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I got a shock coming home from the office last night. Stopping off at the tobacco kiosk I discovered that the price of 10 Marlboro Lights had tipped over the £4 mark (I'm not old but I remember when you could buy 20 fags for that). Slightly exasperated I headed down to the Tube where I was discouraged to see that the price of a single journey from Zone 1 to Zone 2 (just 8 stops on the Underground) had gone up by 20p each way - an increase of nearly £100 a year for a pretty awful service.
So despite any reservations I might have about making promises I might not be able to keep, here's goes nothing...
Mark's New Year Resolutions:
1. Stop smoking
2. Tube less, ride more!
Simple, right? Funny then that these have both been resolutions of mine previously...
Of course, that's not all I'm aiming for - I also plan to grow i b i k e l o n d o n and I'm hoping you'll all join me for the ride! Over the past 12 months so many of the great interactions I've had with cool people has been as a consequence of this blog that I'd be mad not to continue it; whether it's making new friends on the Tweed Run or talking to cycling families on the summer Sky Ride. Even the discussions around some of the more contentious issues such as the great segregation debate have been informative and interesting. And of course meeting and interviewing all those London cyclists for y o u b i k e l o n d o n has been fantastic, too. In the future there will be more interviews, more on the people who work with bikes and make up London's permanent cycling culture, more videos I hope and a site re-design too.
Stay tuned for all of that, or if you find it hard to keep up with the website you can keep in touch via the blog Twitter feed or even our Facebook page.
And in a new development I'll be joining Mikael from Copenhagen Cycle Chic to post over at London Cycle Chic to bring you the very best in photos of London's most svelt and stylish riders - we're also hoping to start up Cyclce Chic Sundays here in the big smoke too so you'll soon be able to come along for the ride in person!
So these are some of my plans for the year ahead - it looks like I'm going to be busy but if I can kick the smokes and get out on the bike more then bring it on! What are your plans for 2011?
6 comments:
Crikey! £4 for 10 ciggies. Just shows how out of touch I am. I gave up when they went over 25p for 20. Decided that that was too expensive for me and that smoking was a mugs game. Sometimes it pays to be a tight-arsed skinflint like me... :-)
Nigel, you're clearly a very much wiser man than I - quitting the smokes was number one on my 'to do' list last year but somehow I never quite got round to it. New year, new determination.
Wish me luck!
PS 25p for 20?! Good grief, is that in old money or something ;-)
Great resolutions. I only have on this year, well 2, but rolled into one:
1 & 2: Sell my beloved car and rely (yes, rely) on my trusted 2 wheeler as my main source of transport. Yep! The relationship between myself and my bike has grown so much so that we're making it exclusive and I'm ending my 'cheating' ways.
T.x
Bar none, the hardest thing I've ever done was giving up smoking--at least, the last and final time, when it stuck. Good luck! If I can do it, anyone can. That was 22 years ago, and I'm shocked when I see the price of cigarettes now.
I'm excited about your blog-expansion project and look forward to participating as a reader.
Great post, hope you can manage to give up smoking, it will be a much healthier life you live if you do manage to give it up, and i think the increases in fares are sickening, a journey i had to make by train to hammersmith from dagenham yesterday had gone up by 30 or 40p, may not sound like much but for people that work in london and have to get a train journey like that every day imagine how much extra it will be over a year
damn tfl
@Kevin - I couldn't agree more!
@Trish, Anne, thanks so much for the encouragement, I'm going to need it! Good luck Trish with losing the car, I promise you won't miss it that much. Looking forward on hearing how it goes and plans progress.
Happy New Year everyone!
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