2025 roundup

Well, another calendar year has gone by. Before I get into the commentary of the highs and lows of 2025, first some statistics. In 2025, I wrote 173 blogs (including this one); 2024 was the all time high with 182 blogs, and in third place is 2013 with 137 blogs. 

Position	Tag	Count	Previous position	All time position
1	Programming	25	1	1
2	Prolog	18	75	43
3	Obituary	14	7	7
4	Health	12	12	5
5	Holiday	12	5	3
6	Italy	12	6	9
7	Personal	12	2	4
8	CoPilot	11	59	73
9	Israel	11	8	8
10	Rapallo	11	-	82
11	Musical group	9	14	33
12	Delphi	8	3	6
13	Pedal board	8	9	57
14	Computers	7	10	15
15	Police procedurals	7	37	21
16	Grandfather	6	23	37
17	Non-fiction books	6	36	34
18	Guitars	5	11	23
19	Headphones	5	64	54
20	Mobile phone	5	-	30
21	Song writing	5	15	11
22	Swimming	5	18	35
23	Tom Clancy	5	85	85
24	Army service	4	-	108
25	CPAP	4	22	22
26	Nick Drake	4	-	91
27	BCC	3	41	79
28	Blog manager program	3	4	38
29	Cooking	3	21	10
30	Films	3	45	19
31	Home recording	3	25	45
32	Meta-blogging	3	20	29
33	Randy Newman	3	-	51
34	Slow cooker	3	51	63
35	T. A. Williams	3	-	221
36	Youtube	3	54	122

What can I say about this year? Some good things:

• Obviously the return of (almost) all the hostages held in Gaza and the cessation of the war.
• The birth of my fourth grandchild, my first grandson.
• A very enjoyable holiday in Rapallo.
• One very successful performance of the musical group and one reasonably successful show.
• Writing a Prolog interpreter, even if some of the work is very tedious and frustrating.
• My swimming - especially towards the end of the season - improved.
• Losing weight, although I can't get below 83 kg.

Some bad things

• The death of my brother in law
• The Israeli government. These days I try to watch the television news as little as possible as most of the items are very annoying.
• The (temporary?) loss of my XP computer that serves both as my Delphi development machine and my music studio. The Delphi work has been continued in a virtual computer, but this is far from perfect. 
• Even without the loss of my music studio, my songwriting ground to a halt. I completed three songs at the beginning of the year; a fourth song has music but no words, and I can't even hear it now as it is only on the XP computer. One day I will get access to the hard disks and so I can listen to the song and even record vocals if I had some words.
• Not being able to find a MIDI sequencer that meets my needs. The sequencer on the XP computer is no longer being sold and in any case was not updated to Windows 10.
• Breaking several guitar strings.
• Being ripped off by Guest Reservations. It galls me to see their adverts on YouTube.
• The SCC that was removed by Mohs surgery has left part of my ear and jaw numb/paralysed. Nerves in that area were cut and I don't know whether they'll ever grow back. There is no scar, though.
• Many pre-rain migraines. I'm going to have to see my GP about this although I don't know what she can do.

As one can see, I'm very much a half-empty cup person. The one thing that keeps me going is that I am going to retire in another seven months, and then I can do what I like with my time. Obviously, I'll keep on doing a great deal of what I'm doing now, but at least I won't have to deal with semi-incompetents.

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
999	31/12/2016	Farewell 2016 - a summary of the year from my idiosyncratic viewpoint	DBA, Health, Personal, Obituary, Song writing, Theanine
1102	31/12/2017	End of an era	TV series
1192	31/12/2018	Love is all you need (film)	Films, Sorrento, Italy
1569	31/12/2022	Gaslit, Watergate ... and more ranting about Israel's new government	TV series, Israel
1700	31/12/2023	1700 blogs	Meta-blogging
1882	31/12/2024	2024 Roundup	Personal, Meta-blogging