Time for a bit of a summary of 2014 as I see it.

2014 in general for the UK

Well, 2014 has been a pig of a year without much to recommend it, and much of this caused by the greed and stupidity of our politicians.

If you live in the UK, you can vote in a few months. Do it.

Vote Green or independent (and by independent I don’t mean in the sense of linking homosexuality with flooding).

The main parties have had their snouts in the trough for too long, with associated and oh  so legal benefits in the subtle British way such as  shares in companies, freebies, repairs to their moats and so on. These politicians only look after themselves, and their friends in the big corporations. I would never vote for any of the mainstream parties again.

Clegg, Cameron and Osborne should be ashamed of themselves when people are going homeless and hungry (there are more and more food banks in the UK), and more and more of the social safety net has been removed by legislation approved by these three.

And yet companies such as Amazon pay little tax, social housing in London is being sold off and in place investment properties are constructed.  No-one will live in most of these.

Tax empty second properties. Tax the big companies. Put money back into the social services.

Labour, the Tories and those Lib Dems (who also voted to allow secret courts), are in the main composed of career politicians, a political ‘elite’  who lack the desire to implement the changes we need to produce a fairer society.

A society where people can eat, where there is access to justice, a living wage and some sense of fairness.

Yeah. Roll on 2015. But vote independent. Don’t vote for the mainstream.

Surface Languages and associated Apps.

That is enough about the inept politicians that are ruining the country. What about Surface Languages and my other sites?

I’ve added three languages Tagalog, Portuguese (Portugal) and Belarusian to Surface Languages.

I’ve added lots of iPhone language apps.

I’ve added a few additional Android language apps.

I also completed the coding for some cool stuff I intend to add to Surface Languages early next year.

Polyglot People

I set up Polyglot People which was an experiment using the same audio as Surface languages. It has not been hugely successful other than as a learning experience for me – and as a basis for my Afrikaans site (see below). I’ll leave it for a year and probably ditch it.

Easy Afrikaans

Easy Afrikaans was a site I’d set up around ten years ago and then pretty much forgotten about. This year I returned, added a lot of audio, more tests and so on. It has been one of my success stories this  year, and next year I hope to add more to the site.

No more games

I until this year was also working as a games programmer. I’ve decided not to do this anymore – at least in a professional capacity. It took too much of my time and energy – and not in a positive way.

Besos,

Moonface