Years later I seem to have acquired a small following of family, friends and like minded individuals. I sometimes wish I had a four or five digit number in the followers field but for the meantime I am happy to keep this site local and ‘artisan’.

I am able to see who reads this site from using Google Analytics to track where and where my visitors are from. The majority come from the links on my personal Facebook wall so they must be friends and family, and they mostly come from Coventry and New York (meaning that they are close family). I am sure that the biggest two readers of this blog are both mine and Mrs V’s mothers, keeping an eye on what their progeny are up to.

So hello to both Mums/Moms.

I also know that Mrs V reads this site, but she cheats and uses the Facebook app so robs me of my views. Sometimes I do have to prompt her to read what I wrote, especially if it relates to her.

Other than those few I’m not sure how many people I know who actually read this blog. I am sure that they have enough of my endless wittering without taking time to read a few hundred words on a random subject.

Yet in the past there have been times I’ve wanted particular people to see what I had typed. It could be ‘The Nobber’ or ‘The Princess’ (two of the people who inspired my original angry outbursts) but I managed to write in such an oblique way that two egotists would never know it was them. Even if they did assume that they were the targets of my ire I would still invoke the ‘Carly Simon Defence’

I am just glad that I get a smattering of likes each time I post, as long as each post has just one singular view I feel like it was worth it.

I never lie, I may omit details and facts that give the illusion of a falsification but I never lie. I am the silver-tongue that will tell you not what you want to hear but what I want you to listen to. I would have made a perfect politician, if not for the megalomania and rampant paranoia.

This is the interesting aspect about lying, surely anyone who deals in lies all the time either trusts nobody else or is incredibly naive to think that they are the only one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind.

Telling the truth may be an admirable trait, but is it really the best option. I have been presented recently with a situation where I had the chance to tell someone exactly what I felt about them, and I had two choices:

1. Tell them the truth,
2. Lie to them.

Actually that’s not true, like the Spanish Inquisitors there is a third tool at my disposal. Change the narrative.

Rather than tell them about their failings I framed the conversation as it was my own fault, the typical ‘It’s not you, but me’. This was I didn’t have to lie to them and upset them about some of their own character failings (I don’t want to be an assassin) nor did I have to pretend that everything was hunky dory and that they were brilliant.

Neither of those options would have been beneficial, who wants to change when you have someone being nasty about them or would if they thought they were already doing a great job. By diverting attention away from the original question I was able to create a story by where what I perceived their failings to be were framed as a fault of my own. It wasn’t that I couldn’t work with you it’s that I didn’t think you could cope with me.

Now, be honest, if they take that implication that they are not able to handle me in the same way they could the truth that isn’t my fault is it?

Issac Newton understood the importance of building upon the knowledge and wisdom of those that came before him. Mark Twain did when he said:

There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.

The nature of scientific research is that we take what is already known and test and explore new avenues, but it is very rare that anyone has a valid new idea. We live in a world of intellectual hand-me-downs.

Launches of new mobile devices are littered with remarks that Apple or Android did it first, Star Wars is just a Hollywood remake of an Akira Kurosawa movie, Fifty Shades of Grey is just Twilight which is a bit like the Anne Rice books which is Dracula.

We are the sums of our experience, each of us either accepts or rebels against events in our lives to become the person we are today. I have accepted the politics I was exposed to whilst rejecting any religion, but it was the fact that I was given these familial heirlooms in the first place that created the person I am today.

I am who I am because of what I was given, I may have reclaimed these beliefs when I received them to create my own moral table. It will be my responsibility to pass them on to my children, who will be coloured by these ethical heirlooms but will have the same opportunity to accept or reject them.

It is important that they get a choice, no hand-me-down idea should ever be forced on a child. To create clone of another is personality-murder, you are making the suggestion that they should give up on their own identity and become a duplicate. It is a suggestion that they are not as good and don’t deserve first dibs, they are a second class person with second class thoughts.

As they develop their personalities they can have clothes that suit, when they become real people we will find our their interests and beliefs.
That being said, she got a dinosaur jacket as a hand-me-down, maybe passing on things aren’t all bad.

Especially if it means she wants to continue with that style.

More than once I have had to delete paragraphs because they didn’t come out as I intended. I have a sarcastic and dry humour that translates very poorly to the written word, it needs the inflection of voice and the rolling of eyes to signal that you shouldn’t take what I write to seriously.

This was always a problem during the initial parts of my courtship with Mrs V. Our early chat was conducted via the mediums of Gmail and Facebook so a lot was said on screen. The problem is Arial size 10 has very little emotional range.

When I read back over those first few chats there is a complete difference between the way we communicate now. Every we said was said in detail to try to avoid any confusion as to what we meant. There were plenty of gratuitous quotation marks and a smattering of exclamations.

Also more than once there was an emoticon.

I try to avoid emoticons, especially the . I’m British if I send you a semi-colon close bracket then this has layers and layers of passive aggresiveness so even that is not being presented clearly. The same applies to the usage of LOL and anything with a hashtag.

#really

It’s why I get nervous writing about the ‘big’ subjects like politics or religion. Online people’s offense reaction is often on a hair-trigger, even the slightest deviation towards controversy is a pathway to angry internet confrontation. When I speak in person about them I can gauge the reaction of others and temper my tone to suit the situation, online I lose that control.

This is the major problem of writing on the internet, you are at the whims of the reader. I’ve seen numerous situations where both participants are involved in the same chat but are hearing two different things. It’s hard to make sure that what you say is being understood, to make sure that my post is carefully crafted to avoid ambiguity.

Ha, who am I kidding. #

Plus this year I have so far completed a post a day as well. It’s like this has become a regular thing. You may even call it a habit.

Maybe that’s what writing currently is for me, just a habit. I’m reaching the point where I would be disappointed in myself if I didn’t make it to December 31st. So even with prompts to write where I am not totally motivated I still put fingers to keys.

I’ve ruminated on the cause of my writing before (I write because…) but I do this because I have no outlet where I can just vent a spleen or two. Although I had a very heated ‘discussion’ with some stranger on Facebook today.

Still it makes me think maybe I shouldn’t blog if it is just something I do like biting my nails or throwing salt over my shoulder. If it is habit shouldn’t it be more than that? Maybe next year will be different.

Especially if I move on to my next cause (like perhaps my passion for drama) because last night I started reading a book for the first time in a long time. Rather than enjoy the experience my thought immediately went to ‘I should read 12 books next year’.

It looks like that might be my new habit.

