2020 Year in Review

A few weeks ago I put myself through the misery of a one-hour BBC documentary charting the pre-pandemic course and the scientific response (or lack of) as things unfolded in China, and later Europe. It was like watching a horror movie. We’ve all lived through this horror movie this year and I don’t intend on a eulogising look back through this hellscape – but unfortunately even most of my highlights of 2020 are from the context of covid. I have every intention of this being a positive piece of writing to reflect my own being, but it is of course …

Apparently when I went back to Hull on the weekend before lockdown, in March, I joked to my parents that I might not even be back at Christmas. Yet the last month or so I’d been slowly mentally preparing myself for the idea that I would be spending my first Christmas away from my parents. Sure, I could have said “fuck it” and broken the rules – it wouldn’t be the first time in my life. But with covid surging across London and my parents not in a zero risk group, it just wasn’t worth the risk. I don’t moralise …

So we’ve reached that time of year where everyone tells you how shit 2020 has been. Of course, I will be doing the same, but I’ll try to offer a more positive slant – and what can be more positive than music? If ever music has been necessary it has been in 2020, but it is necessary every year and has been all through my life, especially the more difficult parts where it is a source of solace, a world of musical refuge – and sometimes also offers me opportunities to wallow in misery, when I see fit. Or jump …

FUCK OFF. FUCK COVID. FUCK CHINA. SERIOUSLY, FUCK CHINA. FUCK BORIS. Urgh. I knew this was coming. I knew that it was irresponsible to go home for Christmas anyway and was seriously uncomfortable about it – yet didn’t really have a choice. But still, I feel simultaneously flat and angry. Angry mostly at China who seem to be getting away with it – I’d be much more at ease if they still had an issue with covid, as horrid as that sounds. Angry at our government about the way they have mishandled an admittedly really difficult and shitty situation – …

I have this theory that us British like the idea of chaos. Maybe it isn’t unique to us Brits, but it comes across in a variety of ways, exemplified this year over the excitement of panic buying toilet roll, but also in the annual hope for “snowmaggedon” – in which some seem to be excited to see how we’d cope with 2 metres of snow falling. I profess to being in this group. This isn’t why I am keen on no deal. I’m not really keen on no deal – I think it is a dreadful idea, a dreadful outcome …

I was talking the night before I started writing this post to a friend, and discussing 2020 and how crap it has been. I could easily conclude so, but I’m a contrarian fucker at times and I argued instead that 2020 has been good for me in some ways – life being cancelled and working from home permanently has meant that I can cook more often, and eat much healthier food. Which is what this post is about. One of the most immediate changes was how I started the day. I had got into a pattern of being fucked off …

A few months ago, I reached the dubious milestone of owning 2,000 CDs. Which made me think, why the fuck do I own 2,000 CDs? I do listen to them all once. Before broadband, CDs were my main format to listen to music – and even discover music, and I would listen to each CD dozens of times. Now I listen once, perhaps twice. I still buy them. Not as many as I used to, but I still buy one or two a month. It is my way of being able to justify downloading individual tracks via Soulseek or similar …

Been a great year so far, hasn’t it? Well, I’m trying to make the best of the situation that we’ve been granted and take what opportunities are available to me. And things are changing in my life. Firstly – work. We had an announcement a few weeks back that the team I work on, the product details page, was being disbanded. Project complete, and completed very successfully – one of the quickest loading product pages in retail (I think the quickest, but not entirely sure so don’t want to claim too much), much cleaner and more responsive than the old …

In the context of April and May, the last couple of months have been rather fun. Nowhere near as much fun as late summer should be, and of course no autumn holiday like I usually have – trying to scrape the last of the sunshine and warmth from some semi-random location in Europe. The fun started with a relaunch of my life at Blacklock. I mean, where else would you celebrate the end of pandemic? This was when I was totally refusing to go anywhere requiring a mask, so my sister even picked me up and dropped me home. Next …

