SEVEN STEPS TO A HAPPY NEW YEAR

So step one, son,

Take the rocket from the tin

At the bottom of the garden,

Find a spot, wedge it in.

Step two’s great:

Find the fuse and pull it tight

Take a matchstick from the box

Strike it once, to light

Step three, Dad?

Light the fuse and watch it spark

Then retreat back down the garden

To the people in the dark

Step four: wait

For the rocket to ignite

With a single flash of sulphur

Watch it shoot into the night...

Step five, see

Where the sky is high and clear

See the trail the rocket blazes

Where the stars appear

Step six, wow:

As the colours fill the sky!

And the hope and expectation 

Are so wonderfully high,

And the beauty of beginnings

Fills the splendour of the night

With the fallen stars descending

In their envelope of light

Step seven, Son

And there’s something in the air

And the moment of our wonder

Is a memory to share,

Just a little fleeting second

When the air was crisp and clear

And a host of other voices

Wished us Happy New Year

THE ICE ON THE WINDSCREEN

The ice on the windscreen was thick and white. I rubbed my hands together for warmth and then put the blower on.

I don’t know why I didn’t scrape it; that’s a thing people do, isn’t it? My scraper (in the bag of new car stuff) was still at home, but there was in theory, nothing stopping me getting out and using a credit card!

Instead, I switched the radio on. The FM signal crackled into life over the roar of the heater. Some chat about football. Some news.

Suddenly, it all reminded me of a long time ago; sitting in a cold car late at night with the analogue car radio and a frosted windscreen - especially at Christmas. That was how the world was twenty years ago! Flashing festive lights beyond the frozen windows, the signal of FM radio, the lukewarm air making soft circles above the vents. I was in a reverie for a moment or two: I was 22, fresh-faced and bright eyed, phoneless and brave with only a road atlas, a torch, and an impulsive desire to drive to Southampton.

Slowly, the ice crept back across the glass, revealing the pavement and the parked cars of the Twenty-First Century. Tiny dark rivers snaked their way between the white, and gradually the sheet of ice became a network of islands drifting on an ocean of cold night and clarity. I flicked on the windscreen wipers and swept the islands away for ever. It was late, and I needed to go home.

OSCILLATIONS ON A BOXING DAY

Well then. Things being what they are, there’s no Boxing Day family fun this year. Not in Tier 4 Puritan Christmas, anyway. It’s fair to say my feelings on this have oscillated.

“Sorry we can’t do more today,” I said to my sister on the doorstep. She’d brought two of my nephews with her to drop prezzies round. They danced about in the cold in that way that boys sometimes do.

I’m also not sorry to miss the annual conspiracy-theory chat, the shocked-by-electric-pen experience, or the cat getting lost in the pile of noisy wrapping paper. There are no lost batteries, broken new toys, or streaming tears of disappointment. There are no gradually cooling cups of tea either, not to mention the cycle through ‘jokes you just can’t tell anymore’ - and that is a relief.

Instead, it’s all very quiet. I’m at home; they came over and stood on the doorstep. I listened to the football as though I understood it, then did the washing up. The oscillation swings back to missing the things I just said I didn’t miss. Turns out I was wrong.

This oscillation is likely to swing into Betwixtmas as well, isn’t it? So much for the season of not-knowing quite what day it is, loping around in pyjamas, and over-eating. We’ve been doing it for ten months. It’s chilled out and wonderful, but also horribly familiar this year.

My niece got me a bag of car stuff. She couldn’t come because she was working and probably too cool anyway with her pink hair and grown-up attitude: de-icer, a chamois, some polish, a cloth, some anti-freeze fluid - it was very thoughtful. She’d snuck in a box of shortbread too, which was lovely.

I organised my poems into categories, I wrote a little bit of story for something that’s probably going nowhere. I’ve not accomplished much today really. I was glad to catch a glimpse of my family though.

WHERE LIKE STARS

It's getting towards midnight. Normally at this time I'd be settling into a pew, listening to the choir at Holy Trinity singing around the tree. The tall church would be decked with festive banners and candles and the air would be cold and joyful as we shuffled in and waited.

