personal, ramblings

Predictions for 2017 — How Did I Do?

This time last year I made a series of predictions about what would happen during 2017. So what did I get right, and what wrong?

UK

  1. Brexit. The Supreme Court overturns the High Court judgement that Royal Prerogative cannot be used to trigger Article 50. WRONG; the decision was upheld by a majority verdict.
  2. Brexit. Article 50 will be triggered in the last week of March by government without the agreement of parliament. WRONG in that Parliament agreed by passing legislation authorising the PM to trigger Article 50, although without any explicit agreement to leave the EU. CORRECT in that Article 50 was triggered in the last week of March.
  3. Brexit. It becomes apparent that no deal is possible with the EU and that the notification under Article 50 cannot be withdrawn. WRONG as this is not yet apparent to the government.
  4. As a consequence, Theresa May resigns and asks Parliament to grant a General Election. WRONG in that Theresa May didn’t resign. CORRECT that there would be a General Election.
  5. Boris Johnson is sacked as Foreign Secretary and relegated to the back benches. WRONG
  6. The new Foreign Secretary is one of David Davies, Liam Fox, Michael Gove. WRONG as it didn’t arise
  7. Inflation will hit 2.5% by year-end. CORRECT: in March inflation was 2.3%; by November it was 3.1%.
  8. The Bank of England Base Rate will be reduced to 0%. WRONG; BoE base rate was raised to 0.5%.
  9. The Pound falls by 20% (cf. 1 January) against the US Dollar and the Euro. WRONG; pound was down 4% against the Euro and up 9.5% against the US dollar.
  10. FT100 falls by at least 10% compared with the start of the year. WRONG FT100 was up 7.6% on the year.
  11. Unemployment rises by 10% compared with December 2016. WRONG unemployment was down from 4.8% to 4.3%.
  12. GDP falls by at least 2% year-on-year; the UK is in recession by the end of the year. WRONG; GDP was up 1.7% as measured 3Q2016 to 3Q2017 (latest data available).
  13. The Government will introduce legislation to implement Nordic model of prostitution. WRONG
  14. The Government also implements alcohol minimum pricing. WRONG; although CORRECT in Scotland.
  15. There is at least one major incident (plane crash, train crash, terrorist attack, industrial accident etc.) with over 50 fatalities. CORRECT; the Grenfell Tower fire claimed 71 lives. Add to that two terror attacks in London and one in Manchester with a total of 35 deaths.
  16. At least one high street name goes out of business with over 500 job losses. CORRECT. Monarch airline collapsed with 1858 jobs lost. Also Jaeger collapsed with 700 jobs threatened as did Multiyork with 550 jobs threatened.
  17. At least 2 major hospitals are forced to close due to finance problems, with loss of jobs and healthcare; there is no allowance for anyone to pick up the slack. WRONG
  18. Two horses die in the Grand National, which is then permanently scrapped. WRONG; all the horses survived the race.
  19. There’s significant flooding somewhere in the UK in March, May and October. WRONG about March and May; CORRECT as there was major flooding in Cumbria in October.
  20. A meteor strike destroys two houses, but there are no fatalities. WRONG
  21. There is finally proof that there are non-native big cats living wild in the UK; there are enough to maintain a small breeding population. WRONG
  22. The Queen dies unexpectedly followed within 3 months by Prince Philip. WRONG
  23. Prince Charles ducks becoming King thus allowing William to take to the throne. WRONG because it didn’t arise.
  24. Other Deaths: Paul McCartney, Bruce Forsythe, Bob Geldof, Michael Parkinson. CORRECT about Bruce Forsyth. WRONG about the others.

