Iâve mentioned a number of Christmas traditions i keep up here in the past, and thought you all
might have wanted some updates.
I, alas, lost the Pogues Game on the very first
day â i was putting on âDriving Home for Christmasâ and failed to notice that The Algorithm had
queued the song of my nightmares up for me next. (I proceeded to lose again on the night
before Christmas, this time at the hands of Bradley Walsh.)
Youâll be pleased to hear that
our annual exchange of Christmas gifts on Minecraft
went all according to plan this year. Someone built me a little shrine to do as i pleased with,
which was quite nice of them.
Finally, iâve added the annual haul of records to the database for your
perusal⊠but mostly for my own reference. :-)
Well, here we are again. 2021 is almost over, and it was better than 2020, thank⊠well, you should
probably thank every God just
to cover your bases and make sure it doesnât happen again. (And the biologists, too. They have a
vial of smallpox and they know how to use it!)
So. What do i think might happen in 2022? Well, hereâs my list of predictions, in no particular
order. Some of these iâm absolutely sure of; some of these are just a wild guess. Iâll come back at
the end of the year and give each one a grade, from âayeâ to âkindaâ to ânahâ.
đŠ The pandemic đ
There will be no mask or distancing mandate in England by the autumn equinox.
The âplan Bâ measures will likely be relaxed at some point in March â perhaps earlier if Tory
backbenchers get too fed up.
The booster jab rollout will proceed unremarkably, as we all silently accept
that weâre just going to have to treat covid like the âflu now.
Australia will continue being paranoid, but New Zealand will slowly start
reducing restrictions.
đŠ The United Kingdom đŠ
Queen Elizabeth will die. I say this every year, but i genuinely do think this
will be the year â itâs not uncommon for widows to pass shortly after their spouses, and sheâs
been attending notably fewer public events recently. Some related predictions:
Her death will be after the Platinum Jubilee celebrations,
simply by virtue of them being relatively early on in the year. Nevertheless, itâll put
something of a damper on the national mood.
Somebody famous will get sacked as a result of ill-advised commentary,
probably from the BBC.
Boris Johnson will muddle along as prime minister despite intra-party
discontent.
A terrorist attack of some kind will occur in Northern Ireland. Tensions have
been rising for some time, and, though nobody wants it to happen, one canât escape the feeling
that it will.
In the local elections:
The Lib Dems will make gains,
Labour will also make gains, but not as much, and
the Reform Party and Ukip will backslide.
A refugee from Hong Kong will get elected to a local council. Just a
feeling.
Someone who is neither male nor female will get elected to a relatively major
position
and the press will have a paddy over it.
đŠ The United States đœ
The Democrats get absolutely pummelled in the midterms, as Bidenâs popularity
flags and roadblocks in the Senate prevent much from passing.
Donald Trump will have a major figure excommunicated from the Republican party,
likely a potential 2024 candidate. Ron DeSantis? Mitch McConnell? Himself? Who knows!
Kyle Rittenhouse will run for Congress. This will somehow be the
least stupid thing to happen in the United States in 2022.
Several people will die at the hands of a or many âQAnonâ adherents. Mass
bleach-drinking? Someone shoots up that pizza place again? Weâll have to wait and see.
đ The rest of the world đ
Xi Jinping will shit himself. Okay, not literally, but many world
leaders will likely make efforts to distance themselves from the Chinese government.
A multinational company will close its offices in Hong Kong due to
concerns about civil liberties.
Emmanuel Macron will be reëlected as president of France.
The
Notre Dame redesign plans
will be quietly replaced with something more in keeping with the buildingâs historic layout.
Gay marriage will be legalised in another Asian or African country. Weâre
coming for you, Uganda! (It wonât be Uganda.)
đ± Technology (sorry) đœ
The âmetaverseâ will neither be a gigantic flop nor as big as its proponents
hope. Some people will quietly adopt virtual office spaces, teenagers will get VR headsets for
their birthday, and furries will continue being furries, but there will be no great revolution.
The NFT bubble will burst. Sorry, i mean, uh⊠the token that represents your
claim of ownership to a jpeg of the NFT bubble will burst?
Someone will announce a mid-range or âbudgetâ folding phone, opening the
floodgates to more widespread adoption. Probably Xiaomi.
đŹ Entertainment đż
Avatar 2 will bomb and possibly kill James Cameronâs career. Really:
who on earth is actually excited by the idea of an Avatar sequel? Anyone?
Literally anyone?
The yearâs blockbusters will largely be fine. Nothing great, nothing
terrible. Wow, another Marvel sequel? Iâd have never guessed!