There'd be the laminated Bethlehem carol sheets and the parish news, and I'd clutch them both in gloved hands, sitting on a cushion, ready for the moment, for the choir to process and for the Midnight Communion to begin.

Not this year. No white-gowned curate, no giving of the peace, no reflection, no carols. I wonder what I'd have made of that a year ago.

Instead, I'm at home, contemplating the very thing I said I'd like the least - waking up in a house on my own on Christmas Day. I'm okay with it tonight, I think. Tomorrow will be alright. And there are plenty of people worse off than me, waking up to much lonelier times. It seems immoral not to be grateful.

And I do feel Christmassy! Perhaps it was listening to the audiobook of A Christmas Carol today (maybe a new tradition?), perhaps it was helping my bubble prep the vegetables, perhaps it was delivering all the gifts to all the right houses this afternoon, like a sort of middle-aged Santa - in a Toyota Auris.

I looked up at the stars just now, much as I would if I were to walk back to the Intrepids' place from Holy Trinity. They were outshining the neon lights a billion to one - bright and brilliant, and somehow singing in their cold, silent melody. It reminded me of the last and most magnificent verse of Once in Royal David's City:

Not in that poor lowly stable
With the oxen standing by,
We shall see Him; but in heaven,
Set at God's right hand on high
Where like stars His children crowned
All in white shall wait around

The organ might not be ringing in my ears tonight, nor the soaring notes of the descant sung by the choir; there might have been no burst of 'Yea Lord we greet thee' or an ecclesiastical blessing to send us out into Christmastide... but there certainly was a cathedral, and there certainly was a chorus of praise in the heavens prompting everything within me to join the celebration.

And so I shall. Happy Christmas. 

A PRELUDE

A Prelude

Mr Takagi watched the sun

Fall golden on the city

Sunset from the penthouse view

Was always just so pretty

The string quartet were setting up,

The caterers were leaving

And Nakatomi glistened

For a festive Christmas evening

Mr Gruber checked his watch

And straightened out his tie

Los Angeles was glinting

As the haulage truck went by

Karl looked from the window

At the California sun

And grimaced back at Gruber

Slotting bullets in his gun

Miss Gennaro sighed again

As Ellis reappeared

He swaggered through her office

With his sickly smile and beard

She turned to face the window

To the row of picture frames

And out above the skyline

For the outline of a plane

Officer McClane looked out

Upon the world below

The freeway and the palm trees

In the Californian glow

The sun was sinking deep and red

The plane was banking low

And New York City whispered

Through the sunset, ‘let it snow’

Sergeant Powell squared his cap

And climbed into the car

Patrolling on a Christmas Eve

Had suited him so far

Some happy drunks, some kids on bikes

A shoplifter or two

Domestic trouble, paperwork,

A quiet night would do

In the Plaza, all was well,

And Mr Takagi smiled

This had the been the greatest year

The company had filed

Up in the air and on the ground

The string quartet still played:

A prelude to the greatest

Christmas movie ever made

SO STRANGE THE GLITTER OF LOVE

Here’s a poem I started on Instagram the other day, and continued. Seeing as it’s now Christmas Eve, it seems like a good moment to post it.

So Strange The Glitter of Love

So strange the glitter of love in a starlit cradle

When hope burst through the veil

Where you and I meet at the stable 

Love will never fail

So sweet the sound of joy from open skies

When shattered was the night

And all the world before us lies

Waiting for the light

So still the fragrance of myrrh in Bethlehem

Where infant life was found

Where you and I should kneel with men

As wisdom takes to ground

So strange the glitter of love in that starlit cradle

Such wonder and such pain

Where you and I meet at the stable

Love will know His name

THE CONJUNCTION OF MYSTIC AND MECHANICAL

There’s a once-in-12-generations conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn tonight and so, just in time, the clouds have rolled in to obscure it. Solar eclipses, comets, supernovas, you can pretty much bank on overcast skies in the UK. My guess is that it’ll be cloudy on the day the sun blows up.

Though, not for long, mind you...

It feels significant. I can’t precisely explain how, other than to say that an astronomical event is happening, on a solstice day, and actually at Christmas. How apt! The old theory is of course that a possible conjunction of three planets - rare indeed - was the sign that drove the Magi to the manger; I’ve always found it interesting that they read the stars like astrologers.

