Happy new year! (2026 edition)

Another year over and another new year upon us, so as is traditional on the Charles Fudgemuffin blog, I'd like to wish all my readers a wonderful new year!

Here at the Charles Fudgemuffin blog,
we're proud to do our bit for recycling.

Or if you're not a regular reader, and you just somehow ended up here by mistake, then I'd also like to wish you a reasonably okay-ish new year.

Anyway, to celebrate the new year, here's a collection of jokes, tips, and facts with a new year theme.

1) My new year's resolution this year is to lose ten pounds.

Only fifteen pounds to go!




2) Happy birthday to everyone on reddit who didn't bother entering their real birthday when setting up their account!

Happy new year! (2025 edition)

I know I'm a few days late, but I'd like to wish an extremely happy new year to all readers of the Charles Fudgemuffin blog!

Or if you're not a regular reader, and you just somehow ended up here randomly by mistake, then I also wish you a moderately happy new year, I suppose.

Exercise.
A popular new year's resolution.

Anyway, to start the year off on a new year theme, here's a round up of tips, facts and jokes loosely related to the new year.

1) This year my new year's resolution is to finally go to the gym...

...and cancel that membership I wasted my money on last year.




2) Top tip for dad joke lovers:

Order a takeaway at 11:59pm on New Year's Eve, and when it arrives say, "Do I get a discount on this, because I've been waiting since last year!"

Create your own calendar wallpaper!

A new year is here and with a new year comes traditions such as making new year resolutions (in England), eating twelve grapes (in Spain), or throwing water on everybody (in Thailand). Of course, wherever you are, a new year is also the perfect occasion to create your own calendar wallpaper for your computer!

There's a great website called Calendar Labs which lets you create your own calendar wallpapers, and they do most of the work for you. You simply upload your photo, then select a few options, such as the month, where you want the calendar positioned, and wallpaper size, then click 'create wallpaper' and it resizes your photo and adds a monthly calendar.

If you're feeling lazy, I suppose you could use the same photo for every month, and quickly churn out twelve almost identical calendar wallpapers for every month of the year. Or if you prefer variety, and if you're not lazy, it only takes a few minutes to upload a different photo for each month.

Here's a set of monthly calendars that I made using some of the covers from my books and short stories...

January:

January's calendar is based on the cover to my scifi short story, The Darkness And The Light, which is set on a planet where each day lasts for the equivalent of one hundred and twenty four Earth years. As you can imagine, this leads to fluctuating valuations within the property market.

The Darkness And The Light

New Year's resolutions for 2015

Last year I made five New Year's resolutions, and managed to succeed with four of them, so this year I'm going to see if I can go one better and make it five out of five successful New Year's resolutions. Here are my resolutions for 2015...

A low key scene.
Much like the plot in my forthcoming short story.

1) Publish a short story

This was the one resolution which let me down last year. However, I recently finished the first draft of one short story, and whereas my first full length book deals with an evil genocidal plot, things are more low key in this short story. It's a simple everyday 'slice of life' story, and it features minor characters from my previous books. Hopefully I'll get it published later in the year.

Charles Fudgemuffin's 2014 New Year's resolutions

Plans and goals for 2014.

Last year I made the New Year's resolution to get two more books published on Amazon. As it turned out I got all six books in my comedy scifi series published, so it was a productive year for Charles Fudgemuffin.

Now that my comedy scifi series of books are all finished, this year I'm looking forward to writing new stories and working on new ideas, so I've made a few more New Year's resolutions for 2014...

Pots.
The metaphoric theme of one short story I'm working on.

1) Publish at least one short story.

After writing a massive saga spanning six books and over two thousand pages, you sort of go from one extreme to the other and so when I finally clicked the 'publish' button on the final book in the series, my initial reaction was to want to write something at the other end of the scale.

