A tough year, no doubt. The recession that was “over” started to roll in and my guess is next year it will bite even harder. We are being warned, but maybe we aren't listening. Or simply feel helpless in the face of more layoffs, tighter budgets and fewer opportunities.
It was a good year if you were in the “news” game: stuff just kept happening – and when it didn't you could just make it up. Were we as a nation really so exercised about a new flag back in February, or did the Herald just whip that one up on a slow day? And whatever became of that pressing issue?
Was the nation as gripped by the search for Carmen which commanded day after day of headlines and bulletins, or was that just another emotionally-driven space-filler?
Fortunately we always have weather in the place of real news (rains, floods or droughts, take your pick), or can fall back on the street entertainers (this year's contenders Michael Laws, Chris Carter, Paul Henry, Pam Corkery) who are guaranteed to say something, even if it is just any old thing, and get on the “news”.
It was a year when every process was “robust” (increasingly the buzz word of the evasive) and people were “devastated”. Some – those in Christchurch, miners' families and so on – had good reason to be so devastated. Others very little. But it was a word used on a nightly basis.
Frankly my quote of the year came from an ordinary citizen who summed up so much of the “news”.
It came after the media stalked David Tamihere. One woman, a neighbour of the family to whose house he had gone, said to the Herald she now at least had something to talk to her husband about over the dinner table.
Sort of puts “news” into perspective, huh?
And "news" like that which really grabbed your attention this year?
Have a great, safe and enjoyable holiday season.
If you are curious I have posted my top 30 albums of the year at Elsewhere here. And I'm guessing there will be a goodly number you haven't heard of.
It isn't news, but may give you something to talk about over the dinner table.