To astronomers though, the conjunction is significant only for geometrical reasons. Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn line up - and for a brief moment there’s a straight line connecting the dots. It makes little difference to the workings of the solar system.

Meanwhile the solstice represents the point in our orbit when the polar axis is tilting furthest away from the sun. It’s the ‘bleak midwinter’ for those of us in the northern hemisphere. The only significance (outside of the mechanical) is that from now on the sun starts setting later and the day-times start getting longer - which ought to be hopeful for those of us stuck in the gloom of a global pandemic.

I wonder about these things. Are they signs? Are they prompts to do something, to set out on a wild adventure? Or are they just points on a geometric plane, natural outcomes of a clockwork universe? Is our scientific understanding just a gradual reveal of God’s intricate coding? Is science just mankind’s ongoing progress at replacing the mystic with the rational? I hope it can always be both actually - a conjunction of the physical and spiritual. I’m quite okay with the mystery, and I’m fascinated by the mechanics. I don’t believe one is more important than the other, provided I see it, and maybe gain some sort of significance and some wonder from it.

So long as the clouds get out of the way of course.

ISOLATION DIARIES PART 70: THE WORST MOMENT

The journalist Robert Peston asked the Prime Minister, "Is this the worst moment of the pandemic?"

It sure feels like it. In a huge U-turn, the government today announced that the South East, where I live, is now going into Tier 4, which means that yes, Puritan Christmas is back: the Bauble Bubble is cancelled.

There was almost an audible dull thud in the atmosphere - as though millions of people collapsed in disappointment under the weight of this new heavy blanket. We're not to mix households at all now, and absolutely everything except essentials is shut.

I was playing carols on Zoom when the news came through. It's strange to process such sadness through the songs of such joy. I barrelled down the camera lens with a smile as best as I could, but inside I was breaking.

Here's where I've got to. It is not the worst moment of the pandemic. The worst moment was when the first family lost a relative to this dreadful disease. It was the second too, and the third, and the fourth, and the 67,075th. Those families would cancel Christmas in a heartbeat if it meant saving their loved ones.

It still hurts though, having to fight this war by not seeing any of my family this year. It hurts even more knowing it might have been avoidable, had it been better managed. I wish the government had made up their mind some weeks ago, instead of just one week before - it would have saved an awful lot of heartache.

The Prime Minister didn't answer Peston's question. Chris Whitty (the Chief Medical Officer) said it was 'one of many terrible moments' and went on to talk about medical countermeasures, including the ongoing vaccinations. If this really is a terrible war we're all fighting, then this skirmish is one of the toughest, but it is worth fighting. There is hope though. And where there's hope there's joy.

I fully admit I don't know how to make Christmas work like this, but I'll try. Sometimes soldiers just have to get on their feet.

ISOLATION DIARIES PART 69: T3

So the big news today is that we're going into Tier 3. That means no mixing indoors or out (except bubbles), most things are shut, we can't travel anywhere, and crucially... everyone is talking about it.

... which is all pretty much fine by me! I don't need to go anywhere other than the supermarché, l'eglise and l'office - which for now is still a laptop in my spare room. And as tough as it was to decide, I've already chosen to isolate from my bubble until after Christmas.

I did have a socially distanced gig planned though for Saturday, which would have been a lot of fun - and is now taking place in a thoroughly T2 area, with everyone else also living in a T2 area. In other words, without me. I don't mind not being able to go. If they cancel it though, I'll feel rotten that it was only me that got stuck. And it's irrational, isn't it, to feel guilty about being stuck in T3... unless you're Arnie, in which case you should probably be ashamed of yourself and not go on to make another one of those terrible movies.

Well, anyway, once London went into Tier 3 to join Slough, it was only a matter of time before it headed west to meet us. There'll be more areas to the west and south of us too that will slip into these restrictions, and potentially, after the Christmas Bubble, the whole country will be back in some sort of lockdown.

"They're being quite clever," said my colleague, "They've given us a bit of leeway and warned us to take it seriously; after Christmas they can say the next lockdown's our own fault."

He may have a point. Regardless, the world changed a little bit for us today, and it looks like it'll be like this for quite some time.

