Monthly Archives: December 2016

End of a Manic year…

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Is it possible that we will get to the end of 2016 without catastrophe? Retrospectives are everywhere, seemingly more so than usual, though I think that’s probably the Year of Mania effect. Russian ambassadors are being expelled from the US as a result of the alleged Clinton election hack furore. Putin is playing the moral high card of non-retaliation, for the moment. Syria still teeters on the brink, its war far from finished. Hopefully Syrian residents will be able to wake up intact in the coming days and weeks. And the rest of us, too. Yes, it could get that bad.

As if on cue, to show the state of mania in today’s world, one-time DJ Noel Edmonds has been on the radio, explaining that cats know they shouldn’t kill mice and birds, but that if we just say ‘that’s naughty and if you don’t do it you will get your reward in heaven’ our cats will understand and cease the slaughter of their little furred and feathered prey.

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Of course they will, and Donald Trump is a frisky lamb with a comb-over. But the real poser is, does Noel’s patient instruction work in the human world? Or, perhaps, why doesn’t it? Remember the immortal words of Yoda, my go-to philosopher: Patience, you must have.

Speaking of fake news, and who hasn’t been lately, I hope the brilliant press cartoonists will keep up the amazing standards they have exhibited in recent months. Don’t believe what the columnists are writing? Just look at the political cartoons and then you can work out your own, rational, response.

For the moment, mine is: A Happy and Peaceful New Year, May You Have.

Dying all over the world…

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Rick Parfitt …and now George Michael. What a truly shit year. My heroes and heroines have been dying with unseemly haste. I cannot count the number of greats who have departed life in this abysmal year. It’s so shocking, it’s creepy.

But why this year? What has been exceptional about 2016? Since the start of the third millennium events have been turning darker, we believe. People are afraid of the future, it’s hard to be optimistic. But, hold on, have we not been here before? I’m not old enough to remember the Great War, or even WW2, but I do most vividly remember the Vietnam war, the first television war. I lived through the Troubles in Northern Ireland, which lasted thirty years and, to some extent, continue to this day. Those were frightening dark times, too. People died before they had lived. The difference today is that news, any news, is instant. Social media affords us the opportunity to be informed, 24/7; to live the news more or less as it happens. When bombs exploded at night in 70s Belfast we knew only that they were close or not so close, big or not so big. The news of where and who had been attacked was made public the following day, often not even then. Each celebrity death this year has been a body blow, these were the performers I shared my childhood with, shared my teenage years with, became an adult with. And now, as these lives end, and we learn of them immediately and in some detail, they feel so personal, they genuinely hurt.

Is this immediacy a good thing? I think it probably is. People are informed, they can show they care, if they do. They can respond to sad or bad news within minutes, seconds, it seems. And there is no excuse, in 2016, for not knowing. Caring is a different matter. The residents of Syria may not benefit from our social media obsession. They know what is happening to their city and its citizens, mainly through personal experience. They know that we in the West must also be aware of their agony. But, lacking any response, they must wonder, do we care?

Never too late to save the planet

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Okay, so he could have done it earlier. But that’s history, so let’s not revisit it. I’m just delighted, in this most awful of awful years, that Barack Obama has called a ban on further oil exploration in the Arctic. Perhaps now the polar bear will have a fighting chance, the northern ocean will not suffer devastating pollution from oil leaks and spills. Perhaps the native american people who live in the cold zone will not be harried and persecuted by Big Oil’s relentless march for ever more profit. Perhaps, I hope so.

Yes, of course I know that America is not the only nation that pursues oil, non-stop and without care for the consequences. And of course I know that there will be attempts to overturn any banning legislation, and soon, far too soon. But it’s Christmas, a difficult time of year, any year, and I’m trying to look for reasons to be positive about the future.

Thanks, Barack. May you, Michelle and the girls enjoy the holidays and move on to even greater things. Some might say you could have done more: I say, you tried, and none of us has walked in your shoes.

Hats – and other Headgear – Off to Christmas!

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Two sleeps to go… so much to do. Festive foray into the madding crowd today to pick up the pork joint and other last minute essentials, more mince pies, more sprouts, (forgot those, we’ll have spinach) and one of those special cards , you know the type, Happy Christmas to The One I Love. Can never make a decision on those and always end up, after much procrastination, buying one when there are only three left in the rack. Without correct sized envelope: will it need a trim? And either tres formal or gushing. Went for formal, managed to get a half-decent one and only 99p. What a bargain. Next year I’ll just write I Love You, Sometimes, Happy Christmas! on an Amazon carton and fill it with wine, chocs, nuts and a copy of Computer Shopper. Or maybe, if I’m feeling kind, which is not likely, a copy of Dogs Magazine. He always enjoys that sketch on Peter Kay’s Car Share, you remember the one? Ah, fond memories of nights spent in the woods, or sometimes only the car park.

Anyway, never mind that, what I started this post for was to report on Christmas Hats. You know there is a special day for wearing Christmas jumpers? And intellectually challenged people join in and wear them? Well, today, my bus driver was wearing a full Santa outfit. And saying Ho, Ho, Ho! to passengers as they boarded. Brilliant! Usually the driver ignores your frantic waving from the bus stop and sweeps by, swooshing puddles at you if he – it’s usually a he – can manage it and then laughing his head off. Or making you get off again because there are already 156 people standing and you would just tip the balance, with your tartan shopping trolley whacking into people’s shins. Oh, the shame! But today: what a jolly chap. He even stopped at red lights, stayed within lanes on the suicide roundabout and picked passengers up at every stop. I think perhaps he was the real Santa. A bit like the real Trump in appearance but with full Santa beard and long white curls, instead of a weird straw-coloured comb-over. And better messages to the world, or at least to his surprised but thankful bus load.

And the other headgear? We’ve become used to Santa’s elves in the pub after work, with their Spock ears and red and green costumes. So yesterday. But last night two chaps and a woman came in wearing roast chickens on their heads. Honest, they had their heads in the place where the stuffing usually goes and they looked  flipping ace. I almost choked on my Balti from laughing. Wish I’d taken my camera.