World

  1. Donald Trump is inaugurated as US President amid strident protests, possible rioting and several fatalities. CORRECT, although I don’t recall any fatalities.
  2. During the year there are moves to impeach Trump which may succeed. CORRECT although they have come to nothing.
  3. Obama care is scrapped. CORRECT
  4. NASA’s budget is halved. WRONG
  5. An accident (maybe a debris strike?) destroys the ISS with loss of the crew. WRONG
  6. Consequent on the above NASA abandons manned space flight for the foreseeable future. WRONG as it didn’t arise.
  7. Trump visits Russia; Putin visits the US. WRONG, surprisingly.
  8. US imposes severe restrictions on immigration. CORRECT although the courts seem to be unsure about whether the bans are legal or not.
  9. Against all the odds the USA abolishes the death penalty. WRONG
  10. Major banking collapse somewhere in the developed world, possibly Italy, USA or UK. CORRECT; the Italian government had to bail out two banks to the tune of €17bn.
  11. Major cyber attack brings down power/utility infrastructure affecting hundreds of thousands, probably in USA but maybe Western Europe. CORRECT; the WannaCry attack in May affected over 200k systems worldwide including a significant chunk of the UK NHS.
  12. Marine Le Pen is elected French President precipitating an existential crisis in the EU. WRONG; Le Pen lost the run-off to Emmanuel Macron.
  13. Turmoil in South Africa after the arrest of a top politician. WRONG; not noticeably although it seems to have been a close run thing with President Zuma.
  14. President Mugabe of Zimbabwe dies. WRONG; although he was forced from office in November only to be replaced by one of his acolytes.
  15. Consequently the regime in Zimbabwe becomes even more repressive, in an attempt to prevent a civil war; this triggers a mass exodus of blacks to neighbouring countries. WRONG as it didn’t arise.
  16. At least one major earthquake (magnitude 7.5+) with over 200 fatalities in Asia and another in South America. MAYBE: two quakes in Mexico (magnitude 8.1 and 7.1) with 360+ deaths; a 7.9 quake in Papua New Guinea with few deaths; a 7.3 quake in Iran/Iraq with over 400 deaths.
  17. Scientists in Tasmania discover a small breeding population of Thylacine. WRONG; although there were reports of possible sightings in Queensland.
  18. At least two major civilian plane crashes each with over 100 fatalities. WRONG
  19. There is a significant downturn in air travel which causes at least one major carrier to fail. CORRECT; the economic/trading environment was a major contributor to the failure of Monarch Airlines.
  20. At least one conspiracy theory of 2012-16 turns out to be true. WRONG, as far as I am aware.
  21. There’s a major epidemic of a new infectious disease across a whole continent (or more). WRONG, again as far as I am aware.
  22. IBM is bought by/merged with another large US corporation (possible contenders: Microsoft, Apple, Google). WRONG
  23. Other deaths: Rupert Murdoch, the Dalai Lama, Jimmy Carter, George HW Bush. WRONG on all those.

Personal
These predictions were previously redacted.

  1. Knee Surgery 1. Operation on right knee successful although recovery takes >3 months. CORRECT; surgery was very successful although recovery was nothing over 3 months.
  2. Knee Surgery 2. Left knee replacement not before November and probably in 2018. WRONG; operation was done in September and again successful and good recovery.
  3. Pension. IBM reduces all pensions by 10%. WRONG
  4. Deaths amongst Family & Friends. Joan Wayman (before end-January); Cyril; Jessie; Stan Owen. CORRECT about Stan who died in April. CORRECT that Joan died, although on Boxing Day and not in January. WRONG about Cyril and Jessie.
  5. Anthony Powell Society. I am replaced as Secretary as the Society Trustees decide on a new direction/strategy. MAYBE: I wasn’t directly replaced but announced (voluntarily) that I am standing-down at the 2018 AGM so as not to impede the refocussing of the Society.

Well that’s not a very impressive year! Definintely could do better.
I’ll be posting my predictions for 2018 in the next few days, so if you have any good predictions please do share them.

personal, ramblings

My 2017 in Summary

As for the last few years here’s a summary of my achievements and engagement (or, more accurately the lack of it) during 2017.
Yet again it has been a strange year with significant depression all year round (not just in the winter) and in effect two knee replacement operations (OK the first was in the last few days of 2016, but recovery wasn’t!). Despite that I have somehow managed to function most of the time and have been insanely busy, although I will be cutting back commitments during 2018. All in all I don’t feel I’ve achieved anything and haven’t even managed to get anything off the bucket list! So here’s the summary …

At the beginning of the year I posted 10 Things I’m Trying to Do in 2017. The results are in and, yet again, it’s fair to say I lost badly.
1. Keep breathing – WIN
2. Do something not done before – WIN; attended a book launch
3. Go somewhere not been before – WIN;Islip & Brightwell Baldwin, Oxfordshire; Tutbury & Sudbury Hall, Staffordshire/Derbyshire; Stondon Massey, Essex
4. Be drawn/painted/photographed nude (again) – LOSE
5. Walk across Millennium Bridge – LOSE
6. Complete AP London Photography project – LOSE
7. Do more photography – LOSE
8. Monthly Day Out – LOSE; we managed two
9. Visit Horniman Museum – LOSE
10. Significant family history progress – WIN; in that I reconnected with my family in Canada as they told me about my Aunt’s and my cousin’s deaths
That’s a pathetic 4/10. 2018 really can’t get any worse!

