Emma Cowing: 'It's time to start involving the world in the endless fascinating minutiae of my life'

SO, 2011 then. Sounds like a joke year, doesn't it? One of those random, trotted-out-to-typify-an-unimaginable-space-age-future-where-everyone- lives-in-giant-test-tubes-and-goes-to-work-on-a-jetpack-made-of-cheese dates beloved of sci-fi shows of the 1970s. Or maybe I'm just getting old.

I'm not the world's biggest fan of this time of year. Enforced jollity + something called a "dance band" + the inevitability of Jackie Bird = I'll stay home with a bottle of Cava and a Galaxy Ripple, thanks. But one thing I do like about ushering in a brand new 12 months is the chance to make a few changes. Not enormous, life-altering "I'm going to scale the north face of the Eiger on a unicycle while wearing a tutu" type resolutions, but little ones.

And so, without further ado, here are my Utterly Insignificant New Year Resolutions. I highly encourage you to make your own.

Purchase a spork.

We here in Scotland on Sunday's Glasgow office are an industrious sort, but lately we have become concerned: the forks from our cutlery drawer have gone missing. It is a mystery of Sherlockian proportions and various exciting theories have been posited (aliens, magnetic forcefields, the wrath of Uri Geller,etc). Having suffered the repeated indignity of eating my lunchtime salads with a spoon, I have decided the only sensible thing to do is purchase a "spork", a mightily useful object that serves as (wait for it) both spoon and fork, and may deter the casual fork thief.

Stop watching The Only Way Is Essex.

Going to be tough, this one. Not least because even as I type these words, I'm thinking: "Ooh, I've still got the Christmas special to watch on Sky Plus; I wonder if Kirk and Amy will get back together?" The Only Way Is Essex, the surprise ITV2 hit of 2010, makes for the ultimate "there but for the grace of God go I" viewing, populated by a series of vain, over-inflated yet curiously wooden young people who say things like "Oh sharrap!" and "Ah dahnt fink so" with all the passion of a Shakespearian actor acting out the final scenes of King Lear on a quaalude. It's compelling and hilarious and utterly brain-rotting and it stops right here.

Stop that weird clicking noise on my iPhone.

"You do know you can turn that sound off?" the boyfriend remarked recently in a voice dripping with sarcasm as I tap-a-tap-tapped a text message into my iPhone. Actually, I didn't. But ever since he mentioned it and offered to switch it off himself, an offer that I naturally refused, the clicking noise has started to annoy me too. Note to self: Google it.

Get back on Facebook.I've been on Facebook hiatus lately, and I'm not sure why. I still log on to have a neb at other people's pages, but my status updates have gone by the wayside. It's time to get back online, make my life more compelling and start involving the world in the endless fascinating minutiae of my life, if only so I can write an update that reads "Emma Cowing has just scaled the north face of the Eiger in a tutu on a unicycle!"