You could replace How I met Your Mother with Seinfeld or Friends, but the principle is the same, a lot of life’s situations are often reflected in the humour of long running comedy shows. In this case I’m thinking of the episode ‘Drunk Train’ in which Lily and Marshall tell the group the key to a successful relationship is not keeping score.

Normally I wouldn’t expect to say advice from a series that has taken nearly a decade to introduce the key concept of the show is actually worth listening to, but in this case it’s pretty solid. It’s hard work holding a grudge (I should know) and you can’t let others indiscretions and mistakes eat away at you. Especially for someone as perfect as I am, I can’t expect others to continually be at the high standards I hold for myself can I?

In case Mrs V is reading, you have to forgive me for that. No scores.

It helps to not tally up the mistakes or keep a credit of goodness, you shouldn’t live your life based on the balance of previous events. If you want a final score then wait for Osiris to weigh up your life against the feather of Ma’at. Hopefully you won’t be eaten by Amenti by your past errors.

But in a relationship there is no golden balance, there will be times when one falls and the other has to pick up the slack, there are those moments when you are done wrong and occasions when you wish you had been made a cup of tea but you didn’t get one. Just because your significant other didn’t make you a cup of tea when they said they would and then didn’t doesn’t mean you should hold it against them even when they make you a cup of tea.

I would also hate for you to think that I was just writing that paragraph so that when a certain someone reads it they will turn to me and go ‘ahem, are you angling for a cup of tea’.

Mrs V takes five out of seven nights to stay up with the baby, but I washed the towels and sheets and did breakfast this morning. It doesn’t mean that we are even just that we do things that need to be done without making a claim that we are ‘owed’ something. I can’t trade taking her to the Post Office to send cards to America for an afternoon on the Xbox, I do the first because I love her and the feeling is reciprocated.

We had this discussion about the movies we see, that I will go see the films she likes and in return she’ll she awesome movies like Pacific Rim. We don’t judge each others choices because they are that ‘the other person’s choices’ and what right do we have to dismiss the things they like?

You can either forgive the other person, or forget having a relationship with them.

It sums up the way the world works; there are workers and there are bosses and the jobs of the workers are to follow the bosses orders and not to question them. Then when something goes wrong you can be sure that it’s the bosses who will escape while the poor unfortunate souls at the bottom are the ones to pay the price.

During the Battle of Balaclava the British forces tried to capture the high ground from the Russians, but when asked where to attack those in charge just waved their arms in a general direction and said “there”. Not wanting to question the orders of a person who was in charge merely because of their social status the middle managers sent 600 of their men up a valley to attack the enemy.

Rather than taking a lightly defended valley they trotted up the one with cannons pointing at them, and only realised it was too late at the last-minute. So in scenes played throughout history, the man on the front line was cut down while General Melchett sat in his office barumphing and planning his next strategic sacrifice to gain a piece of land for the glory of a small group of people.

Yet is this not the way of the world, this is why we have the 1% or continued to be ruled by a hereditary peerage. Sure we are allowed to complain and protest, or at least we were. Now we are as aggressive with those who wish to protest the destruction of our liberties as those who just plain wish to destroy them.

“Do as you are told” is the way of life, with law and legislation constantly being created to tell us what we can’t do. Whether it is smoke, eat fatty food or even exercise our own democratic rights to vote or protest.

Why are we so angry? Just because a few people at the top broke the banking system? Well none of the CEOs are going to admit they blunder’d, it was those pesky soldiers in the press or some disgruntled cavalryman at the bank who err’d in telling. So while the financial generals feel hard done by being asked awkward questions while in their Armani suits it was the public who were left to do and die at the destructive force of their decisions.

So what can we do about it? We cannot reason why, dissent is treated pretty severely by most of the democracies of the people. Not in the way that those in the Arab Spring have been, but horse charges and beating those who wish to protest at the 1% are not exactly promoting freedom of expression. Do we really believe that if a large section of the population was to rise with force against the establishment then Washington, London or Paris wouldn’t respond with the full arsenal at their command?

It’s put up and shut up, nothing we can do will change it. If you are not a leader the you should accept being lead. We should just accept the status quo and do as we are told.

Just like those who chose to do and die did at Boston Harbour in 1773, or at the Bastille in 1789, or in Berlin and Prague in 1989, or in Tahrir Square in 2011.

This has got me into problems more than once, Mrs M complains that I think I can eat like a big game hunter but ostrich, alligator, boar have all lead to dietary ramification which mean I am now restricted to a ‘farmyard’ only diet.

Where I will still take risks is with capsaicin. I see the Scoville Scale as a guide and the higher the better. I just can’t get enough of hot and spicy foods.

When I head to Nando’s (for those not familiar with Nando’s you are missing out, it’s Peri-Peri chicken from the gods) I like to go for the hottest sauce I can. It will totally obliviate the taste of the meat but if you are going hot and spicy you are not too bothered if your chicken was corn-fed.

I have the same feeling about chilli, I want feel the burn not taste the beans. I remember being in a restaurant which proclaimed it served the ‘Hottest Chilli in the Canary Islands’ and decided that I need to investigate further. The top tier was labelled ‘Core of the Sun’, if that isn’t a deliberate provocation I don’t know what is.

When the chilli was brought out it had that dark red oil that is an indication of the amount of spice contained within, except this time that oil was almost black. It was like the core of a sun that had collapsed on itself, it was a black hole chilli.

Even the slightest drop on the end of a cocktail stick was enough to scare off my family but I was to boldly go when some other diners, in fact probably quite a few other people, had gone before. Before I had finished I had lost all sensation in my lower jaw. It was good.

That is the fun of extra hot food, yes it is going to hurt around six to eight hours later but the rush I get from tackling the burning sensation in my mouth is addictive. I know that it is purely a chemical reaction triggering pain sensors but if I can suppress the tickle sensation (much to Mrs V’s annoyance) why not this?

On more than one occasion I have made a spicy dish with multiple varieties of chillies and peppers, I don’t believe in creating subtle layers of heat instead going for the ‘death to your tongue’ approach. In fact I list as one of my greatest cooking achievements being able to make The Nobber sweat and cry with a chicken fajita.

Let’s be honest, despite all this we’ve all been thinking one thing & that’s a Johnny Cash song.

It would be easy to quit on the human race at this point, we seem to be on a race to the bottom and backing Team Hell-in-a-Handcart. Why should we have any optimism for the future?

I believe we should, because humanity is not as bad as we expect.

It is wrong to judge the level of badness by historical standards, but as a species we have done some pretty deplorable things. We still do. Yet we have shown time and time again we can rise above the greed and self interest to be better.

