Okay. There’s a good reason why I haven’t blogged until now. Being New Year, I decided I’d do something about getting ROADS TO MOSCOW published.

Yesterday was a strange one.

Okay. First thing first. What with the social disruptions of the holiday season, I totally lost touch with what precise day it was. Today’s Wednesday. Which means I’ve gained a day (in my head) because I thought that yesterday was Wednesday. Of course, I only had to click on the little icon to the bottom right hand side of my screen and it would have told me, but…

Arsenal  simply threw it away last night. A goal up with four minutes to go and they lost 2-1! You cannot imagine how disappointed I was. But Ritchie – who came round after the game - was good company, and a few drinks later I didn’t feel quite so irritated.

These first days of January always feel like ‘lost’ days to me. After the festivities, energy levels are low, and it’s hard getting back into the mood of things. Even so, this is generally the time of year when I launch out on new projects, begin new books and generally set the agenda for the rest of the year.

Okay. New Year’s Resolutions and all that. Promises to oneself. Promises we don’t generally manage to keep. Mine this year? To post a blog – however small – every day this year, charting what happens with the re-issue, oh, and a few other matters besides.

What was the most important thing that happened in China this year? The high-speed rail crash and its on-line consequences? Or maybe it’s the slowing down of China’s globalized economy? Or what about Hu Jintao’s speech to his navy chiefs, telling them to “prepare for war”?

It’s Tuesday the twenty seventh and I’ve just emerged from the Christmas festivities here. Mum’s gone home, after being here three days, and the girls have gone to the sales, leaving me alone in the house for the first time in almost a week.

We woke, this morning, to find that our garden wall – the right hand part of it, which we share with our neighbor, Brian - had come down in the night. Now we know it wasn’t the sturdiest of walls, and there was a very strong wind blowing from the Atlantic last night, but… twenty feet of strong brick wall has been spread across our garden, half covering it.

Today’s blog is going to be a long one, and a ‘bitty’ one. I’ve a lot of things running round in my head, so I’ll just tackle them one by one and see what emerges.