Back to life, back to reality

Sleeves rolled up, desk cleared and it's back to work. It was hard coming back yesterday, make no mistake, but we were all straight back at it and Lisa Miles, Neil Tague and our new chap Rupert Cornford knocked out a quality weekly news bulletin. I wrote up an interview I'd done ages ago with this bloke and tried to get my head around the impact of these on the North West economy.

In the manner of many papers and bloggers here are some relevant hopes for 2008.

1. The economy will stutter a bit, but won't crash and burn the way a lot of pundits are saying. In this neck of the woods a correction to overheating property prices and spiraling costs will be welcomed.
2. The government will stumble from one crisis to another and Alistair Darling won't be in office by the party conference season.
3. Liverpool will deliver a great Capital of Culture year in 2008.
4. Blackburn Rovers will finish 6th and scrape into Europe and get to the FA Cup final.
5. The old supermarket site in Marple will be turned into a farmer's market with a banking desk, deli and community noticeboard and drop-in centre.
6. This blog will get more focused. More stuff about where we live, what we've been doing and return to the discipline of a Friday list and a regular book review.