Women got the vote, slavery in the Western hemisphere was abolished, we eradicated smallpox, we have been the far reaches of the solar system, we have created great works of art, we have rolled back tyrants one after another.

Yes, we don’t always get the roots of the weeds, fascism may be defeated but we still have authoritarianism creeping with it’s insidious tendrils. When those weeds flower we will find them and rip them from the ground even if we have to do it a thousand times.

People will get hurt, and that is unfair, but if we don’t believe they died for something then what was the point of their lives. We need martyrs to hang our colours from and give a reason to fight, there is no campaign without a cause.

All the victories of the good have been hard-earned, which is ironic because the bad guys win easy. It is against those insurmountable odds that we show our greatness, and that’s why I believe that even though the world seems scary and dangerous we will prevail.

We just cannot believe anything else.

So it’s not a case of choosing heads or tails, it’s head and if you force me into it tails. Yet there are plenty of events where a decision needs to be made, and sometimes the options are pretty unpalatable.

Take this moral question:

An out of control train is about to run over a pile of happy puppies, do you send it down a different line where there are a smaller pile of puppies.

Now, don’t take me for some kind of puppy-killer, I’m seriously against animal cruelty, but what kind of choice is this? Just as Spock said:

Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Now let’s change the parameters a little &ampin the smaller pile is your puppy. Does this make the decision to hit them harder? How about if we add the puppy of someone you dislike into the bigger group. Is it now easier for you to careen into the larger pack?

There are very few black and white decisions in life. Most of what we decide on a daily basis are not very altruistic, yet overall we will put the good of the many in front of our own safety.

Look at the mess that has been created across the Middle East, do you back the dictators or allow the country to choose their own destiny no matter how much chaos it causes?

What is the option was don’t choose. The west sat and argued over what should be done, when the best thing was to just not do anything. Intervention does not always produce good results in the long term, today’s ally can quite easily be tomorrows enemy.

Does that make you a better person, to stand and refuse to make a difference? How many people have died because others did not interfere and make a decision? It seems to be human nature to have to decide between what is going to happen (hitting the big pile of puppies) and that which can be made to happen (hitting the smaller pile).

One of the most interesting examples of choices is given in the game Knights of the Old Republic. You are given the option of helping a beggar by giving him some money or walking away. The ‘good’ option is obviously to pass the man some spare change &ampbut after doing so you are made to watch the consequences of your actions. In this case the man is set up on by a gang of thugs who beat the man to death to rob him of the money they have just seen you give him.

Sometimes choosing the ‘good and right’ option is not the right thing to do. Does a toss of the coin absolve you of any moral dilemma?

Now, what to do about these puppies? How about use the horn and scare them off the track?

This morning I received an email from Goodreads telling me how close I was to reaching this year’s target of reading 12 books, and if I did achieve it then I would get a special badge to place on my profile. This sent me into a frenzy, I mean a badge for reading! Then the two people who view my profile will be able to see that years ago I read an awful lot.

Immediately I thought to the books on my shelves that are still to be read and thought about which could help me achieve my goal, not the books that I wanted to read for enjoyment but the ones that I could use to reach an arbitrary goal I created at the beginning of the year. Could I use the collection of Mr Men books as part of my target? I am half way through the Song of Ice and Fire books that I really want to read but I’ve been working on them since Ned had his head. Animal Farm isn’t too big, and Lord of the Rings is definitely out (but does that count as three books).

The ridiculous part about this sudden urge to read is that I am not really anywhere near my target. I am still eleven books away from my goal, that works out to one book every few weeks. Factoring out the new arrival, and the 8 hours a day at work, looking after children, playing computer games, watching TV, that makes it a very tight deadline. Sacrifices may need to be made (I’m looking at you here post apocalyptic Boston &ampdoes reading the game guide count?)

Yet I still want to do it because I will get a badge. I suppose I could reduce the number of books in my target but then I would know I achieved it by deception. I could easily get through a Roald Dahl book in a few hours, and what about finishing those books I have already started but never finished, although as this includes Life of Pi I think I would rather not have the badge.

I did also consider that writing a blog about wanting to read is actually eating into my reading time. I could have done 10 or so pages of the Douglas Coupland I have by my desk. Only 65 pages to go.

The occasions when I have regrets about things not said are so rare that I don’t even recall if there are any. It’s like asking me to talk about a time I was wrong. It just doesn’t happen. Being a big believer in attack being the best form of defence the idea of a perfect comeback suggests that you were not winning the battle.

Attack

It seems I am blessed with a brain that makes connections between topics very quickly, and in a way that is more instinct then premeditated, so when in an argument I can tie up many different threads and take as many tangents as I need to get my point across. I will throw in fallacies and logic statements that disorientate my opponent making them take positions that are indefensible. I would give examples but I wouldn’t like anyone to think this post is about them.

Throw in some good old British passive-aggressiveness (the verbal rope-a-dope), and a fast scatter-gun delivery technique, and it’s a pretty potent argument technique. This is a style honed for victory and tends to take no prisoners as often I cannot even remember what I am saying. I’ve warned Mrs V to not try to engage me when in a bad mood because I’m never trying to get my point across I’m trying to tell you why you are wrong.

I think it comes from working as a data analyst, you quickly learn to be able to connect disparate pieces of information to use as in an argument. Needed to think of a perfect comeback means that you missed something out in the first place so you have to front load the discussion to make sure there is no right of reply.

I’m also not sure I want to.

I know too many people who get burnt time and again because they forgave some for their misdemeanours only to see a repeat of the original offence. They may have been fooled once but to be fooled a second time? We are told that to err is human and to forgive divine, well due to my lack of omnipotence I’m not going to let those who trespass against me off the hook.

If you make a mistake it is going to be either due to incompetence or malice. If it is the former then what is going to stop you next time? If it is the latter then you are going to stray again. Either way my forgiveness is going to be forgotten and thrown back in my face.

It is much easier to stay angry rather than to heal, there are all these steps to follow to be truly able to say you accept someone else causing you pain and that you still want them to be part of your life. It is much simpler to just stew and get increasingly irate behind their backs.

Living through gritted teeth or living without, these seem to be the only two options I can see. I’ve already made the decision on one friendship after being dumped at the pre-alter (see the tale of The Nobber) and it has been much easier to move on. Then again I’m also a terrible person, but not so terrible as I would do anything to hurt someone.

As we were watching a comedy show tonight one of the characters became tempted by some office flirtation, at which point Mrs V turned to me with a look that said “don’t you do that”. After I refused to apologise for something I had not yet not done I told her that I would never give her a reason for me to ask her forgiveness.