That one where the moon crashes into the Earth
might be good dumb fun.
Someone will drop the album of the decade. You hear those rumours about
Kendrick Lamar?
As the solstice arrives, the week winds down, and the days begin once more to lengthen, itâs
time for our final submission for this yearâs Lords of Misrule. This one comes from an artist
known only as Newt S.For the last time this year, Io Saturnalia!
My sincerest thanks for everyone for participating this year. I wasnât expecting a single
submission, let alone five of the bloody things.
Todayâs submission, a plea to pick up litter while on your morning (or evening) constitutional,
comes from one Quinn Casey. Io
Saturnalia!
1. Forces you to walk slower
I normally walk at an incredibly brisk pace. I have found a zen to slowing down to A) pick up the
garbage and B) turn around slowly and admire the clean patch.
2. A pass to roam in âless-than-publicâ land
Iâm not talking about hopping a fence into someoneâs farmland. There are areas in the US that are
legally private property, but in practice are wild, unused spaces.
For a rule-follower like myself itâs a âyou know it when you see itâ. Some real life examples of
property I regularly trespass on and cleanup:
A paved sidewalk that ends onto an HOA stormdrain, with well trodden dirt paths throughout.
Government / Utility company land
Land beside train tracks, under bridges, and on maintenance roads
Picking up trash adds a layer of innocence to your case when pleading ignorance of your trespassing.
Even if you are never confronted, it may help immerse you and ease your law-abiding mind.
3. Repeated hikes are prettier than the last
Paths you roam frequently will be cleaned faster than they accumulate garbage, and there comes a
point where the space looks natural, untouched by human kind. In my opinion, having those
wild spaces close to where we live is essential to mental health.
4. An excuse to go for longer hikes
Iâm stubbornly attached to the (unhealthy) notion that a productive day is a successful day.
5. A problem local enough to solve
Where does this trash go when you bring it all back to the bin? Does this encourage more
consumption/litter, since the waste isnât immediately obvious anymore? Is litter even a substantial
environmental problem, or is it just aesthetic?
I donât pretend to know the answer to these. These are problems for a society, a larger than life
culture. For too many years this was the excuse I used to not care at all. To not take any action
whatsoever.
Whatâs the point of helping at all?
Well now Iâve found one. (5, if youâve been keeping count) reasons to take action in a localized,
meaningful way.
Small but constant effort by everyone is just as impactful as a one off million dollar idea. For
true change we need to alter our behavior for the long term.
When i was a bairn, my mam would take me to this great big bookstore in Amsterdam, just a hop and a
skip away from the cityâs central plaza. Itâs held a special place in my mind ever since. What burns
brightest in my memory, though, isnât a book or an item of decor or an especially kind employee, but
a machine. On the top floor, around the corner from the gift shop, sat the shopâs on-demand printing
service.
Twenty-four hours a day, new pages would roll through its glass walls, printing and printing and
printing until a book was fully-formed. I donât remember what was in these books, or what they
looked like â i was seven, give me a break â but iâll be damned if i donât remember that
smell. Freshly-stamped ink, that petrichor of paper, that which one can still catch a whiff
of in just-delivered magazines on oneâs front porch.
All things must pass eventually, of course. Ink dries, paper cools, and before you know it, your
beautiful book smells like nothing at all. Yet in between the tiny strands of ground-up wood that
make it up, something else, something just as fragrant, is happening â and to understand the power
of that, we must head across the North Sea.
Iâve blogged about Barter Books before: the Mecca of second-hand books, housed in a comically
oversized railway station in Alnwick (built that way to the Duke of Northumberlandâs specification).
It is, in no uncertain terms, one of the coziest places on earth, despite its immense size. Daylight
streams through the windows, and when none are to be found, artificial lights decorate the air with
a firey golden glow. The most important factor in its gezelligheid (to borrow a term) has
long eluded me, but i think i may have finally figured it out.
As books grow musty and yellow with age (a common condition second-hand), they, as any fule kno,
gain a certain odour, similar to and yet entirely different from ânew book smellâ. Crack open the
spine, and an earthy, wooden aroma wafts into the nose, with a slight hint of vanilla and an inkling
of all the people whoâve leafed through it before. When enough of these old books are in the same
place, the air becomes less like that of a building, and more like that of a forest â a way
of being outdoors without being outdoors.