Looking at the year through the usual 25 questions doesn’t look any better.
1. What did you do that you’d never done before?
a. Had my photo in the Guardian magazine for 27 May (it was the image from Laura Dodsworth’s Manhood).
b. Attended the book launch of Manhood.
2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
No because I didn’t make any, and I never will.
3. What would you like to have in 2018 that you lacked in 2017?
a. A big lottery win.
b. Free time.
4. What dates from 2017 will remain etched upon your memory?
13 September – left knee replacement.
5. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Only the left knee replacement – and recovery from the right kneee op as well.
6. What was the best thing you bought?
a. Knee replacement.
b. Hilary Spurling’s biography of Anthony Powell.
7. Where did most of your money go?
Other than an exorbitant amount of tax, fuck alone knows.
8. What did you get really, really excited about?
Nothing; I don’t do excitement, just like I don’t do panic and crisis.
9. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a. happier or sadder? – sadder, because the depression is worse.
b. thinner or fatter? – a couple of kilos heavier (it’s called Christmas!).
c. richer or poorer? – about the same.
10. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Sleep.
Sitting in the garden.
Being generally active.
11. What do you wish you’d done less of?
a. Sleep.
b. Depression.
12. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Continuing to breathe.
Knee replacements.
13. What was your biggest failure?
Depression.
14. How many one-night stands?
None – where would I find the energy and enthusiasm?
15. What was your favourite TV program?
Yet again, I’ve watched hardly any TV programmes from end to end all year, mainly because it is all such garbage. But the best of the few? Probably the RI Christmas Lectures.
16. What was the best book you read?
Hilary Spurling’s biography of Anthony Powell.
Laura Dodsworth’s Manhood.
(I must get round to writing reviews of them!)
17. What did you want and get?
a. Hilary Spurling’s Anthony Powell.
b. A second new knee.
18. What did you want and not get?
a. A big lottery win.
b. Cancellation of Brexit.
c. The lack of depression.
19. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
a. Universal acceptance of nudity and sexuality rather than stigmatisation.
b. Everyone being treated properly, as a person, with gender, ethnicity etc. being totally unimportant.
c. Not having depression.
20. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2017?
As little as possible as much as possible.
21. What kept you sane?
Nothing – it’s a lost cause.
22. Who did you miss?
My mother.
23. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2017:
a. All men are guilty.
b. Biological gender is irrelevant to worth and ability. [Well I knew that, but this seemed a good way to encapsulate the concept in a soundbite.]
24. A quote or song lyric that sums up your year:
“Statistics … suggest it is truly dismal these days to have a Y chromosome.”
[Mark Rice-Oxley; Guardian; 21 November 2017]
25. Your hopes for 2018
a. Sanity all round.
b. A government with the courage to cancel Brexit.

Yet again the overall result is REQUIRES IMPROVEMENT; kicking the depression would seem to be one of the keys!
Will the manager last another season, one asks? Or does he still have the full confidence of the board?
Anyway, enough of my misery. How was your 2017? And what are your hopes for 2018?

beliefs, personal, pleasures, thoughts

Winter Lights

In a few days, on Twelfth Night, our Christmas decorations will be coming down. Anything which gets forgotten has to stay up until next year as it is believed to be unlucky to remove Christmas decorations after Twelfth Night.
But there’s an exception. Our lights. Which are Winter Lights, rather than Christmas Lights.
How come?


Almost all major religions have a winter light festival, mostly around the Winter Solstice (in the Northern Hemisphere) to celebrate the turn of the year and to provide light and hope in the darkness of winter.

  • In Hinduism the most important light celebration is Diwali – the victory of light over darkness – which is slightly earlier than the solstice as it normally occurs around early November. Jainism also keeps Diwali.
  • Buddhism, at least in Burma, has Tazaungmon which mostly falls in November-December.
  • Chinese New Year seems to fit I here, as it too is a light festival celebrated on the first new moon between 20 January and 21 February.
  • Islam, at least as practised in Iran, has both Jashne Sade, a mid-winter feast to honour fire and to defeat the forces of darkness, frost and cold, and Shabe Chelle, the turning point, the end of the longest night of the year and the beginning of growing of the days.
  • Judaism, of course, has Hanukkah.
  • The Roman feast of Saturnalia, with its reputation for debauchery, lasted a week and also fell around the Winter Solstice.
  • Paganism, in its various forms – either ancient Paganism or its more modern incarnation as Wicca – celebrate the Winter Solstice as Yule.
  • And of course Christianity has Christmas, which it cobbled together from Pagan Yule and Roman Saturnalia with Christian iconography as pargeting.
  • And let’s not forget St Lucia’s Day on 13 December, a light festival widely celebrated across Scandinavia and some other countries.

