Anders Hanson

A posting on The Yorksher Gob blog (which I only discovered yesterday thanks to the Campaign for Gender Balance Blog Awards), has made me realise I use another bit of Yorkshire dialect without realising it.

The Yorkshire Gob mentions in the footnote to one posting about the word ’stood’:

stood is a perfectly valid Yorkshire dialect particple of the verb to stand. I would like to see it adopted countrywide over the much more unwieldy standing, but a bit of a forlorn hope.

Well I use “stood” in the same context, and it had never really occured to me that it was gramatically incorrect, and I would consider myself to be someone who largely uses English properly (except when I am writing blog entries quickly and don’t check them properly afterwards).

I can now add “stood” (in the present tense) to words like “pot” (to mean a plaster cast on your arm or leg), “mardy” (to mean someone who is being a bit sulky and angry), “nesh” (to mean a bit feeble and weak - often as a criticism of someone if they are complaining about the weather), “while” (to mean ‘to’, as in ‘we’re open 9 while 5′) and “gennel” (to mean an alleyway), as words that I have always used but that I had never realised were Sheffield dialect until someone pointed it out. I did find out about some of them when I went to university and people didn’t have a clue what I was talking about when I said that someone had a ‘pot on their leg’.

As someone who doesn’t have much of an accent, (although some Southern friends of mine would disagree), I like the fact that I do use some local words. It does at least connect me with my roots and where I grew up.

A year ago I did my review of the best and worst of 2007, but not until the 29th of January. So doing it on the 14th of January is a significant improvement, although it still isn’t exactly timely. So once again, here are a few pointers to last year based on the things that mean the most to me, with some of the same categories as last time, but some different ones to reflect the different year I’ve had.

The best fiction I read in 2007

The best fiction was without a doubt Jake Arnott’s The Long Firm. This is a crime thriller about gangsters in the East End. It feels realistic (although how I would ever know that I don’t know), it is cleverly put together with an unusual way of writing and it keeps you hooked. The best marker for a book is if you want to keep reading everytime you put it down to find out what happens next. This book did.

The best political book I read in 2007

I am not sure if this is political exactly, but politics is about people and so I suppose in that sense it is. The books is Welcome to Everytown by Julian Baggini. The book gave an interesting, although at times predictable, overview of what life is like in the most typical postcode in the country - S66. Despite the predictability of some of it, and the fact that Julian Baggini lives clearly apart from the ‘typical’ Briton in his normal life, it was interesting in the way that it explained some of the paradoxes of life and why people do the things they do. Well worth a read, particularly if you know the sorts of areas that he was living in.

The best single of 2007

There are two that stand out for me. The first is Rehab by Amy Winehouse. It seems slightly dated already, given everything that has happened to her in the last year, but she is still a brilliant singer, songwriter and this song was one of the rare ones that I fell in love with instantly. The other one is Let Me Know by Róisín Murphy, which is a catchy pop tune, has a retro feel, but is not in the least bit cheesey. Someone that I hope, particularly after seeing her perform live, will go on to great things in 2008.

The best album of 2007

Amy MacDonald was a singer I had never even heard of at the start of the year, but her album This is the Life is the album that I listen to over and over again this year. She’s not just typical singer-songwriter, she isn’t your mockney female soloist that we’ve had loads of, she is a feisty Glaswegian who writes some beautiful songs but with at times quite tough lyrics. She also performs brilliantly live.

The best thing I’ve bought in 2007

As is probably clear from this website, I listen to a lot of music. So in a way it a surprise that I didn’t own an iPod until late in the year. I couldn’t afford to buy a new one and so when a friend replaced his, I bought his from him and it has transformed my music listening. I listen to far more music now than before, in more places and I listen to more of a variety than I did. The fact that something so small can contain over 3,000 tracks is amazing really, when my CD collection used to take up so much room. I spent so little on it, and it has made such a difference that buying the iPod was without question the best buy of the year.

The best political moment of 2007

This is actually a difficult one as much of what I do politically is fairly run of the mill and mundane, and of the highs it is difficult to pick one over the other. So here is a selection of three.

The first is the local elections in Sheffield where the Lib Dems managed to gain four seats, (three from Labour and one from the Conservatives), all of which were great for different reasons. All of the seats we gained had candidates that were both competent and lovely people. Some were people who have tried to get elected before and failed and so it was great to see them elected at last.

