2010: Escaped miners, earthquakes, extreme weather and exciting sport.

2011 is already a month old and with time rushing past us like there’s no tomorrow I thought it would be a good opportunity to take stock and reflect on 2010.

2010 has been a year of mixed fortunes, with businesses slowly climbing out of the financial recession whilst Chilean miners were rescued from a mine after being trapped for an overwhelming two months. However, extreme weather has hit many countries hard, with Pakistan and Central Europe experiencing severe flooding, whereas natural hazards such as earthquakes have devastated Indonesia and Haiti.

The weather throughout last year could be described with a various selection of words. Ones I would choose would be bizarre, unpredictable, comprehensive and possibly the most significant word, lethal.
The year started off with the tremendous earthquake in Haiti back in January, killing over 250,000 people and another 4 million have been affected in some form or another. $11.5 billion is what the Haitian government believe it will cost to repair the country over the next three years, and a year after the earthquake the country, and more so it’s capital Port-au-Prince, is struggling massively to recover.

Earthquakes continued to threaten throughout 2010, with one occurring off the coast of Chile back in February recorded as one of the largest in history. Furthermore, in October a similar earthquake happened near Indonesia, which resulted in a tsunami killing around 400 people and leaving many more reportedly missing. In total, earthquakes all the way through 2010 caused over a quarter of a million of fatalities, with the Haitian disaster being recorded as one of the deadliest in history.

Moving on to more bizarre incidents, who would of thought that a volcanic eruption could halt the majority of Europe’s air traffic? You would think the Icelandic volcano, named Eyjafjallajökull, would be more at home in a pronunciation competition, and not doing British Airways’ job for them by ruining people’s holidays. European airspace was closed for a few days across April and May, due to the volcanic ash that the volcano threw up, causing it to spread across much of mainland Europe. It was estimated that the airline industry lost as much as £130 million each day airspace was closed, and around 5 million passengers were left stranded in airports across the continent.

Sport also achieved great recognition last year, due to many individual and team achievements. Spain for example consolidated their Euro 2008 triumph by winning the football World Cup in South Africa last summer, defeating The Netherlands 1-0 in the final. Rafael Nadal was another name on everyone’s lips as he came back from injury to win three Grand Slams over three different surfaces. Europe reclaimed the Ryder Cup back from the grasp of the USA, whilst Delhi hosted the Commonwealth Games, with Australia topping the medals table, and England coming a respectable third. 2010 also saw the start of England’s successful campaign to win the Ashes down under for the first time in 24 years, and the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver were considered a triumph, and had the largest viewing audience since Lillehammer in 1994.

2010 has seen one of the most remarkable stories of recent times. The Copiapó mining accident in Chile was a story that not only gripped Chilean hearts, but had the attention of the world over. 33 men were trapped over 2,000 feet below the surface of the Earth, and survived for over 2 months while operations above ground attempted to retrieve them. The whole ordeal lasted from the 5th August to the 13th October, when the last miner was safely brought up the shaft, to rapturous applause from the audience surrounding the hole. Overall, the rescue operation cost around $20 million, and an estimated 1 billion people watched it on television. In the aftermath of the incident all of the miners have experienced celebrity status and were invited to watch a Manchester United match at Old Trafford.

So 2010 has provided some major disasters but also incidents that have shaped themselves into fairytales. Who knows what 2011 will bring, but we all know that it will bring many gripping stories in some form or another.

Resolutions: remissions or rejuvenations?

So, we’ve begun another year and while many were severely intoxicated when they went into 2011, another practice that many people perform at the start of the year is to make resolutions.

While we hardly ever reach the targets we set ourselves, with research proving we only achieve 12% of our goals, a lot of us always strive to make objectives year in year out. With the history of resolutions stretching back two thousand years, not long after the Romans created the modern day calendar, that is a lot of ambitions not being fulfilled. Sometimes I do wonder why we keep saying we’re going to exercise more or save more money, when if it clearly hasn’t happened for the past 4 years, why would this year be any different? That’s why I think resolutions can be seen in two ways. Either acceptance that something needs changing but one that ultimately won’t, or a statement of intent where you’re genuinely determined to succeed.

I think the reason why we almost always fail with our resolutions is that most of the time they are about things that we’d like to change about ourselves, but we aren’t that bothered if it doesn’t happen. Things like losing weight and quitting smoking are traditionally the most common resolutions, but at the same time also the ones where people fall short with the most. Maybe we cast these sorts of aims because we feel we have to as it’s the New Year, however at the end of the day we don’t really have the spirit to follow through with them.

Or maybe there isn’t anything actually that wrong with the dull targets we give to ourselves. I mean, what is really wrong with not going walking in the countryside enough? Or drinking a little too much alcohol on the weekends? Or maybe even wasting a bit too much time on Facebook? Okay, so maybe we’d like to change these aspects about ourselves, but at the same time people who commit such acts are perfectly happy doing them all the same. Maybe you’ll never shift that muffin top off your hips, and ultimately break your resolution, but at least you’ll be happy doing other things that put a smile on your face, equally as much as having the perfect body would.

However, if we didn’t use the most obvious resolutions to try and improve ourselves, what ones would we use? I suggest some of us should try and break the mould and think of some inventive and slightly strange New Years resolutions. Personally, I’ve always fancied eating a whole packet of Bourbon Creams each day of the year, or taking up the old fashioned sport of dinosaur hunting. Who knows, there might be people who’ve chosen this year to start collecting cigarette butts or learn how to gut a fish. Although a lot of these proposals seem extremely farfetched, they certainly steer well clear of the mundane and boring ambitions we usually churn out.

Turning vegetarian would be an interesting one, or an aim to claim your 15 minutes of fame that everyone is thought to get. However, whatever your resolution is, maybe add an extra resolution to stick to the resolutions you’ve already made. However, if you break that then I’m not too sure what to suggest. If you haven’t even made a resolution yet but are considering one, then perhaps make it a bit strange, the fact it’s unusual may spur you on to keep to it! What we all need is a bit of drive behind our resolutions, not to make them when they’re clouded in an air of resignation. This isn’t the case for everyone, but it would probably mean more resolutions would join the 12% that are kept to throughout the year.

Me? Well I gave up making resolutions a long time ago, after not getting through January with most of them. Today, my only resolution is to not make resolutions anymore, and if I’m honest I’m pretty confident I’ll stick to it.