I’m sure there are more, but you get the point.
There are many different traditions embedded in these festivals. In fact so many that years ago we decided to create our own. Hence our Winter Lights. So when the Christmas decorations – tree, holly, cards, crib figures and so on – come down the lights remain, just as they preceded the Christmas decorations.
In fact the tradition we created was to put lights in our main windows. They go up on the Feast of Christ the King, which is the Sunday before Advent (so in late November) and stay up until Candlemas on 2 February.
Why? Well, why not? Lights cheer the place up! They add some fun, interest and maybe even some mystery. They give light to scare away the dark during the gloomiest two months of the year. And while the lights don’t banish SAD they do shine a little happiness, and let’s be honest we could all do with that at this time of year.
Yes, OK, before anyone says it, the lights do take a certain amount of energy to run. But if, like us, you standardise on LEDs then the cost and environmental impact is negligible. As an example, the set of lights plugged in by my desk are rated to use 3.6 watts of electricity; over 70 days that’s 6KwHr at a cost of about £1. So you could run four sets for the cost of a couple of coffees, or (in London) the cost of a pint of decent beer. Even my environmentally conscious brain isn’t going to worry too hard about that; maybe I’ll just drink one fewer mug of tea a week.
So if you would like to help cheer the place up, and you have lights that you could like to leave up for a while, why not join our tradition. Together we might even be able to make it into something big.

personal, ramblings

Happy New Year

I name this Year, 2018


God bless her

and all that sail in her

The colour of the message above is Pantone 18-3838 Ultra Violet
“a provocative and thoughtful purple shade” which is the designated colour for 2018.

food+drink, history, links, medical, science

Your Monthly Links

Here’s the final round for 2017 of monthly links to articles you may have missed the first time around. Despite the holidays there’s a lot her, so let’s get straight in …
Science & Natural World
Scientists have managed to recover, from some amber, ticks from the era of the dinosaurs. Two reports, first from BBC and second from New York Times.
Zoologists have discovered six (yes, six) new species of tiny anteaters which had been hiding in plain sight in the forests of Brazil.
Health & Medicine


Here are a pair of items of flu vaccination. First, why you should get your flu shot every year. And second on why flu vaccine may not be as effective as it should be. And no, the second does not excuse you from the first!
Environment
We all have our own, differing, perceptions of the world even when seen from the same position. And each generation perceives the state of the world from its childhood as the norm. So over the generations we gradually normalise the degrading of the natural world. It’s an interesting idea.
Social Sciences, Business, Law
With fewer people needed to do real work, but more jobs, huge numbers are doing little except continually reworking and reworking business bullshit. [LONG READ]
Art & Literature
The original of the Marquis de Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom was due to be sold at auction but has been saved by the French government as a national treasure.
The Japanese have an interesting take on broken things, especially broken pots: they celebrate the breakage by repairing it with gold.
History, Archaeology & Anthropology
Amateur explorers have found a vast, partly flooded, underground passage beneath Montreal.
Still on a watery note, new underwater discoveries in Greece are revealing the wonders of ancient Roman engineering.
DNA mapping of the Irish has shown that they are, well, distinctively Irish – mostly.
Historians are getting increasingly inventive and adept at uncovering the lost texts on palimpsests. [LONG READ]
A number of Elizabethan letters have been donated to the British Library, amongst them one from Elizabeth I stating her suspicions to Mary, Queen of Scots.
Merton Priory in south London was destroyed during th dissolution of the monasteries, and has latterly been over-flown by a motorway. Now the remains are being uncovered and made accessible.
Why do renovations on old houses often find hidden shoes.

Postboxes. They date from the early 1850s, they weren’t always red, and there have been many designs over the last 160+ years. The Postal Museum has an extensive collection.
London
Industrial accidents in Silvertown (in London’s docklands) have been a relatively common occurrence. Here’s the story of one of the earlier and lesser known explosions.
So just how many London Underground stations are there? Diamond Geezer investigates.

