Greenwich is the centre of international time, so once it’s the New Year here in the UK, it’s the New Year everywhere, in a legal sense at least.

Last year, I made a list of all the important events that would be remembered for years to come. At least one has become a little redundant thanks to this year.

So, again, here is a list of things that will be associated with 2012 for years to come (in no particular order):

• Sir Jimmy Savile being exposed as possibly this country’s most prolific sexual abuser and paedophile.
• The London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games
• The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee
• Sir Patrick Moore’s death
• Felix Baumgartner’s record-breaking skydive
• The Encyclopædia Britannica discontinuing its print edition
• The Indian Blackouts - the largest power outage in history.
• Whitney Houston’s death
• Eduard Khil’s death
• Gore Vidal’s death
• Neil Armstrong’s death
• The European Union controversially being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
• The overturning of the original Hillsborough verdict

Merry Christmas - there are officially no days to go until Christmas. Turkeys, geese, capons, and multiple-bird roasts will be cooking all around the UK and other parts of the world as Christmas Day is celebrated.

A statistically unsurprising number of famous people have been born on Christmas day - Isaac Newton is a pertinent example.

So, the Christmas countdown ends. Particularly annoying people will be counting down to next Christmas from a second past midnight on Boxing Day, along with those sillily expensive Christmas magazines, but I shall not be. Do enjoy the day, if you are celebrating it.

Of course, today it is only 7 days until the New Year. Not that I will be counting that down either.

Until next year, that’s it. If I remember to do this earlier, I might be able to vary the posts a bit more from last year! Ugh…