Maybe that’s why I still hold grudges, I don’t know what it is like to need forgiveness?

Look at The Beatles, the fact they appeared on the music scene with this amazing ability to write hit after hit ignores the fact that they spent many hard years honing their skills in bars in Hamburg and Liverpool.

I’m often complimented on my ability on a computer, but I have spent many hours over many years on them. Being able to do fancy things in Excel is not a superpower, it’s practice.

Of all the skills I wish I had the one I want the most is to be musical. I was learning to play the trumpet at school but, being young and impatient, wanted to go straight from making a noise to playing in a philharmonic orchestra. In fact I still have that problem now, I don’t want to put in the hard work…I want the instant gratification. I want someone to put a disc in the machine and ‘know kung-fu’.

I would love to play the piano, be able to sit and play a 30 minute piece of music from memory. I can type really quickly so why can’t I easily transfer those skills across to a different kind of keyboard?

I’ve tried to play on a musical keyboard, it was part of our required music lessons at school. All I have been able to come away with is the ability to play a few pieces of Pachelbel and Beethoven, and both only with the right hand and the first bars. I mean I have pretty much mastered the first 16 seconds of this:

As well as memorising the E-E-F-G-G-F-E-D-C-C-D-E-E-D-D-E-E-F-G-G-F-E-D-C-C-D-E-D-C-C to play one of Ludwig’s best. Instead of being immortal beloved I end up more:

In the end the problem is one of patience and practice. I want to be able to play a piano to virtuoso standard now, and not have to learn my scales and arpeggios (or learn how to spell arpeggio). Why is that so hard to ask for?

I already know what games like Football Manager or The Sims can do to a person’s time and did not want to get drawn in again. Not only that, but I still fight against the urge to play one more game or stop a digital avatar from using the toilet.

I see the icon there for Minecraft and think to myself, don’t build a rabbit hole to enter.

Now it’s not really my fault I got sucked in, the blame lies with the manager at work who insists that telling me in my end of year appraisal that “You should really play Minecraft” was in no way him trying to sell me hours of breaking digital blocks. I’ve basically been missold a Home Building Policy but with no Digital Construction Ombudsman to complain to what can I do other than spend three hours searching for diamonds?

Minecraft almost nearly made me feel old, I had to resort to asking a ten-year old on advice setting up a private multiplayer environment for me and Mrs V to play on. Thankfully I could set up a server and alter the settings before all my technological skills deserted me, I was five minutes away from ringing my cousin’s five-year-old son on how to change the clock on the microwave.

The one advantage Minecraft has is that is a perfect game for me and Mrs V to play together as either FIFA or any shooter requires a few years of practice to be able to get to a proficient level and neither of us have that patience (with the game or each other). So being able to smash blocks on my laptop while she is making iron on hers is a perfect game for both of us to play. It lets us play together without actually relying on the other person.

Unlike a game like Football Manager it does require you to be doing something all the time, I can’t be watching a match and also writing/reading/eating/drinking tea. This means it monopolises my time because if I am not playing Minecraft, then I am reading about Minecraft, and if not either of them I am thinking about Minecraft.

Don’t get me wrong I like being right, and I like playing co-op computer games, so I am hoping that this is but a brief fling with the game before I get too involved and plan to recreate the Mines of Moria or the Titanic. I can’t afford to get drawn in, and I’m already starting to see cubes before my eyes.

I’ve been in the situation where a friendship has collapsed and finished with a “have a good life” while being, what I felt, was the injured party. Every so often I wish I’d said what I’d felt or just took a pot shot. It may have made me feel better at the time but would it have sat as well over time?

The danger with the disintegration of a close relationship is that there is plenty of hurt in the locker. Events from the past can be dragged up and used against you, or even distorted and lied about. The toxification of the past can turn good memories bad and leave you feeling even worse.

Pride takes a hit and the only solution is to fight back against the trashing of your memories. Even though you know it will keep the fire burning you want to attack to even up the score. If you sit passively by taking the punches you are inviting another emotional slap across the face.

When you are the wronged party this is the wrong tactic, because it is very easy to be the bad guy because your every word and action will be held up by the aggressor as a justification to their behaviour. I had it with the Nobber and Bridezilla, despite being at a low ebb I knew that should I say anything it would play into their narrative about me being “unsupportive”.

The only way for you to win is to lose. You have to suck it up and be beaten vocally. So you lose a friend and your dignity, but you can wake up the next day and look at yourself in the mirror and know you did nothing wrong. You may not have to deal with them anymore, but you still have to live with yourself.

By keeping quiet you leave the chance of a future reconciliation in their court. You don’t have to apologise for anything. It is your feelings that are hurt, your reputation trashed, and if they don’t recognise that then what have you lost?

I’ve seen the Nobber since, and could look him on the eyes and know I was clean. In the end we all bump into those who are no longer close and what kind of reaction do you want?

If you can hug and carry on then you know they were a true friend. If they do all they can to avoid and forget you, well perhaps you should have said something after all.

Just make sure mirror you doesn’t judge.

There are fewer phrases I am likely to say than this, with possibly the exception to “I’m going to space”. I’ve been banned from doing cool, I mean stupidly dangerous, stuff in my life because death.

There is every chance that if I do something life limiting or threatening than my major concern will not be broken bones but the disapproval of my family. I have a ban on anything that involves falling.

So to try anything extraordinary I need to be surrounded by strangers.

The scariest moments come when I need to perform, whether it be in a amateur dramatical production or when I am being interviewed. I need the freedom of unfamiliarity to be able to be the person I need to be.

It is when I am alone I can be unafraid of the reactions of those who will see me tomorrow. With strangers, I am free to act and behave as I want with no thought about dealing with the repercussions. I’m not looking for the support I’m trying to avoid the sympathy.

This may seem a bit mean, I do truly love it when I am able to do things with my family. I just don’t want them to be worried, surely it is better to not tell them about the things that would scare them?

Yet, I can’t be that person, what is the point of doing the scary and stressful alone? If it was a moment of derring-do then who do can I share my memory with. If it was a performance then who do I have to boost my ego? Family can be honest (if you can take it) – friends and strangers have a habit of giving you the review they think you want to hear, partly the reason some AmDram thesps lose themselves in their glory.

The stranger gives me the freedom to be whoever I want to be, but family gives me the confidence to be that person.

So as well as being a bad loser I’m obviously not a great winner either. If the aim of a game is to emerge victorious then what honour is there in coming second. Of course there is more honour in coming second honestly than first by cheating, the key is to not get caught. Nobody remembers who came second anyway, but they always remembers those who won and were disgraced.