Squawking, bright green and feathered … London is home to a huge number of non-native Ring-Necked Parakeets. Many people hate them, but we regularly have them in our garden and I love them both for their colourfulness and their cheeky antics.
Lifestyle & Personal Development
Don’t make the mistake of thinking you have free will. We make fewer decisions than we think because politicians set out to make us feasrful so they can manipulate us for their own interest.
Life is not fair. And it is a parent’s job to ensure their children understand this other wise they’ll not cope with life as adults.
There’s generally a lack of trust in male touch (and that’s not new). This is why men keep demanding sex from their partners over and over.
Should we be surprised that in the wake of #MeToo women fear a backlash?
In an increasingly noisy world full of smartphones, conversation is dying. So how do we recover it? Shut up and listen!
Food & Drink
And finally … Just what fruit should be kept in the fridge, and what shouldn’t?

More next month. Meanwhile have a happy New Year!

amusements

2017 Amusements

Traditionally we have a round-up of the amusements we’ve encountered during the year, but 2017 has been noted for it’s total lack of amusement due to multitudinous stupidities – mostly of the UK and US governments. However there were a few bright spots amongst the gloom.

Product of the Year
The three top contenders for this year’s accolade are:
Unwaxed & Unflavored Dental Floss For Use As Yoni Egg Retrieval String
Mummy Prawns (below left) which Noreen encountered in the flesh, but which Iceland have sadly renamed since Halloween!


Aroma Home Fuzzy Friends Slippers; they come in “unicorn” (above right) and “white rabbit”.

Outstanding News Headlines
I cannot reduce the field beyond these four beauties:
Donald Trump: a man so obnoxious that karma may see him reincarnated as himself
Shaquille O’Neal Thinks Earth Is Flat Because It Doesn’t Go Up And Down When He Drives
Alice Cooper finds Warhol artwork after decades rolled up in storage
[Man] jailed for threatening lamp-posts and bollards with a knife in Bristol

Crass Media Statements
We just can’t beat this one from Chiltern Railways on Twitter in May …

We do apologise that there are a few delays this evening.
This is due to congestion caused by earlier delays.

The medal for Plonker of the Year has to go to the Lancashire man poisoned after eating cherry seeds.

Best Music Track Title
Not a new track, but one I hadn’t encountered before: John Willis Ferret by the Oldham Tinkers

Best Place Name
Marsh Gibbon. It’s a small village in Buckinghamshire near Bicester.

Best Animal
Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever

Recipe of the Year
There is no winner here this year, although we thought you should be warned that someone taught a computer to write cookbooks and its recipe ideas are hilariously weird.
We can’t wait to try Salmon Beef Style Chicken Bottom.

Best Neologisms
We spotted two brilliant neologisms this year …
Landscape homeopathy – whatever the fuck that is!
Vaginal wedge – which contributed to its perpetrator winning a Bad Sex Award.

Best Piece of Trivia
We have to thank Barnaby Page on Facebook for this:
One of my favourite bits of trivia is that there is exactly one ATM in the entire continent of Antarctica (it’s an excellent quiz question). But tonight I have discovered something even more wonderful – there is an ATM in Vatican City with instructions in Latin!

Best Photographs
Three contenders for the title here …



And now we come to the final section …

Do What?
Somewhere during the year we came across these felting instructions:


And finally this, from an advert, courtesy of Steve Olle on Facebook:
To part time editor: I hope you could think our work as possible forever work or hobbies at your later future.

By no means a bumper year, so with luck 2018 will do better.

amusements, pleasures

To Keep You Amused …

Just in case anyone is at al loose end for the remainder of today and tomorrow, the Guardian printed the King William’s College 2017 GKP, as it has every year since 1951. This is the general knowledge paper 2017-18, the 113th issue, sat by the pupils of King William’s College, Isle of Man.
According to Wikipedia: Since 1904, the College has set an annual general knowledge test, known as the General Knowledge Paper (GKP). The pupils sit the test twice: once unseen on the day before the Christmas holidays, and again when they return to school in the New Year, after spending the holiday researching the answers. It is well known to be highly difficult, a common score being just two correct answers from the list of several hundred. The best scores are 40 to 50 for the unseen test and about 270 out of 360 for the second sitting.
The quiz is always introduced with the Latin motto Scire ubi aliquid invenire possis, ea demum maxima pars eruditionis est, “To know where you can find anything is, after all, the greatest part of erudition.”
You can find this year’s GKP at https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2017/dec/21/king-williams-college-quiz-2017.
I shall not be getting 100% as tonight’s bedtime reading.