The Year on Caron's Musings Part 2 - my favourite posts

As part of my end of term nostalgia, I've been looking back at the last year on this blog, a year that's covered an election and its long build up,  the historic formation of the first coalition government I've seen in my lifetime as well as one containing Liberal Democrats, a new Doctor Who and Michael Schumacher coming back to F1. How much excitement can one year hold?

Anyway, last week I published a list of the top then most popular posts of the last year as determined by Google Analytics. Now, I thought I'd go back down memory lane to share some of my favourites which didn't make the top ten.

First up, there was my view of the intrusive, unnecessary and authoritarian Vetting and Barring scheme planned by the Labour Government to keep our children safe.

I wondered if I'd missed something when Labour were so opposed to the new Government's idea of when Parliament should be dissolved.

I was so angry when Gordon Brown outlined his plans to stigmatise teenage mothers because, you know, getting pregnant is all their fault.

I wrote several posts around the time the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, Abdel Basset Mohmed al-Megrahi. I believed then, and still believe that it was the right thing to do on compassionate grounds. I don't for one moment think that Kenny MacAskill was inflluenced by BP or anyone else, although I had doubts about the process. This post sums up a lot of my thinking at the time.

I was pleased that this review of the Holyrood debate on Megrahi's release was praised by people from various sides as being fair. I do try.

When Nicola Sturgeon faced the wrath of the Scottish Parliament, I was concerned that constituency casewor was becoming a political football.

I celebrated Valentine's Day by looking back at how I met my husband - and it involved lentils.

This slightly tipsy post on Labour's new slogan earlier this year makes me happy because I think it was the first time the Lovely Elephant linked to me.

Talking of elephants, the march of the pregnant ones commenced in March - or, rather, here's my F1 season preview.

But that was after I'd had a whole litter of kittens in sheer excitement at the thought of Mr Schumacher's return.

It was the election and the aftermath that caused many emotional highs and lows. When you're a peace loving leftie liberal hippy, the idea of working with Tories does not come easy, to put it mildly, especially when you're completely exhausted and your emotions have been through the wringer after the worst election night ever.  There was the wait for news, weighing up the options, watching it start to take shape with an eery feeling of surreality, seeing Nick enter Downing Street for the first time.  Since then we've had my splitting of the Coalition Agreement into the good, the meh and the "lock me in a cupboard with the gin bottle", the relative high of the Queen's speech and the awfulness of the Budget, tempered by Danny Alexander rocking the Commons.

What's clear is that this rollercoaster still has some way to run - and I will be musing my way through the twists and turns, peaks and troughs of the Lib Dems' first experience of Government at Westminster in my lifetime.

While I'm coping with the slings and arrows of outraged Labourites, and alternating between feeling glad that Lib Dems are implementing Lib Dem policies and feeling faintly nauseous at some of the Tory stuff we're letting through, I shall continue to be distracted by trashy tv, not so trashy Doctor Who and lovely men on bikes. This blog is as much therapy as it is an meander round Liberal Democrat thinking.

So that's it for the nostalgia at the moment. I hope you've enjoyed this little retrospective and have found stuff you haven't read before.  We're done with the navel gazing - until next year!

The Year on Caron's Musings Part 1 - most popular posts

As it's kind of coming up to the end of the Westminster Parliamentary term, I thought I'd have a look back at some posts from the past year. I'll start by remembering the ten most popular posts as determined by Google Analytics.

They may not be the same thing as my favourite posts, which I'll cover separately.

So, in reverse order, here is the 2009-10 top ten posts:

10. My apology to David Tennant for so quickly forsaking him.

 9.  Barrichello blasts Briatore for Piquet allegations How the nicest man in F1 stood up for his compatriot.

 8.  How Tory Philippa Stroud prayed for gay people to be released from demons. If that post helped in any small way to getting Paul Burstow re-elected in Sutton and Cheam, I'm very glad. It's a bit worrying that this woman is now IDS' SpAd at the Department of Work and Pensions, but at least she doesn't have a vote in the House of Commons.

 7.  In which I point out the propensity of Tory Peter Lyburn to find hot water.

 6.  I first wrote about Torvill and Dean in February 2009, on the 25th anniversary of their Olympic triumph with the iconic Bolero. This post had a new lease of life during the Winter Olympics this year.

 5.  My review of David Tennant's final episode of Doctor Who which I found a bit disappointing

 4.  I still have fond memories of my spat with Tom Harris in which I sympathise with some of MP's complaints about the new expenses regime, but remind him that public services under Labour were not blameless and the cock ups  they made had much more severe consequences.

 3.  Liberal Democrats and Tax Credits - the truth exposed. During the election, Labour were saying we'd scrap Child Tax Credit. I thought their claims needed a rebuttal.

 2.  That post on Lewis Hamilton's earrings. I'm starting to think that  my friends click on that just to wind me up because they know how much I dislike this being one of my most popular posts of the year.......

And, finally....................

Drum roll......................

The most popular post of this year is...................

 1.  Doctor Who - The Pandorica Opens - episode review by quite a long way - and it's getting a few more hits at the moment now that the episode has just been shown in the US. I am quite chuffed that it's at the top because I enjoyed writing it.

So, for a political blog, only 4 of this year's top ten most popular posts are actually about politics! We have 3 about Doctor Who, 2 about F1 and 1 about Torvill and Dean.

There are some posts which don't feature here which I both enjoyed writing and think made a valid contribution to the debate at the time. That's for the next instalment, though.