Those of you that have read my ramblings over the years will appreciate that my one major frustration, even more so than trying to get laid more than once a decade, is an inability to lose weight. Previously, I had discovered two proven ways of losing weight: Being unemployed Being on detox I had settled into a groove of losing weight during the January to March period, and then putting on around twice as much over the next 9 months. Not only was this not improving my sex life, but also it was having a negative impact on my health. …

I remember just after the financial crisis a decade or so ago, reading a sizable report in the economist about the expected political repercussions. They suggested large-scale protests, a rise of populist leaders and possible government overthrows, all across the world. And this is what we had – from the Occupy protests, to the Arab Spring, to Trump, Brexit & Co, and so much more during the 2010’s – all either directly or indirectly, fully or partly, caused by the financial crisis. Which leads me to wonder what this current major crisis will bring in the way of politics going …

I’m doing a thought experiment to write down three good things at the end of every day, that occurred during the day, for a week. I thought that I might as well make it pubic. This was from a fair few weeks ago. Sunday: My sister visited for our 3rd socially distanced Sunday gathering. I am limited in my ability to get anywhere so I am exceptionally grateful for efforts in visiting me in Harrow. We cooked Pizza In The Post. Granted, I burnt mine so I was eating burnt pizza, but it was fun and the start of my …

I don’t count my blessings every day, but I do count them at times. One such blessing could be that Covid-19 hasn’t affected my health or the health of those close to me. It has, however, affected my social life, my roast dinners, my holidays – in May I was due to visit Japan and were life normal I’m sure I would have had a weekend away in some random European country that only Eurovision Song Contest viewers have heard of. I was also due to go watch the cricket last weekend, England vs Pakistan at Lords. And actually had …

I always get worried when I find myself on the same side of the argument as Donald Trump, so I was relieved recently when I saw him wear a mask – as I am against the imposition of masks. But why can I be against saving lives, I hear the moral crusaders amongst you ask? Firstly, I don’t believe that wearing a mask does save lives. There is much evidence against – albeit there is also some that suggests there might be a tiny benefit to others but nobody is sure. If mask-wearing was really helpful, then how come it …

A few weeks ago, well a bit over a month ago, I was really struggling psychologically with the whole lockdown shiznit. One of the main factors was just how much my world had shrunk, how limited my options were and how I was trapped in Harrow. Then the enforcement of facemasks came on public transport and I realised that it would be months, or even a year or two before I could go anywhere on my own volition. Why Harrow? Originally I moved to Harrow because my first developer job was in Amersham, and I wanted to be somewhere halfway …

Lockdown life has become a bit of a struggle at times. I’m now back to my usual cheerful, jokey self and have been for 10 days or so, but I had a good couple of weeks before that where I was consistently really fucking miserable. I didn’t understand at first why I’d become so unhappy the last few weeks. It would have made sense at the start of lockdown, but why late May/early June when freedoms were slowly being granted? Normally in life I am happy most days, at least in the last few years since discovering purpose to life …

So what happened this week? Well the same as every week for the last forgettable amount of forgettable weeks with absolutely zero chance of doing anything different. I just had to apologise to 3 of my dearest on a video call for thanking them for the highlight of my week – which was a beer-fueled Zoom call and the best Zoom call so far. Yet the rest of the week was monotony. Wake up. Before 6am. It won’t be long before 5am is a lie in…damn you sunniest spring ever. Go for a walk. I walk through this little nature …

Ahhh I should be sat in a beer garden right now, sun-kissed, slightly drunk, wondering if the Met line will develop a signal failure and a tinge of annoyance from yet another average roast dinner. Yet my complaints are trivial. People have lost their lives. People have lost love ones. People have lost jobs. People will lose their jobs once furlough expires. And we will all have a host of problems from the upcoming economic crisis. I could say that I am lucky – I am in some respects though with respects to my job, I chose my career change …