I don’t play luck games, anything with dice or a chance selection of cards, as you may as well randomly select a winner and not have to deal with the hours of pretending that lady luck is with you and you have somehow managed to control the randomness of the universe to create a hot streak. There is some element of skill in a game of poker but you are playing against nothing more than a 1 in 52 chance of getting a good card next.

The closest I will come to a traditional multiplayer experience are the Buzz trivia games. At least I can use my skill and knowledge to win honourably, if I do win. Because I am good at trivia games I tend to stick my neck above the competition, and the Buzz games all seem to have a Weakest Link style finale where all the other players get to pick on whoever they want. Inevitably this means me, so I get angry when I lose and gloaty when I manage to stave off the assault.

I’m at my best when I can play on a team, whether it is a game of Fifa or by playing co-operative games (the Lego games are a godsend here). I get a sense of accomplishment when I can help someone else achieve on these games, I would much rather be the architect of a goal than the scorer.

In the end the perfect game is just me, playing by myself. No one to beat but my own ego, and the game in front of me. I can play by whatever rule set I wish and the victory is mine and not the crushing of others.

Initially the routine was simple:

Feed them dinner, bathe them, dress them, put them down to sleep.

This soon became:

Feed them, bathe them, dress them, read them a story, put them down to sleep.

Over time more and more steps have been added to eventually become:

Feed them dinner, have a pudding, let them walk upstairs, bathe them, play with buckets in the bath, brush our teeth, sing the Imperial March from Star Wars as we carry them to the bedroom, dry them off while they are in a ball, play ‘baby-butt’ bongos, change them, try to dress them while running around, read a story, let them re-read the book, say goodnight to things outside, let them close the curtains, say goodnight to the cuddly toys, cuddle Mummy, make Mummy and Daddy kiss, give Daddy a kiss, put them down to sleep.

My whole life is starting to get very busy as a parent.

In the morning it was also so simple as a singleton. I had very few responsibilities so I was able to get away with just:

Get up, get dressed and go to work.

This was great as it meant my alarm could go off just a few minutes before I needed to get out of the door. It meant I could maximise the amount of sleep I got and could go to bed later. As life progressed (and I tried to be healthier and frugal) it evolved into:

Get up, get dressed, have breakfast and go to work.

This was also fine as breakfast would consist of a cup of tea and some toast. Nothing too fancy and nothing that took too long to prepare. The only issue was boiling the kettle and having to avoid swallowing boiling hot liquid. Still once I got married (and Mrs V was going to work) it became:

Get up, get dressed, make breakfast and go to work.

Responsibility for tea making was on my shoulders, because Mrs V sees any time spent waiting for a kettle to boil as wasted life. This is how it was for a long time until the Time of the Children. Then I had to:

Get up, get dressed, go put the kettle on for my tea, make (freshly ground) coffee for Mrs V, make my tea, make tea for the kids wake up the grumpy dinos, get ready for work, get the little ones dressed, drink cold tea and go to work.

To fit all this in I am getting up earlier and earlier. It makes me worried what happens should another come along. I seem to have little time in my life to do all I want and the only place we can make temporal cuts seems to be sleep.

Soon my life while be a string of actions separated by commas with no space to add ‘rest’.

Then I realised that despite my ability nobody really cared and in fact I would get more derision than admiration from my fingering ability. Plus it took up too much time, cost far too much and other interests came along to distract me.

This left me without a skill I excelled at. I was a normal again. If only the Matrix was real, and I could have new abilities uploaded at will. What would I choose?

I could go for something practical like the ability to learn any language, but I am going for something more romantic, and that would be to be able to play any music instrument. I have tried to learn the cornet and keyboard, but I have great difficulty in marrying up the movement between my fingers and reading the notes on sheet music.

Considering my aptitude on the fake guitar you would think I should be able to step up to a real Fender. Although if you are a real guitarist I am sure you know the difference between six strings and five buttons is a big leap.

I can barely string together a few notes from any instrument. The only tune I can play from memory is Ode to Joy on the piano, and that is only with my right hand (let’s not get started on chords). I would say I would give my right hand to be able to play the chords, but then I couldn’t manage the melody.

Still I will be a rock god again, tonight for one night only (and any other night) I’ll be breaking out the plastic Fender to reunite ‘Eclectric’. We shall rock fake Shea Stadium one more time to the greatest hits of 80’s hair bands and the songs I know by Weezer.

While A-Rex lies there constantly sharting, Feliciraptor is learning all the skills needed for a starring role in an Adam Sandler film. Much to the chagrin of Mommy-G and assorted relatives one of my daughter’s favourite phrases is now:

It’s just a fart.

The blame for this lies mostly at my door, as do most of her ‘bad’ habits, but the blame is not mine alone. While toilet training we were constantly on the look out for ‘solids’ so anytime we heard an expulsion of air we would be pulling the waistband of her knickers to look for evidence. There was nothing to be seen we would exclaim with the above refrain.

Now she has taken it as her own.

Yesterday morning she sat by Mrs V and let one rip on her leg (an act that would lead to immediate divorce if I did it).

She gave me a look of pride. While in the car to school she sat in the back singing about bodily functions with a ditty of her creation.

For poor Mrs G this is a terrible time, with three wind machines sat next to her, she can never be certain whom to blame. Smell is no indicator of guilt either. We, in her words, are as bad as each other.

Even A-Rex has a look of pride on his face whenever he expels, it is as though he is looking for respect from his family. Or he is thinking this is how you communicate.

Added to the range of noises from the Feliciraptor she does a mean burp, even if 90% of the time it is just her shouting “Urp” at you. She is currently at the opposite end of the “What would Audrey Hepburn do”spectrum.

There will be a point that she does this in public, and I expect it will be terribly embarrassing (especially if she does it while being looked after by others). But I won’t be embarrassed because I am a dad.

I’m disgusting, and I think it’s awesome.

It suits my itinerant nature, I can be like The Littlest Hobo or The Hulk moving from town to town offering my help and wisdom before moving on. Maybe tomorrow I’ll settle down but for today I’ll take the rewards. What’s the worst that could happen?

Other than having no job?

Is that the worst thing that could happen? Of course not, as a result of being unemployed I could lose the house or maybe rack up unimaginable debt we are unable to pay off. Still we are not at the bottom of the despair.

What if Mrs V got sent home? What if she was never allowed back home? What if she lost her job in teaching?

What if something happened to me? To Mrs V? To our children? What if?

There are so many bad things that can happen during the day. Falling downstairs, being in a car crash, being in a train crash, being in the ‘wrong place’ at the ‘wrong time’. The litany of disasters that can befall you on a daily basis are immense. So why worry?

