I'll be quite happy to announce my concerns were groundless, and he's a wonderful Doctor. But the precipice that is Colin Baker yawns open before me...

It'll be fine. Really.

...plaintive wailing resumes...