A few lovely holidays in our usual Lincolnshire bolthole which recharged the batteries and three more booked for next year already. We aren’t a very sociable couple so any restrictions didn’t affect us to much. We do have Stewart Lee booked for February, 50/50 probably. Greetings at the end of a second COVID year, to those who have kindly taken the time to post above, and you others reading, but not posting. It’s coming up to 10 years (next summer) when I dipped my toe into an already-thriving community, such that I still feel like quite the newcomer/arriviste. There’s such a wealth of life shared, (not just in this thread) lightly tied to the tagline of ‘byways of popular culture’, that it’s a privilege to host (this time) this annual community of expression. On New Year’s Day the UK will have been fully out of the European Union for a year: out of its political and legal structures, out of its single market, out of its customs union. Working from home has continued and I like it much more than I expected to. It’s now officially hybrid working, so as long as I stay in good health, I still don’t need to be retiring any time soon – it’s always been the commute that I’ve expected to be the tipping point and that’s now hugely reduced… and I’m still a few years away from state pension age. Has there been a more successful band with less charisma than the Bee Gees? 93 comments | 1.7k views

On the plus side, all the people I love are still around, and they mostly seem to feel roughly the same way about me. Bless them. I'm a fortunate man, no mistake. Before, it was losing weight (at my lightest this year I was six stone lighter than at my heaviest in 2011). That then overlapped with becoming better at running. I turned a corner this year. During the total WFH period (which I’m now startled to learn was only about ten weeks for me…. seemed to last a fkin lifetime) I came closer to having a breakdown than I ever have done. The work was relentless and horrifically difficult. For several weeks I woke up and immediately regretted that I’d woken up…. I mean that’s not good is it? Generally OK – no health disasters (just aging). I think I finally “got” this Working At Home lark and actually created a proper office space rather than the dining room table.Your first and second paragraphs are me, too, Arthur. The reason I started my current office job 11 years ago was I spent the previous 9 months WFH (following the fallout from the late 2008 crash) and missed having colleagues to talk to. The second major event was that in April my mum died. As the nominated visitor, unlike the rest of my family, I’d managed to organise a visit to the (brilliant) care home to see her less than a week before. Fortunately we’d sorted out the house move a few weeks earlier so ‘all’ I had to do was to do learn about probate, do all the maths and fill in the 7 inheritance tax forms! At least it kept me busy and was content in the knowledge that none of my mum’s money went to a solicitor. The bus service was very unreliable when I was young and it remains so even today. (It remains very unreliable …) Disentangling precisely what has been caused by the pandemic and what is the result of Brexit is difficult. For Johnson the coincidence of Covid and Brexit has proved convenient in one sense, shielding him from blame and obscuring the picture. But economists broadly agree that the long term economic hit from Brexit will be far greater than from the pandemic.

Creativity and personal goals: A great year. I read (for me) lots this year, to the extent I want to actually cut down this year and read less so I don’t forget everything I read. (Audible has been my discovery of the year and I absolutely do count audiobooks as ‘reading’: I listen as I walk (see above) and get through about three or four audiobooks a month doing that).I’m still only part-way through the book I’ve been working on (on/off) for maybe 4 years. Hopefully, I can finish it in 2022. Like the album above, it feels like my last. Maybe it’s largely a product of the past couple of years, though it’s certainly also influenced by the sense of impending doom around the climate/state of the world, but there’s a general low-level malaise or melancholy that I find hard to keep at bay. It’s okay when I’m busy and ‘in the moment’ and don’t have to think too much. Beyond that, I’m stunned that anyone at this point would, for instance, choose to have children. Kids happy and healthy and doing spectacularly well at school, all this despite all the crap and complications their elders (and the world) have sent their way over the last 4 years or so. The student ignores him and clutches his phone tightly with both hands as the teacher tries to pull it from him. Eventually he takes the phone and walks to the front of the class to continue the lesson.