Robert Hampton

What a year 2010 was! It had twelve months, each consisting of at least 28 days. On some of those days I made blog entries. Here are the highlights.

I began the year in January fretting about an alleged Crystal Maze remake starring Amanda Holden. This story fortunately turned out to be utter bollocks. Ginger people again proved that (yours truly excepted) they have no sense of humour or perspective. Britain experienced a deluge of snow, and Merseyrail impressed everyone by soldiering on throughout, a feat which they would surely repeat next time we experienced awful weather… right?

I finally joined the Wii owners’ club, just as the console stopped being cool. My rekindled love for video games did not result in me getting rickets. I also celebrated my first Twitterversary and cautiously welcomed the iPad.

I also took time to blog at length about a US comedian no-one has heard of over here, illustrating my post with YouTube clips which have now been removed for copyright infringement.

In more serious matters, the Haiti earthquake occupied people’s thoughts as a humanitarian catastrophe unfolded in the devastated country.

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The BBC’s Matthew Price describes a nightmare scenario in Haiti following the recent earthquake:-

There is a body lying outside L’Hopital de la Paix in Port-au-Prince – but it is the sight that awaits you inside the hospital grounds that is most alarming.

It is as if a massacre has been perpetrated here.

Dirty white sheets cover some of the dead, others lie out in the open, some, their limbs entwined with another’s.

Many are the bodies of adults, but here to the right, a baby on her back, her belly bloated and pronounced.

She is wearing a silvery blue top, just lying by the curb, abandoned.
MSF Petion Ville offices transformed into a makeshift hospital, 13 January 2010 (Medecins Sans Frontieres)
The site of the MSF aid agency has become a makeshift hospital

A man stirs to the left. He unfurls a blanket that covers the ground and lies back down.

The living are sleeping among the dead.

The above is one of many excellent reports from the BBC which has in-depth coverage of the quake aftermath. It’s a desperate situation for people in the country, and their friends and families abroad who cannot get any news due to a total failure of communications.

It certainly puts the UK’s snow difficulties into perspective, doesn’t it? The Disasters Emergency Committee are collecting donations.