I can hear you now, dear Brexit-voting, Boris-worshipping reader, about to go apoplectic over how I dare to even consider whether there should be some criticism for Saint Boris over this perfectly-handled response to the Covid-19 crisis? Oh wait a minute, you’re actually a leftie and still mourning how the country were duped into not supporting a radical programme of democratic socialism – of course this is nothing less than a Tory Genocide. It seems how you view Boris Johnson and the government’s handling of this crisis is rather closely related to how you voted in December 2019. Those that …

You may remember that a couple of years I stuck my £5,000 savings into shares. They went up. Then shot down. I panicked and sold with a loss of £1,460.58. I concluded that my biggest mistake was to ignore a good friend who told me to have a diversified portfolio. I had 80% of my money in one company, 20% in another. My other mistake was investing at the top of a stock market rally – investing when they were overpriced as opposed to underpriced. And perhaps another mistake was investing money I couldn’t afford to lose – this was …

Oh back in the good old days when the worst of my problems was attempting to get to work and home from work. Might be a while before I have cause to complain again. And maybe I will just be happy every time there is a signal failure in future because I am actually allowed to get a tube. For old time’s sake…though it isn’t even funny so I don’t know why I’m posting it. ****** Dear Sir/Madam I hope that you are getting as bored of my complaints as I am getting bored of Metropolitan line delays. Every month …

Shit happened. I need to amend my goals for the year slightly: Health Two Detoxes Don’t drink every night. A 3-week detox prior to my 40th birthday and a 3-month detox after my birthday. Should be easy, right? Try not to drink every night. Stop unnecessary drinking. This is the bottle of wine at home on a Friday night after work, or the can of beer at my desk on a Friday afternoon, or drinking prosecco on a Tuesday afternoon at work…that kind of thing. If I didn’t need to lose weight, I wouldn’t be so bothered…but I really do. …

This is really quite a depressing situation, isn’t it? The Virus Taliban has taken control of our lives…yet somehow I remain cheerful. I remember reading a story about this Coronavirus just after New Year – going back to work and people talking about the new year and how good it was going to be, but I jokingly mentioned this virus might wipe us all out. I wasn’t taking the threat too seriously, but I did have in the back of my mind all the warnings I had read in publications like The Economist for the last 15 years that one …

Well it has been more or less 18 months since the night I co-run at the Purple Turtle was ended and I haven’t been behind a pair of decks since. Not in a club and not even at home – my vinyl decks occasionally are used to play vinyl, but never to mix – the cramped bit of floor where I would stand has become my dumping ground for the things I intend on taking to charity shop but never do. I’ve not asked anyone about the potential of playing out. I barely dust my CDJs and haven’t played them. …

Is it just me or has February lasted much longer than normal this year? At the beginning of the year I said that I’d try to do monthly updates on my blog, of who I am, where I’m going and what I’m up to. Alas I have not done anything in February. On purpose – I’m on detox and spending my weekends sorting shit out, whether that be throwing away old clothes, cleaning rhe fridge, defrosting the freezer, doing my annual window cleaning – all that kind of really dull shit. Normally when I speak to people, say phone a …

I thought it might be interesting to have a look at the kind of music that I’m into nowadays. Well, interesting to me, perhaps – I’m not under any illusions that people are especially interested in my music tastes, bar a handful. I listen to a lot of minimal still, especially of the hypnotic Romanian variety – though I feel the peak of creativity has passed, and it has started to become oversaturated with averageness – as most successul music scenes do. The scene that I find most exciting at the moment is the “offbeat techno” scene, almost owned by …

Brexit is over. Brexit is done. I lost. You lost. We lost. (The last two IMHO). Once the Brexit vote had happened there was no turning back. I argued for the hardest Brexit possible – whilst wanting to remain totally in opposition to Brexit. Yet I wasn’t going to totally give up the fight whilst there was still a very tiny chance that the mass of public opinion could sway vehemently against leaving the EU. Which is why I went on the marches and why I continued to argue as often as possible (too often, yeah) that we should not …