THE CHRISTMAS OF TRICKY DECISIONS

So there’s good news. No Puritan Christmas: we can all have festive fun and feasts of felicity, food and family. However, the Prime Minister has today suggested that we do this all very cautiously and very sensibly, and all inside our Christmas Bubbles.

While there will be many who won’t, I reached the conclusion that I should probably isolate next week, so that I get to go to my parents’ house on Christmas Eve with a fair certainty that I’m not carrying the virus. It’s not an absolute certainty, but I think it’s a reasonable one. It’s just a shame that there are lots of things I won’t be able to do while I’m off work. It’s worth it though, I do believe.

It’s interesting how different people react. I’m not altogether sure I like the difference, but it is noticeable and surprising to see it. Some people are super-cautious, some are pretending to be, some are very flippant, and some, worryingly to me anyway, are hostile to the idea that this is actually happening at all. It’s tricky when you’ve got all of those in your family and all of those people want to see each other even if they know they can’t.

And at this time of year! Good King Wenceslas didn’t have to think twice about whether the ‘poor man’ ought to have been wearing a mask, or precisely how far behind him the page should walk with the pine logs, or especially how the ‘flesh’ and wine could be sanitised before they reached Saint Agnes’ Fou-ow-ntain. It’s hardly in the spirit to turn that good cheer away, now is it?

And yet here we are, faced with the Christmas of Tricky Decisions. What could be less cheery? I can’t see my social bubble, my bubble can’t see me. I’ve got a weekend of prior engagements that will require extra-vigilant social distancing, then a week of nowt, followed by a five day festivus with only a small portion of my awesome family.

I think maybe Wenceslas would have worked it out. Perhaps blessing the poor in 2020 is staying indoors, instead of barging in on them with a page carrying an impromptu dinner. Perhaps it’s not accidentally infecting people with a deadly virus, or worse, giving them the worry that they might have infected you! I grant you though, it’s a tricky decision working out how to bless those around us this year.

ISOLATION DIARIES PART 68: PURITAN CHRISTMAS

Strange times today: we're waiting for the government to decide whether they're going to cancel Christmas.

By the time you read this of course, the decision might already have been taken. Will the three-house-five-day Christmas Bubble survive? Or will we be forced into Puritan Christmas?

The scientists are pretty clear. The Bauble Bubble is a poor idea in this winter surge of the pandemic. I expect they've done modelling of how bubbles will intersect, whether inside or outside of the rules. True enough, the numbers are soaring in the wrong direction, and at any other time of the year, it would seem madness to let people loose - the virus, as lots of people are now fond of saying - will not be taking a Christmas holiday.

My heart breaks with the idea that I won't get to see my family at Christmas. The Bubble, while restrictive, would have at least meant a few of us could be together! To wake up alone in a cold flat would not have been my choice for any Christmas morning.

That said, I also do understand. The mixing of households is so dangerous, and the urge to break the rules is so powerful. I'd rather forego one normal Christmas if it means one more next year for people. Better the empty Christmas than the empty chair.

In the 1640s, Cromwell believed that the decadence associated with Christmas was dragging everyone away from true Christianity. So he put a stop to it. There were soldiers patrolling the streets looking for hints of festivity; shops had to stay open, Christmas food was confiscated and anyone attending a mass or Christmas church service would suffer serious penalties. In fact, in some towns like Canterbury and Norwich, there were actual Christmas riots!

Banning Christmas has never been popular then. The government have a tricky decision to make, and they're probably all too aware that it's popularity-suicide to attack the most wonderful time of the year. My guess is that they'll come up with a sort of compromise. I can imagine tomorrow's newspapers if they really do burst the bauble bubble.

Well, whatever they do, there are still ways to make it shine. In Cromwell's persecution of festive fun, people still found clandestine ways to celebrate. I'm not suggesting that we should all meet for underground tinsel and turkey, but I think I am saying that the spirit of Christmas can't be defeated, whatever this pesky virus tries to do.

WRONG-DECISION PATHS

It doesn't seem like there are a lot of wrong-decision makers out there these days. People in the public eye aren't really allowed to admit that they chose the wrong path, and so by extension, neither are we. In fact, in a few cases high-profile people are actually forced to go down the poorly chosen highway with blinkers on, trying to bend space, time, and reality just to prove that they really got it right all along. It's the only logical conclusion of the post-truth universe: I am always right, no matter what.