The second is the Sedgefield by-election where the Lib Dems moved from third to second place. Not so much for the result, although it was very satisfying, but for the great camaraderie. Rather than simply being run by the national campaigns department, this was a by-election that was essentially run by the party’s constituency staff from the North of England, Midlands and Scotland. Everyone worked incredibly hard, had a lot of fun and got a good result at the end.

The third is Nick Clegg being elected as Leader of the Liberal Democrats. As the result was announced I felt more a sense of relief than one of celebration. But I suppose what makes it particularly enjoyable for me is to see how much things have changed in my time as a member. I first met Nick in 1999 on a very wet day, in a particularly damp barn near Wigston when I was a party activist who had gone to label European Election freeposts and he was the top candidate on the list. Now, nine years later I work for him as Constituency Organiser in the seat that I grew up in and he is both the MP and party leader.

The best place I’ve been in 2007

I have been to a lot of places in the last year that I’ve enjoyed - Padstow, Inverness, Southwold, Mevagissey, London, Aberystwyth, Cardiff to name just a few. But I think the one that has been particularly enjoyable was on my holiday to Cornwall, and that was going out on with friends on a boat that belongs to the father of one of those friends. We went from the jetty at Trelissick around Carrick Roads, Restronguet Point before being dropped off at the harbour in Falmouth. A very enjoyable day in a nice place and with some great friends.

The most surprising thing I’ve done in 2007

Two things. One was to learn about whisky by doing two tutored nosings on my holiday to Scotland in July. I went away with friends who were very in to their whisky and wanted to do two very different short courses on whisky - one at Aberlour and another at Macallan. I enjoyed both and much to my surprise I can now appreciate whisky more and have an opinion on which ones I like.

The other surprise was applying for the job of Chief Executive of the Welsh Liberal Democrats. It isn’t something I had expected to do, but it is the most enthused and fired up I have ever been for a job application. Although I didn’t get the job, I was very pleased to be in the final two and I know that Jo Foster who did get the job will be excellent.

The best thing I’ve done in 2007

This is a difficult one, but I think it has to be moving out of my parents’ house in Crosspool and in to a flat in the city centre. The flat might belong to a friend and I may just be the lodger, but after having lived with my Mum and Dad for two years it has made a big difference to me.

The worst thing I’ve done in 2007

Had another year where I have failed in my love life, and made a mess of any potential relationships I could have had.  All together now… aaaah!

A year ago I did a posting on how the last year had been since I had re-started blogging. The prompt being that I reached the landmark of 3,000 views at New Year itself. So I thought I should probably do an equivalent one this New Year as it’s been quite an interesting year to have a blog.

In the last year I have had 13,800 views - which sounds really impressive to me, but I imagine it is nothing compared to many of the other Lib Dem blogs that are around. This compares to around 3,000 in 2006 when I had only had the blog for half the year - which means that the number of views has roughly doubled. I promised then that I would start writing more regularly, and I have, but it has still been fairly inconsistent depending on how busy I am in the rest of my life at the time. As you can see from the graph, July and August saw a huge collapse in views as I spent my time on holiday, at by-elections or generally spending time outside and not in front of a computer.

What has surprised me though is what people read about. By far the most viewed posting was the one I did on the fire at Gatecrasher nightclub, which had 555 views. It’s typical. I set up this website so I could get off my chest a lot of the stuff I want to say about politics, and yet the most popular article by far is one about a fire near my flat. Although I was surprised to find that one of my postings was in the top ten postings of the year on Lib Dem blogs, which was when I made my complaint about Chris Huhne’s leadership campaign. I don’t do this just for the praise or the popularity, but I can’t help but feel flattered every time I appear in one of the list or on Stephen Tall’s best of the blogs lists.

More interesting though, and slightly surreal, is seeing what search terms people have put in to find my website. Most of them make sense, with top ones being Gatecrasher fire, Tinsley Cooling Towers, Brian Paddick, Sheffield road layouts, Donnachadh McCarthy, Nick Clegg, Five Weirs Walk, Doug Haw, Midland Mainline/East Midlands Trains, all things I have written about. But can anyone explain how a few people have found the site by searching “nothing fills a whole like a double decker”? It is something that I can’t remember ever having written, and the fact that I have found it twice, makes me wonder how many other people have used that search term on days when I haven’t looked at the stats.