Whoa, it’s only the second month of the year and I’m already publishing my goals for the year. I didn’t even get around to it last year. Health Two Detoxes. A 3-week detox prior to my 40th birthday and a 3-month detox after my birthday. Should be easy, right? Stop unnecessary drinking. This is the bottle of wine at home on a Friday night after work, or the can of beer at my desk on a Friday afternoon, or drinking prosecco on a Tuesday afternoon at work…that kind of thing. If I didn’t need to lose weight, I wouldn’t be …

Dear Sir/Madam I have just initiated the next battle to get refunds for the exceptionally numerous delays on the Metropolitan line over the last month. Firstly, myself and all other long-suffering customers would appreciate an explanation of why the new signalling is causing so many service suspensions between Finchley Road and Euston Square. I will apply via FOI request if I have to, but I’d prefer an explanation (an honest one – not the social media cover up) of why the problems are occurring and what is being done to resolve them. Your customers really would appreciate an explanation. An …

Yes I am actually 40 years old right now. 40. Fourty. I had a little wobble the day before I turned 40 – this whole, shit I’m about to turn 40 and I don’t have a house, car, wife, kids, management job – not that I actually want any of them, but that didn’t matter on the last day of being in my 30’s. I was a bit miserable that day. Quite a bit. Thankfully, I had the foresight to take my birthday off work, and my trusty sister had spare holiday, so after a morning of getting shit done, …

Dear Sir/Madam I appreciate that the strikes were not the fault of British Airways, and I have laid full blame at Balpa, including sending them a letter of complaint. However, I was supposed to be flying back from my holiday on 27th September – and was waiting to arrange the rest of my holiday, as I had other hotels and a ferry to book too. Finally I received note that my flight on 27th September was cancelled – so I arranged to change it to the week after. Thankfully the one hotel I had booked let me change dates without …

Dear Sir/Madam I am appalled to read that you are taking strike action to ruin the plans of many people, myself included. An 11.5% pay rise over 3 years (for generally well-paid workers) is a good deal.  The current inflation rate is 2.1% – with there arguably being a greater risk of lower inflation due to recessionary risks, than higher inflation. This seems like a rather generous deal to me. Further to that, airlines do go bankrupt, as we have seen.  There are worse airlines to work for – my understanding is that working conditions at British Airways are far …

You can apply for a refund for your journey from TFL if your underground train is delayed by 15 minutes or more. There used to be an app that would do it for you automatically – but strangely enough TFL stopped it from working before the disastrous Met line signalling “upgrade” in September. Anyway, sometimes TFL reject the refund requests. This does not always amuse me. Oh and they had promised us automatic refunds once the disaster unfolded. Which not one single customer reported receiving. Strange that. I wonder how many people are not as persistent as me, and just …

Dear Sir/Madam I would like to find out more about why there was such a disastrous launch of the new signalling equipment between Finchley Road and Euston Square stations, on the Metropolitan line on w/c 2nd September. Who took the decision to launch the new signalling on Monday 2nd September? When was this decision made? When did management realise that not enough drivers had been trained to use the new signalling equipment? Would there have been a financial cost to TFL had the launch been delayed, to allow more time to train drivers to use the new signalling equipment? If …

I know I should have written this back in December when people do those whole “look back” kind of things but maybe it would have got lost with everyone else posting pictures of themselves 10 years between. I did write some notes, vaguely, and it was astonishing as to just how much fun and enjoyment I had in 2019. There is so much that I am missing out here – holidays to Madrid and Corfu/Albania, two days at the cricket in The Ashes, the wonderful RA Summer Exhibition which I love so much, my leaving do at Lovespace, adventures to …

I used to write full lists of goals for every year, forget about them and then review them at the end of the year. Though over the last few years, I’ve put much less effort into writing goals, and much more effort into achieving. So much so, that I never got around to writing goals for 2019 – but I did have a few in my head. 1. Get a significant pay rise or a new job I failed to get any form of pay-rise – only a “we’ll look at it at the end of the year”, and yes, …