Happy New Year, Happy 2014!

Hi guys, happy new year from London. I thought I'd share two videos with you today - one is a short video taken from my living room window of the New Year Fireworks and the other is a proper video of it. To actually see it close up, you have to go join the crowds and stand outside from like 9 pm onwards to get anywhere even vaguely close to the fireworks to see it. It was raining and windy on the night of new year's eve, so I really couldn't be asked to venture out especially since I had a pretty decent view from my window. Nah, I'm just too old for that.

I've experienced New Year's celebrations in a couple of places: Singapore and London obviously, but also Dublin, Kirkcudbright (Scotland), Val d'Isere and Dubai. The most memorable ones were definitely Val d'Isere and Dubai. On new year's day 2000, I saw the millennium in at a special outdoor party the French ski resort Val d'Isere - it was so freaking cold, it was like -25 degrees that night but there was music, there were fireworks and I couldn't have picked a more special place to start the new year.

And in 2007, when I was working in Dubai, a group of us from work were given free passes to this huge party on a roof top in Dubai. I remember thinking, I'll just have dinner and stay to watch the fireworks - but when I got there, it was unreal. The buffet just went on and on and there was this huge carving of a swan as a centerpiece - and this being Dubai, even though it was 1st January, it was still like 22 degrees and after a while, the poor ice swan began melting. I remember sitting by that melting swan and talking with my five colleagues from three continents (South Africa, Czech Republic, the Philippines, the UK, Japan) who had come to Dubai to work. I remember this song 'Gasolina' was playing as I just arrived at the party and here's the music video.

I've decided to participate in a language project for the Guardian and the British Academy and have a 6th January deadline to submit a short video - I'm going to be shooting a 4 to 5 minute video for it tomorrow and it should be fairly straightforward, I have spent most of today scripting it. I need to be doing things like that to raise profile for my language learning app which is due for a spring 2014 release. The video will be in seven languages: Welsh, English, French, Mandarin, Hokkien, Malay and Spanish - I'm struggling with the Hokkien at the moment and may drop it if I can't get hold of my mother by tomorrow lunchtime. Crikey, it's like if I were to listen to my mother speak Hokkien, I can understand her perfectly, but when I try to translate something from English to Hokkien it's a real struggle. I'll then need to edit it in a hurry and submit that video pretty by 6th January. And once it is ready, I will of course put that on my Youtube channel as well and share it on my blog.

So, until I complete this video project... I'll catch you guys in a couple of days. Happy new year everyone. Oh and guess what? I did manage to find a photo of me with that melting ice swan in Dubai with my former colleague from the Czech Republic. For the life of me, I cannot remember his name despite the fact that we were good friends then. Oh those were the days before everyone was on Facebook, when I couldn't say, "I'll add you on Facebook right now and we'll be friends forever and ever!"

Sorry my Czech former colleague, I can't remember your name!