Leaving bad luck behind me (bye '13)

The year two thousand and thirteen was a bad year at work. It was the year that Nelson Mandela and Lou Reed died. Syria would have thought it a year of bad luck as they continued to kill each other.

Triumphalist Labor voters who thought their Party had done enough positive spadework to ward off the efforts of the yellow press were proven wrong much to wide dismay.

So we had nine months of good government at least.

The gossip was ghastly and the reality stars and celebrities who seemed to be so solely on the strength of their being horrible, took a disproportionate amount of the wealth.

Some memorable series came to an end. Television is now paradoxically at its zenith and its nadir.

Though there were some harrowing events - and this is typical of recent years with their count of natural disasters and homegrown tragedy - there were many wonderful events and much satisfaction. '13 was far from being a write-off.