All worrying about the worst thing to happen paralyses you and prevents you from seeing the best things to happen. Worrying a child may fall of a bike stops you from seeing the smile on their face when the stabilisers come off.

The best course of action is to mitigate the danger as best you can, truly manage the risk. With this new job we are going to be ants not grasshoppers and save the extra money in case times become lean. Even so we can treat ourselves now and then within our limits.

Yes the worst can happen, but ask yourself not how bad it can be but how likely it is. We all could win the lottery (if we enter) but we don’t live life like we have already hit the jackpot, so why exist in fear of the bad?

Sounding classier than it actually was, Britannia Airways was the package holiday charter aircraft of choice. If you were on a BY flight you were likely to be going to Spain or Greece. This was not a code you would really find on the boards at LAX or JFK. If you were on a Britannia flight you were going on a Thomson’s holiday (mainly due to the fact they were owned by the Thomson Group).

This was as cheap and cheerful as airlines came when I was young, before the internet decided to drive flight operators into more obscene ways of making money like charging for using the toilets or wings on the plane.

At the time this was the only way to fly for thousands of Brit holidaymakers, and during the 1980’s was the largest charter airline in the UK. Lines of blue tailed aircraft with silhouette of Britannia herself were common sights at most British airports, as well as those on the Costa Brava or Canaries. They always seemed to exude more style than the garish yellows of Monarch Airlines.

Due to the nature of the holidaymakers you would be confined to a tube mostly made up of pensioners, young families and people ‘on tour’. This meant that most flights consisted of:

• People who dawdled in aisles and were slow to get to their seats, yet somehow would always be the first in the queue to get on and off the plane.
• Kids running amok as their parents slept off the hangover from the 5am start at the airport bar.
• Fifteen or so lads who were boozed up before the safety announcements; it was only due to the effort of these guys pedalling really hard during take-off that the plane would get off the ground.
• Smoke wafting towards the front of the plane from the cigarette use at the back. Amazingly this was still allowed even in the early 90s.

Other aspects of a Britannia Airways flight were no less unique, it was similar to any other airline. The food was awful, the duty-free tacky and one TV for 20 people who would descend from the roof to show reruns of Only Fools and Horses and One Foot in the Grave.

Once the Thomson group started getting bigger it decided that it needed a bigger advertisement hoarding for its package holidays. One of the sacrificial lambs was an airline brand that had stood for forty years, and in 2004 Britannia ceased to exist and became, in the way of most modern web-minded marketing schemes. Re-branded with a nasty pastels and a garish red logo all the charm and understatedness of this once great airline was gone. It was even replaced on the TV show Airport by easyjet.

One flake is enough to send the shivers through a Brit, murmurs and rumours of “is there enough food” spread and settle more heavily than the frozen precipitation. We have had some light snow, and it is the end of civilisation. Needless to say the country’s reaction is the same as it is every year.

Snow follows a simple pattern over here:

Snow day -2: Panic sets in about the weather from Siberia, this leads to many furrowed brows about whether there is enough grit and salt for the roads and whether the infrastructure of a First World country will be able to cope.

Snow day -1 (Morning): Snow is forecast for the next day and thousands of employees start reading their contracts to check what the policy is for staying at home in bed while claiming the driveway is experiencing 5 foot snow drifts. Hundreds of road gritters set off out to cover the country in a thin layer of salt and sand like the world’s worst man-made beach. Shops run out of bread and water because people are idiots…they should be stockpiling bacon and Soreen malt loaf.

Snow day -1 (Evening): New reports start to hypothesise about the destruction the impending Snowmaggedon will bring because without news you turn straight to made-up-worse-case-scenario-panic. Children everywhere go to bed dreaming of snowflakes and snowmen, while parents try to remember if they bought a snow shovel last winter or not.

Snow day: Nothing has happened, a slight dusting over high ground but that’s about it. Schools remain open, and a light drizzling rain is washing away the grit on the road. Once the disappointment has passed the blame game can start. Many look to the weathermen who only forecast the possibility of snow, while others complain it is typical of the government to panic. The media who whipped everyone into a frenzy in the first place help the public with this witch hunt. Meanwhile boogie is blamed by the sunshine, moonlight and good times. At home a lot of toast is eaten.

Snow day +1 (morning): Still no snow and millions head back to work and school putting away the sledges and snow shoes.

Snow day +1 (afternoon): THE SNOWPOCALYPSE IS HERE, as over half an inch of frozen water falls from the sky and Britain collapses like a high-street company. The roads are in-traversable and everyone turns into Bambi on Ice. Trains are unable to run as it is the wrong kind of snow on the line, and schools everywhere start closing despite the children being unable to get home. The Mayan gods look on and hand the end of the world over to the Norse, so they can complete Ragnorak. Time is altered as journeys that previously took an hour turn into days.

Snow Day +1 (evening): For those who have not ended up like Scott of the Antarctic, the return home means a cup of tea and shovelling snow from the drive in the vain hope that you will be able to get out to work tomorrow.

Snow Day +2: The snow is gone, every last track of it. All that hard work to clean it away, and it just vanishes. Everyone promises not to over-react next time and realise that basically snow is ephemeral as a hot summer bank holiday.

The Feliciraptor is also struggling with the lack of sunlight in the morning. I will go in to wake her up and even though she is seven she acts like a teenager and just rolls over. Rolls over in that “go away I am refusing to get up” way, and accompanies it with cries of “back to bed” when I pick her out of her bed.

Winters in the UK are not fun, and I’m still never prepared for them even though I know it’s been coming.

Tomorrow sunrise is at 8.14am, just a few minutes before I’d sit down at my desk to work, and it will set at 16:09pm, just nine minutes after my close down time. This means that I have a barely any sun to build up my vitamin D (assuming that any breaks through the constant cloud cover). This is what December and January look like, two whole months of darkness.

Added to this will be the cold, and I know that just above freezing is not as cold as New York will get (as I will be reminded by Mrs G) but it will still not be shorts weather. It will be as light and as warm as the inside of a refrigerator but with the added benefit of airborne moisture. It will be like the bottle of fizzy water has exploded on the top shelf.

It is not a British winter if there is no persistent precipitation, and without it getting too cold to snow means a constant level of drizzle. The kind of bitty rain that seeps into every nook and cranny and leaves everything feeling damp. It’s miserable.

It is inevitable that the weather will get me down, make it difficult to through the blankets off, but I prefer it to the bright and warm days of summer. I mean no hay-fever, no sunburn, no being too hot. That makes me happy.