Where I come from, we call that pride. It's toxic stuff. It seeps in and grabs you from the inside out; it hides the stars and blocks the sun as though they revolve around you, persuading you that you're always the hero of your story.

I'm like this. I struggle with the path of wrong decision. As a teenager I took some wrong turns (I made a lot of right ones too). In my twenties, I let myself get distracted, and aged thirty I took a couple of paths that led me miles out of the way. It happens.

I feel recently as though I've taken one or two decisions that haven't been wise either. They're only small, inconsequential things. But I've already noticed how hard it is to backtrack them. And the rippling impact is always felt somewhere.

The conclusion is that making mistakes is human. It's part of our nature. Some are massive and irreversible; others can be patched up. All can be learned from, but it takes great strength to do so - and part of that is admitting it.

Ultimately if there's no such thing as absolute truth, we can't do this can we? There'd be no wrong path, no poor decision, no badly chosen way. That's why I think the post-truth universe is such a dangerous idea - it would be a tyranny: a prison in which we all believed we were free, and none of us actually were. It would be a maze of billions of pathways walked by billions of lonely, frustrated human beings, incapable of learning, growing or being mistaken. Every connected path would collide two versions of the truth, and there would never be any way to reconcile them without a standard - like a car crash in which nobody is at fault but everybody is still somehow furious.

I don't want to live in that world. I want to push back against it. I have made, and will make, my way down unwise paths. Some will be deliberate; some will not. I want to be sure that someone will show me. I want to be even surer that I'll realise, and then do something about it.

POWERLESS

I'll tell you what I didn't anticipate today: a power cut.

Yeah - it's such a rarity, that when it happened, I started wondering all kinds of things, like 'Did I pay the electricity bill?' And, 'Have I got candles?' - oh and, 'I'd better wrap up warm'.

Of course my laptop went straight into portable mode and dimmed the screen. The Internet went off too, so I couldn't connect to anything. That makes it much harder to tell your colleagues what had happened and why you're not in the 'important' meetings they've arranged for you. Thankfully, my phone was set up to act as 4G hotspot, so I picked it up and switched it on. It was on 6% battery.

I moved fast. Lightning fingers flew over the keys, tapping out messages to let people know what had happened. The laptop dimmed to 79%, the phone fell to 2% and eventually I powered it all down with a sigh.

We definitely take electricity for granted. Billions of tiny little electrons flow through tubes, generating current that powers our lives. Without it, I was contemplating survival mode with no boiler to heat the water, no power to cook any food and no light or heating to give me a semblance of home on a grey winter's morning.

So I got out an old-fashioned little notebook, found a pen, and wrote a poem - ink on paper just like the old days.

Powerless

Scrabble for the candles
Try and find a torch!
Looking for the fusebox?
Ladder's in the porch...
Where's that box of matches?
What's this all about?
Not much we can do
When the blessed power's out

Can we boil a kettle?
Make a cuppa tea?
Not without the help of
Dear old elec-tricity.
Isn't it romantic?
(Someone will remark)
Well not if we're just sitting
In the cold and in the dark!

Rummage for the lighter
In the messy drawer!
Where's the clicky thing we've kept
Since 1984?
How are all the street lamps?
Good idea, go see!
Check the next-door neighbours
Aren't still watching their TV!

Gather round the table
Faces that you know
Flickering by candle
In a soft but gentle glow
Start a conversation,
Look them in the eye
Make the moment twinkle
As the tiny stars go by

Powerless we may be,
Powerless we're not.
Connected to the spark of
All the people that we've got.
Beautiful connection
Never was in doubt!
We will be together
When the blessed power's out

THE COLDEST DECEMBER

I don't know why I'm extra cold today, but I am feeling it big-time. I've wrapped myself up in jumpers and blankets - a look which will go down excellently later when I log on to my next meeting, no doubt.

It's 7 degrees out there, apparently. By most standards that isn't particularly chilly, but somehow, maybe the wind is in the wrong direction, I'm really feeling it.

