It’s hard to believe that 2013 is behind us already and here we are welcoming in 2014. It only feels like last week that I wrote my recap of 2013 https://anounceofmedotcom.wordpress.com/2012/12/31/farewell-2012)

As I started to fill out my 2014 calendar yesterday, that is how rock and roll my New Years Eve is these days, I felt that at least a few months had vanished from my memory, that the year had flown by and that we had been cheated out of a few weeks here and there somehow.

2013 has been a funny old year. It provided us with a pretty decent summer with temperatures staying hot for a number of weeks and not just for a Friday morning like the dismal summer of 2012. Still, we Brits aren’t used to warm weather, as Andy Murray experienced in the Wimbledon Final when the roof was closed to ward off ‘evil sun glare’ and nearly put him off his game. In fact the highlight of the final for me was not just his historic victory, but seeing the nice but dull tennis star get a bit cross about the roof, that and Gerard Butler with Bradley Cooper decked out in pastels looking a bit tipsy in the crowd.

Miley Cyrus made an effort to make power tools more alluring and ‘treated’ us all to the introduction of twerking. I will admit to finding the whole tongue thing she does a bit offensive but can we really be so shocked by her actions at the MTV awards when the biggest selling song of the year was the worryingly titled song ‘Blurred Lines’ complete with a video featuring clothed men alongside fairly nude women and bizarrely a goat. The whole act between Robin Thicke looking like a predator in his Beetlejuice suit and Miss Cyrus looking like an awkward teenager acting sexy with a foam finger was just odd beyond words and I thought Billy Ray’s mullet was the worst thing to be associated with the name Cyrus.

The horse meat scandal was big news in 2013. You can read my versions of events at: https://anounceofmedotcom.wordpress.com/2013/02/19/make-mine-a-veggie-burger-please. But in short, the big shops all pretended to be shocked when somehow it was revealed that cheap meat products contained traces of Dobbin. Despite the fact that the meat in question was a multipack of burgers for £1.50, the British public were shocked that prime cuts of beef were not used in such products. I’m not a meat eater but my children and hubby are and I have always been a bit of a meat snob on their behalf. I grew up as a teenager with the threat of Mad Cows Disease lurking in our burgers and I have a strict vegetarian mother who allowed us to eat meat as long as the animal had been given a good quality of life, decided upon its choice of death and funeral preparations before making it to our plates. We are told that the scandal is behind us and that horse meat is no longer used, just make sure you read the labels carefully in future as a majority of our foods are pre-packaged in Europe where horse is openly on the menu. If the ingredients say ‘meat’ you might want to swerve it for a clearer definition.

There was a fair share of tragic news stories this year. The barbaric slaughter of Lee Rigby on the streets of London demonstrated extremes of human behaviour, from the bloodied sight of the slayers talking to passerbys while brandishing their weapons, to the heroic members of the public who either filmed the events from their phones or tried in vain to help and comfort the poor victim. Other appalling acts of terrorism were seen in Nariobi, Syria and Boston. And Kim Jong-un continued his reign of fear.

The Iron Lady Maggie Thatcher was treated to a state funeral raising questions of whether George Osborne could perhaps be a long-lost son as he blubbed through proceedings, more so than her actual family members. Opinions were divided over whether to feel a loss at her passing, some people heralded an exceptional leader while others enabled the song ‘Ding Dong the Witch is Dead’ to reach Number 2 in the charts. More recently, Nelson Mandela made his voyage to the world beyond. He was a legendary statesman with a catchy freedom song, the world mourned his loss and a fake sign language ‘expert’ showed poor taste while doing his own version of Agadoo at Mandela’s memorial.

There was two weeks of excruciating media coverage outside the doors of the baby hospital where Prince George was to be born, bored news crews filled air time with talk of what Kate would be wearing and if Wills would change a nappy when finally a flawless looking royal couple emerged with the privileged tot. Still, at least George is a traditional name for the royal offspring. Elsewhere in celeb land, there was a competition on for the silliest name for 2013 newborns. Kanye West and Kim Kardashian named their daughter North, Wayne and Colleen Rooney tested their spelling ability with the naming of their son Klay, but my particular favourite is Oscar-winning actress Kate Winslet, whose new husband actually changed his name by deed poll from Abel Smith to Ned Rocknroll and named their son Bear.

Other not so hard-hitting news stories included Cheryl Coles bottom looking set to enter the Chelsea Flower Show next year with its extreme rose tattoo. Justin Bieber pretty much acting like a spoilt brat wherever he went from storming off stage in Brazil when a fan threw a water bottle at him, to showing bad taste with writing in the guest book at the Anne Frank’s museum in Holland that ‘hopefully she would have been a Beilieber’, he has since suggested he will retire at the grand old age of 19.

In my recap of 2012 I predicted that Tulisa would be glad to see the back of that year, in fact, she hasn’t had a great 2013 either. However, I think poor Nigella will be breathing a sigh of relief this morning at a hopeful new start to her new year. In 2013, we saw photographs of her husband appearing to strangle her outside a London restaurant, to her staff rifling through her handbag and outing her alleged drug use, it will be interesting to see if her soft focused cooking shows will see a return to our screens in 2014.

Who knows what 2014 will hold in store. Will Simon Cowell’s baby inherit his Lego hair? Will the England football team manage in the heat of the Brazil World Cup? Will Cheryl Cole have some sort of topiary tattooed across her face? All we can do is strap ourselves in and enjoy the ride. Happy New Year!