I must be good at some things, if I was a complete failure I’m not sure I would be in such a good place in life. What if I wasn’t so humble? Maybe I should take the opportunity to tell the world what I am good at? Do I have a unique ability or skill that I want to shout about and get my horn out for a blowing?

The simple answer is no.

Think about the fact that there are 7 billion people on this world and the possible number of different skills and abilities that each could have. There is very little chance that there is something you can do that someone else can’t (and sorry to rain on your parade, but they can probably do it better).

Perhaps it’s better to look at this in another way, what can I do that not many others I know can’t?

Taking the self-deprecation hat off for a moment, then being an amazing individual then this could be a very long list, I mean I have been told by previous managers that I am a disruptive influence. I can only assume that what they mean is that because I am so brilliant it makes others unmotivated as they feel they will always be in my (figuratively) large shadow. Or at least that’s what I hear.

What skills do I think I have?

• Double-jointed thumb — brilliant to play ‘thumb wars’ with, but not so easy to hitchhike.
• Fake guitar ability — not at the ‘Through Fire and the Flames’ level, but at a pretty high standard. I can fake rock with the top tens of thousands.
• Excel — again not at a Microsoft MVP level, but better than anyone else I know. Then again I don’t work with many people who use spreadsheets.
• Speed reading — I can finish a book in a very short time, except Game of Thrones as I have to keep going back because I miss characters names/deaths.
• Multitasking — My record is three different computers going and playing on the Xbox. Yet not really being able to do any of those tasks properly.
• Build a Billy bookcase in 5 minutes with no instructions — Then take months to properly put the books on it.
  

There you are, if ever you need a knack-thumbed person able to build Ikea furniture and log it in a spreadsheet I’m your man.

Child artwork.

I have scribblings and paintings aplenty, pasta and food pictures galore. You want glued boxes I got twenty, but who cares, I want more.

Well, not that much more because, here is some parenting honesty, almost universally they are terrible. I know there are parents out there who think their child is tapping into their inner Pollock or Dali, but one piece of child work is cute, two okay but having enough to open an entire gallery takes the value from them.

On a normal day at nursery we would be presented with three pieces of paper in various states of paint. This is not creating art, it’s teaching toddlers to become decorators. Sometimes they try to hide this by getting the children to paint on shapes because this is the only way to differentiate between pieces.

To begin with, it was touching to have an original piece of Feliciraptor work even if her earlier attempts saw more coverage of herself than the canvas.

We had the naïve idea to collect and save every item she created, we could create an archive showing the evolution of her style over the years. After we filled one folder in a month, this was not a workable project.

You then have to weigh the merits of one ‘white paint on blue paper’ against the next and does using macaroni over pasta shapes add more value? Not that it matters, anything that comprises dried food gets eaten by Feliciraptor on the car ride home.

We have saved pieces, including her first-ever picture from the nursery. Rather than covering my fridge in magnets and masterpieces we framed them and stuck them to the walls. It adds a level of classiness and means we could sell them for pounds.

Despite the overall standard, and I realise with my ‘C’ in GCSE art I am pot/kettle/black here, I still enjoy seeing what she produces (as I will with A-Rex’s artwork).

The work may be terrible, but it comes from the right place (in contrast with ill intentioned ‘good’ art).

Sometimes it is just another splurge of paint, sometimes it is ‘daddy and mommy’. That card may just have spaghetti on, but this one with lasagne sheets also says ‘Happy Father’s Day’.

As with any art, the real value is in the interpretation.

One aspect of work that I have not done while at home is to pick up a pen. I’ve had no need of a biro to jot a note nor a fountain pen to sign my name. This is just as well as my handwritten word is worse than my typed.

Penmanship is not my strong point. In fact, it looks like a doctor who is being electrocuted. I can say in all honesty when they were teaching handwriting I was off, and I maintain that I am still one week behind everyone else with my cursive.

The few university notes I made look like shorthand but all they are marks on a page that should be words but without the up or down strokes. Every single word is just a straight line with random dots where I assume an ‘i’ would be.

I always start a new job with a brand-new notebook and have good intentions to meticulously detail all the brilliant thoughts I have and create my version of a Da Vinci codex. Within a week it looks like I have squashed a million spiders within its pages (which is a better use for a notebook)

Even my home notes are a work of art (in the same way as Jackson Pollock) which are full of meaning. I found a page of them earlier to day, and cannot for the life of me work out what I was meant to be jotting down.

This is why I am glad I live in the times we do. Even since school I have been able to type when I’ve needed to, even if to begin with it required a typewriter (I am not that young). Now I have a laptop I can take around with me to make my note-taking more legible.

So as I go back to work there are many things that I am worried about, will I be too tired to make it to the end of the day, do I have any clothes without sick on, will I remember how to speak to adults? There is one way to get through these worries…write a list.

Then I won’t be able to read what I am panicking about.

It is in those moments where you are dealing with a screaming child that you realise every moment is just hurtling by. It does not seem all that long ago that we were fighting the same battle with the Feliciraptor.

Being a parent is a constant battle against time, first you want things to hurry along and then you wish they would pass a little slower because your whole life is changing. I wish I had temporal powers to alter the passing of parenthood to realise that the best times are always the ones we are in right now.

1. You spend all afternoon wishing that bedtime would arrive and the rest of the evening thinking how amazing it would be to spend more time with them.
2. The fifteen minutes you get to play in the bath feels like 15 seconds compared to the fifteen minutes it takes to get them ready for bed.
3. Nothing feels as long as a drive in a car with a child screaming because you didn’t go the route they wanted (when a toddler GPS is rerouting it goes AAAARRRGGGGHHH).
4. Cuddles never seem to last as long as you want them, tantrums on the other hand…
5. The kids’ TV shows you like last for all the theme tune and two lines of dialogue. The ones you hate are longer than Titanic. You know who you are Peppa.
6. A nice clean floor lasts for seconds, the stains on the wall/furniture/clothes last a lifetime.
7. The longer a meal takes to prepare and cook the less time it will take for them to declare it is one of their least favourite dishes ever made and you are a terrible parent and human being for daring to produce this abomination of a dish.
8. An Ince cream in a child’s hand melts twice as fast as an adults and lasts twice as long, producing at least 4 times as much mess.
9. You can spend hours watching them sleep.
10. The first night they sleep through will be the longest night you have ever experienced.
11. When a child is running into danger time slows down for you, but they seem to become the fastest thing moving on Earth
12. We spend way too much time wishing for the next thing in their lives.
13. You will never have enough time with your child.