Welcome back to our first annual Lords of Misrule! Todayâs poem comes to us from one
Noa S.Enjoy.
do you do you do you ever ever ever wonder whether maybe maybe something
else is hiding hiding in this world
sometimes nighttime i see things scary barely anything but something nothing physical hiding hiding in
this world
would i could i if there were love these things like i loved her maybe she
is touching me hiding trying to watch me maybe she is missing me now
she loves me finally
IĆ Saturnalia! As you may remember, at the start of the month i
announced that to celebrate the holiday season, you could submit anything you wanted to my
website and iâd put it up. Iâm pleased to say several people took up my offer, and iâll be
putting them up daily starting today. Our somber first submission comes from a reader by the
nom de plume of
RĂŠl H. Bishop. Enjoy.
I think I mightâve finally accepted the fact that Iâm gonna die some day.
A story has no purpose if it doesnât have an end.
We will all die some day and never again be able to feel the sun shine on our faces, shielding us
with warmth.
But itâs that very fact that lets us enjoy the sun for his bountiful rays.
Be here, now.
For even the sun will burn out one day and never shine again.
Cary Joji Fukunagaâs No Time to Die (2021): Having never seen a James Bond film before,
i have to say i enjoyed it, even if
the artsy-fartsy cinema i saw it at wasnât the ideal
venue for a massive blockbuster. A racist gets kicked into a vat of acid; what more do you want?
(C+)
Lana and Lily Wachowskiâs The Matrix (1999): The most 1999 movie to ever 1999 its way
onto the screen. It suffers somewhat from its own success; iâd heard so much good about it that,
even though by technical standards i could of course tell it was a good film, i still found
myself somewhat underwhelmed by the ending. (B)
Denis Villeneuveâs Dune: Part One (2021): I got the immersive experience by
really needing to go to the toilet about halfway through and having no idea when the film was
going to end. Amazing visuals, amazing scope, amazing score, i did not feel a single emotion.
(B)
Mary Harronâs American Psycho (2000): Me and a group of friends watched this over
Discord for laughs and generally memed our way through it â and yet, even among our decidedly
unserious,
Scorcese-killing
atmosphere, we were all genuinely fucking terrified at the chainsaw scene. A masterclass in
tension and subtle comedy. (A+)
John McTiernanâs Die Hard (1988): An absolute thrill-ride from start to finish. Every
time you think it canât get any more extreme, it does.
âNo shit, lady, do i sound like iâm ordering a fucking pizzaâœâ (A)
Brian Hensonâs The Muppets Christmas Carol (1992): Greatest Christmas film ever made.
(B-)
Music listened to
Sam Fenderâs Seventeen Going Under: Iâm naturally biased as a Geordie boygirl myself,
but the second i heard this, it went straight to the top of my album-of-the-year rankings â and
itâs not even a contest. (A+. Best track:
âSeventeen Going Underâ)
Lucy Dacusâs Home Video: No spoilers, but the closing track? Ye Gods, did the closing
track give me a teary eye. (A. Best track:
âTriple Dog Dareâ)
Underscoresâ Fishmonger: A fascinating fusion of hyperpop and pop-punk. Itâs patchy in
a few places, and the repeated samples got on my nerves, but iâm excited to see what this
band(?) does next! (B-. Best track:
âSpoiled Little Bratâ)
Sigur RĂłsâs TakkâŠ: I love it. I really do â but i found myself having to take breaks
every so often because lead singer JĂłnsiâs falsetto came dangerously close to giving me a
migraine. (B. Best track:
âHoppĂpollaâ, natch)
Some interesting stuff from the Isle of Wight-based band
Wet Leg, dripping with wit and
sardonic vocals. Canât wait for the album!
I went to my first concert since, you know, the thing. All glory to Elbow.
Other recent minutiĂŠ
Iâve been taking up sketching in my journal to ease the brain. Iâm not anywhere near good enough
to be posting anything on here â trust me â but itâs just nice to have a creative outlet. :)
I went on a brief jaunt out to
the old Roman temple at Benwell, but to tell the truth, there wasnât enough interesting about it to turn it into a full post.
I did, funnily enough, pass about five different religious denominations on the bus
there â a church, a mosque, a gurdwara, a Hindu temple, and a Hare
Krishna society.
Storm Arwen absolutely fucked parts of Northumberland. My neck of the woods was largely
unscathed, but the next town over didnât fare so well â they didnât have power for about a week.
There were a couple of Barbadians interviewed on Radio 4 about the countryâs transition to a
republic, and it rather struck me how similar their dialect is to our West Country accent.
Now that the nights are getting longer again, itâs getting to be good weather for stargazing. I
really must get myself out to that observatory in Wark again at some pointâŠ
Relevant pictures (and one audio file) from jaunts out