Whilst I enjoy writing this website, and intend continuing with it for as long as I can. I can’t help but feel that writing a blog is unbelievably arrogant and self-satisfying. It’s a bit like vanity publishing. No one would pay money to read what I write, and no one has elected or appointed me to be an authority of any sort. And yet here I am writing away at a computer hoping that someone will read it and think that what I have to say is somehow interesting. And yet, people do read it and seem to enjoy it, which makes it even odder that I get slightly embarassed when I meet someone who says they have read my blog or keep up to date with what I am doing by reading it.

So here’s to 2008. I made a New Year resolution a year ago to write more regularly, and more on things that weren’t political. Well I did write more, but I do need to be more consistent, but I didn’t write less on politics. I might have to give up on the idea that it could be anything else other than a political website. But I do plan a bit of a revamp sometime soon, and want to try and change the way I use the website a bit, so who knows what may happen in the coming year.

Unbelievably I managed to do nothing political between Christmas and New Year at all. It must be a first, but probably also because I spent Christmas with my parents and then had only two days free before I had a friend to stay and then I was away for New Year. So I had no time for anything else. Mind you, it fits in well with my New Year’s resolution to spend less time at work and more time doing the things I enjoy.

The highlight of the period was spending New Year in Mevagissey. The last few New Years have been fairly dire, and so this year I was determined to do something better. Fortunately so were four of my friends and so it worked out really well. We ended up booking a cottage in Mevagissey in Cornwall and spent a few days eating, drinking, watching DVDs (I can highly recommend Goodbye Lenin), trips out and having one of my friends being mistaken for a German when he was speaking in Welsh on the phone.

At New Year itself, Mevagissey goes in for fancy dress. Actually, it seems to be a tradition that much of Cornwall goes in for. As well as many pirates, priests and gangsters, we also had the joy of Borat - perhaps less of a joy for Paul who had him stood in front of him for much of the night - and three tubes of toothpaste. Now you would think that if you dressed up as a tube of Colgate toothpaste you would be fairly sure of being the one doing it, but not in Mevagissey. One tube of toothpaste we spoke to had even travelled down from Stockport to do it. It was a great night, with a few fireworks over the harbour after midnight - a magical place for New Year, and pretty much up there as one of the best places I have spent New Year competing with my trip from a few years ago when I spent it in front of York Minster just as it started to snow.

A great end to a mixed year, but at the start of what I hope should be an enjoyable year.

After my last posting about being an atheist, you would probably expect me to be fairly ambivalent about Christmas. But I am not at all, I love it, and it’s all down to some intangible nice feeling that I get because of all the trappings that come with the time of year.

I like Christmas carols, (as long as they are being played at Christmas and not weeks beforehand in shops), I like turkey dinners, I like Christmas pudding, I like Christmas presents (it’s not just because it’s a gift, although that is nice, it’s the excitement of opening the wrapping paper to discover what’s inside), I like Christmas trees (proper ones, that have come from a real forest and smell as a Christmas tree should and not of plastic), and other decorations, and I even like nativity scenes. I suppose much of what I’ve described is not particularly about religion, but I even like some of the religious side of it. You can’t really object, it is a religious festival after all, but just because I am a non-believer it doesn’t stop me from just liking the atmosphere and the Christian tradition that we celebrate at this time of year. I suppose it is because, to use Richard Dawkins’ now infamous phrase, I am a cultural Christian. I grew up in a Christian country, in a generally Christian family, and so I like much of the tradition that comes with that.

But the other thing that I find at Christmas is that I somehow also feel more Swedish at this time of year. Christmas is the one time of year when what I do is a complete mixture of my English and Swedish background and that has affected the way I have celebrated it, such as the carols we listen to and the way we decorate the house. It is also because I associate Christmas with St Lucy (or Sankta Lucia in Sweden), which is actually a festival on the 13th of December, but in Sweden it often gets tied in to all the preparations for Christmas itself. I think it is all down to a feeling that Christmas in Sweden is a lot more old-fashioned and less commercial than it is in this country. That is probably misguided, as I haven’t been in Sweden at Christmas since I was a small child, but I like to cling on to that belief.

Writing this entry I have realised why it is that I like Christmas so much. It is the pleasant old-fashioned nostalgia that it brings and thoughts of spending time with my relatives (most of whom are unfortunately no longer around). It reminds me of what we all probably like to think of as a more innocent time when we were children and when Christmas was not all about shopping and spending money.