It's a bit like after you finish eating a massive banquet. You don't want to tuck straight in to another massive banquet. You just want a brief pause from eating to allow your taste buds a quick break and then maybe follow that up with a light snack. Well writing at least one short story is going to be my light snack.

Ten less common New Year's resolutions

Some wise, some unique and some just weird.

In a few days' time many people will be starting the new year by making New Year's resolutions with popular choices being to give up smoking, lose weight or to travel more and see new places. However, if you're thinking of making a less common resolution this year and looking for ideas, then here are a few non-conventional and less obvious New Year's resolutions I found dotted around the internet...

"I will never turn up drunk at court again. Hic!"

1) I will assure my lawyer that I will never turn up drunk at court ever again.

Hmm, yes.  That's probably a wise resolution to make.

2) I will take time to appreciate what I have achieved.

This is a resolution I think I might make as well. Obviously I've never climbed Everest or swam the channel or stuff like that, so I'm keeping things in perpective, but sometimes I set myself goals and then move straight on to the next thing without taking a few moments to allow myself a smile at having finished the thing I set out to do. So this year I'm going to allow myself a few more self-indulgent smiley moments.

3) I will lose weight by buying a more accurate set of scales.

Yes, blame the scales.

True or false: Six New Year themed 'facts' from around the world

New Year celebrations: Pregnant pranks, smashing guitars and insect roulette.

One of my favourite things in the world which I like doing more than anything else is travelling and over the years I’ve been lucky enough to experience New Year celebrations in England, Scotland, Tanzania, Thailand, Vietnam and Fiji.

So following on from my previous True Or False posts for Halloween and Christmas, here’s another True Or False quiz featuring traditions from round the world to celebrate the new year. Just to clarify, some of these ‘facts’ are true but others are totally made-up. See if you can guess which is which...

Guitars beware.  Prepare for a smashing time at a Fijian New Year.

Fact 1) Fiji – Lock up your guitars!

In Fiji the locals have the strange but fun tradition of smashing up a guitar (rock star style) to see in the New Year. If you don’t want to destroy your precious guitar (or if you’re a tourist who forgot to pack a guitar in your backpack) then you can buy miniature sized guitars purely for the purpose of smashing up. I decided to join in with the local custom when I was in Fiji for New Year and I have to say it was a lot of fun and very satisfying to re-enact the classic guitar smashing ritual.

Charles Fudgemuffin's New Year's resolutions

Charles Fudgemuffin's plans for 2013.

Start a band. A cool New Year's resolution.

A few days ago I posted a list of the top ten most popular New Year’s Resolutions, and also included a few amusing resolutions I stumbled across while doing my research. To carry on the New Year theme, I thought I would post my own New Year’s Resolutions for the coming year.

Before I do though, here are a few more cool noteworthy New Year’s Resolutions I came across while compiling the top ten for my previous post:

1) "Take a picture of myself every day for a year and post a time lapse video on YouTube."

This is a cool idea which I’m tempted to do myself (not for YouTube, just for my own entertainment). It would probably be cooler though if you had just got a puppy or a kitten, then when you watched the finished video you would be able to see it growing before your eyes.


2) "Start a band."

I would definitely recommend this resolution to anyone who loves music. It can involve a fair amount of work to get a band up and running, but once the ball is rolling it’s a total buzz to record your own songs and to play live to an enthusiastic audience.

Top ten New Year's resolutions

The tradition of making resolutions to celebrate the New Year.

Start the year with a change for the better.

To see in the New Year I thought I would compile a top ten of the most popular New Year’s resolutions that people make each year. Just to clarify though, this isn’t a comprehensive scientific report or survey. I’ve simply looked up a load of top ten charts and tables on the internet and then compiled the results into an overall chart based on which New Year’s resolutions featured the most often.

Before I get to the results though, here are a few amusing New Year’s resolutions I stumbled upon while compiling my statistics:

"I’ll think of new excuses for when I ring in sick."

"On days when I’m ‘working from home’ I will actually work from home."