I am always confused why people determine that they will change their lives based upon the arbitrary date chosen to start a new calendar. Is there a difference to your willpower from the 31st December to the 1st January, what is it about the changing of the year that makes people decide that this is now the point at which they are going to the gym or to sort out their lives?

I would think the science behind keeping a New Year’s Resolution would show that you are more likely to fail at a life-changing pledge if you select a start date as opposed to just doing it when you first think of it. Surely you would be more successful at exercising if one Tuesday in June you just started going to the gym or running around the park…which is what I did last year.

In effect by marking the beginning of the year as a new start you are writing off any chance for improvement for the rest of the year. If on November 7th you decide that you will attempt to go on more dates won’t this just mean you will not try for the next seven weeks? In my experience putting something off once just means you will put it off time and time again.

Just like a puppy a New Year’s Resolution is not just for the festive period, real life change is not just a flash in the pan with a half-hearted attempt to learn to knit or start saving for a house. It’s hard work to break habits and by choosing to use a method notorious for broken promises and not being taken seriously it is surely a set-up for failure.

So rather than making resolutions (which as the United Nations shows are unenforceable and ineffective) set goals, aim to do something by June or October. It gives you more time to recover from any setbacks and won’t make you feel like a failure should you open that bar of chocolate later today.

I have the feeling that will be the theme of 2021, doing something. Doing something about the pandemic (yay science FTW), doing something about the social issues that has caused populism to rise, and doing something to take back control of our lives.

This is my plan for 2021.

If last year was just about survival this year should be about “thrival”. I was lucky and worked hard last year to build myself a base I could leap from. Whether it was running to improve my health or starting to fight against the monotony of lockdown, I feel I left the year better than I started it.

So for this year I want to work on all the improvements I made last year and get back to the creativity and optimism I had in 2012, but with the maturity I’ve gained during the ‘tens’.

Read more

Nothing to ambitious, but a novel a month is well within my abilities. What this requires is for me to set some time to sit down and read something more substantial than an RSS feed or News site.

I spend at least an hour a day flicking aimlessly through Reddit, and could do with not looking at world events before bedtime. So, instead why not hit up 30 pages on the Kindle? I could even switch the xBox or computer off at 10 and give myself another hour.

All this is within my control, it just needs a bit more willpower.

Make something

I’m going to make an item of clothing this year. Whether it is wearable or durable is beside the point, the actual manufacture of apparel is my goal.

Not only will it give me a hobby to share with Mrs V, but I find it mentally relaxing. The construction of the pattern is a nice little brainteaser and the up and down motion of the sewing machine is soothing.

Failing that I’ll just buy more LEGO.

Maybe write more

One can but aim high.

Get faster and tighter

I managed to hit all the running goals I had for 2020, but I should be more ambitious. 6 months of uncoordinated training did me well, but I still have room for improvement. My aim is to:

• 5k with an average pace of 4:30 (down from my record 4:59)
• 10k with an average pace of 5:00 (down from 5:26)
• Half Marathon with average pace of 5:30 (down from 6:00)
• Complete a full Marathon
• Not destroy my knees
  

Aligned with this is finally getting to work on my core muscles. Thanks to the wonder of Apple Fitness+ I feel I finally have a chance at getting some abs that have laid dormant since I was a teenager.

Hold back on the cat gifs.

I think that was the last occasion I revelled in the changing of the calendar, not that I really went party crazy before then. Instead of getting pickled I prefer to watch the fireworks and have a cheap glass of whiskey, and that is just what I will do tonight (without the gunpowder).

Safely tucked up in the warm, television on. No queues, no having to hold it in because there are no toilets, no panic about how to get home. Even better than that is I get to curl up in the warm with a last cup of tea of 2020 and Mrs V.

How can there not be anything better than that? I have no idea why so many people make the fuss over New Year’s Eve. I don’t remember it being such a bit of an important event in the past. Did it all start with 2000 because now every major city has to have a massive fireworks display.

Yes, I’ve wanted to be in Times Square, but the New Yorkers in my life have told me that is never going to happen. Stand out in the cold NY weather for twelve hours with no toilet, it worries me how people’s feet may stay warm.

No, I would much rather be indoors (and with functioning plumbing) with someone I know I can kiss at midnight. I spent too many years fretting about if I would get a peck on the cheek to be out looking for others to smooch. I have my own set of lips to kiss at home.

I will now welcome 2021 in the same style that I welcome every new day, safe at home with those I love. Not only that, but I would have it no other way.

At the beginning of each year I make my list of goals that I can discard by the time the Millennium Eye fireworks have finished. In a normal year I never seem to get close to meeting any personal target I have set myself.

2020 was not a normal year.

I did a lot of personal growth.

I should read more

This has been a constant goal for the past few years and has met with failure every time. Then I went on holiday and something changed. For the first time in a long time I read. It helped there were no children around, but I sat and turned pages. Books on Chernobyl, stories about Greek heroes and a history of football.

I reread His Dark Materials, attempted some classical fiction from Milton and Louisa May Alcott, picked up digital versions of books on my shelf I’ve yet to get to, even started to dabble in some non-English authors.

Towards the tail end of the year the number of books I’ve read has dropped off thanks to spending my time following the news, but I have a healthy list of novels to focus on next year.

Make something

I spend my life with keyboards and pixels. By day, I make charts and by night I do nothing productive. I need to make more in my life and fill an urge to create something corporeal. I have plenty of options. I could restart making models or maybe learn to sew? I just need to do something with my hands that isn’t pressing squares down to make a character appear on a screen.

I’ve started to sew with Mrs V, thought about learning embroidery, and continued to master BBQ.

One hobby I did rediscover during lockdown was LEGO. Lots of Lego. Star Wars Lego, Jurassic Park Lego, Architecture Lego, Super Mario Lego, City Lego, Harry Potter Lego. I mean it’s all for the little dinosaurs in my life, but the joy of following a set of instructions semi-mindlessly for hours on end has been therapeutic this year.

Maybe write more

Nope, let’s move on

Get under 30 inches

Although I have been fitter than I have been for a few years I could enjoy improving further. Along with Mrs G I ran a 5k race, I joined a gym and lost weight for the first time. Now it is time I really sped up the health improvements and gain some muscle definition along the way. The next step is fitting into some slim waist trousers.

At the start of lockdown we brought an exercise bike and a treadmill, then I started running on the streets. Then like Forrest, I kept on running.

I’ve lost about 15 lbs since we started the year and today I threw out every medium shirt I owned as they are too baggy.

2020 was a terrible year, but I would like to think that I did not waste it.