Yes, folks, it’s time for the traditionally belated end-of-year review and report to my imaginary shareholders.

This year, the review’s late because I kept making the mistake of writing how I feel about Trump and Brexit and then deleting it. You can probably imagine those feelings because they’re obvious and shared by many. Instead, let’s stay positive and have a pleasant time before we’re all killed by a nuke or in a pogrom. (Haha. I am funny.)

Ahem.

My lovely partner and I finally live in Hyndland, in accordance with our obvious destiny. We were successful in securing a visa to live togther in my country of birth thanks to some decent people at the immigration department and having met the evil financial requirement through part-time toil.

Escape Everything! came out in January, which became the main event of my year. I mean, I got a book out of my brain and into the world – how great is that? Very!

We sold the rights to the German market, resulting in a chunky translated edition called Ich Bin Raus. It seems to be selling well in Europe and, by my standards, getting a lot of attention. This has resulted in a million Germans seeing a picture of my face before slinging it into the papierkorb.

2016 saw the release of New Escapologist Issue 12 with Will Self and a lot of nice articles about walking. Later, we launched Issue 13 with Caitlin Doughty and a very fine launch party.

I knew long in advance that Thirteen would be our final edition, though I didn’t know what the magazine’s afterlife would be like, if any. In the event, I decided to continue the blog you’re reading now, to spruce up the website, and to continue my Escapology column in the Idler – the first four installments of which were printed in 2016.

I helped edit Luke Rhinehart’s novel, Invasion, all the while wishing I could tell my 18-year-old self that he’d grow up to work a little bit with The Dice Man. The book came out in August and if you pick up a copy, you’ll see my name on the back cover, championing what lies within as if I weren’t personally involved in it.

We launched a new essay series under the auspices of New Escapologist, which will hopefully be funded through Patreon. We’re half way to having enough people to make this happen and keep the whole enterprise alive, post-magazine, so if you’ve enjoyed the website in 2016 or for the previous nine years and think it’s worth a quid a month, please join the New Escapologist green berets.

Friendships have been renewed and strengthened, good habits have been cultivated, and we indulged in some travel, twice to Montreal and twice to Berlin. They were all good trips but we really should spend our 2017 travel budget on going somewhere new. There was also that weekend in Wales for the Stewart Lee-curated festival, at which I looked like this:

pic.twitter.com/vnPlYNvmez

— Robert Wringham (@rubberwringham) April 21, 2016

I ate lunch, fought eczema, watched cartoons, did a tiny bit of comedy on the night Gary Shandling died, sold books with Simon Munnery at the Edinburgh festival, aced the pub quiz, fucked the pub quiz, posted the first in a trilogy of deliberately boring podcasts, sat on my arse reading quite a lot, and solved my sock problem.

In 2017, I’d like to write a novel, start a second Escapology book, post twelve essays for the Patreon gang (here’s that link again), and maybe write and perform a one-person show for August. Not much then. Tune in this time next year to see which of these projects thrive and which ones die in a ditch!

Thank you to everyone who stuck around this year, read the books, and supported the Patreon. I need you and I’m grateful.

The @PenguinUKBooks website says my book weighs 395g. I wrote those grams. #soemotionalrightnnow https://t.co/VwP9mD7hGm

— Robert Wringham (@rubberwringham) January 22, 2016