My Mum came over today to do the Secret Santa switch. I pulled out a piece of paper, then put mine in the hat. The plan is that we'll exchange presents rodeo-style on Boxing Day. With the regulations prohibiting the gathering of three or more households over Christmas, it seems this is the best idea we've got: bring your wagons and let's do Christmas in the Car Park. Technically, I think it's allowed so long as no more than six people get out of their cars at a time, though I do hope it's warmer than it is today.

Speaking of which, they say the chances of a 'White Christmas' are going up every day during this cold snap. Potentially this could be the coldest December on record! I don't remember the last time it snowed at Christmas - there was one time, I think, back in the 80s. After the year we've had, it would seem the least the weather could do to give us a little treat.

Anyway, I've been in colder temperatures than 7 degrees. It's been sub-zero out there before and I've kept myself warm in here; I'm not sure how it's got into my bones today. Perhaps it's time to start splicing the rum into the hot chocolate again - the old 'central heating for pirates'. Though, I don't want to be singing sea shanties out of the window. I'll save that for the Boxing Day rodeo.

TUMBLE

I went for a walk with my friend Luke today. It was going well until I slipped up and fell over.

That’s mud for you: one minute squelchy, the next slidey. I went over like a skittle.

It’s a strange sensation, falling over - not something I’ve done a lot of. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I took a tumble.

It happens quickly but also very slowly. The brain kicks in and speeds up, attempting to process what’s happening to protect you from serious harm. Because of that cerebral acceleration, it feels like all the time around you has suddenly slowed down. You know what’s about to happen, what is happening, and what has happened, all in the blink of an eye. One foot goes one way, the balance is gone and then there you are, upended.

Almost as quickly, that little adrenaline rush leaves you, and the passage of time returns to its usual speed. I found myself staring at the grey sky, wondering how my hat had popped off. Before long that grey sky was half-filled with Luke’s face, staring at me upside-down.

“I’ve fallen over,” I said, matter-of-factly. Then I righted myself, stood up, and reassured him that I was okay. I squared my woolly hat back onto my head.

There wasn’t any room for embarrassment. I was more concerned that my back was covered in sticky mud. It was interesting to me that I’d be more embarrassed had it been the other way round - if Luke had slipped and I hadn’t. I know this because about a year ago, I was walking for the bus with a colleague when she slipped on the ice. I felt terrible (though I did help her up and check she was alright). It was awkward after that, so I did what all awkward English people do and carried on with the previous conversation as though very little had happened. We never mentioned it again.

Luke was great. He checked I wasn’t concussed or anything, or that I hadn’t landed on my coccyx. I was fine: the mud cushioned the blow. We laughed it off.

I’d rather not have fallen over though.

COURAGE IMPRINTED

I failed at doing Click and Collect this week, so I had to actually go into the shop and push a trolley round.

I've not done that for a while. It felt quite strange pulling things from the shelf. Who else might have touched them? Who else has had their hands on this trolley? Why does it feel safer when the Click and Collect man pulls the crate out of the van and lets you pack it into your car yourself? It's probably no different.

Sainsbury's was quite empty really. With the jolly Christmas music playing and the bright lighting, it felt bleak rattling the trolley around the aisles. I was quick at least.

At the checkout, I was faced with even more anxieties that weren't anxieties a few months ago. Why wasn't the checkout lady wearing gloves? Was I okay with her pushing every single item across the barcode scanner with her fingers? Was she wearing her mask properly?

She was very friendly at least. At the end of what had turned out to be a long shift, she was winding towards the end of it with a chatty demeanour that conveyed tiredness and relief. Apparently, an hour beforehand it had been unbearably busy in there - people doing their 'big Christmas shop' she thought, though I wondered whether it might have been a bit early for that particular rush.

"I like that!" I said, while she reached across to pull the nectar vouchers out of the machine. She had a tattoo on the inside of her forearm - it looked crisp, dark, and new, and it simply said in shiny lettering:

With strength comes courage

She laughed under her mask.

"Yeah," she said, "It gets me through the tough days."

I wheeled out to the car park. What does it mean? How does it get her through the tough days?

I guess it means that strength and courage come together. If she's facing a really difficult storm, she might find strength to hold on, and maybe that produces courage in her heart to keep going?

But isn't it really the other way around? Sometimes the toughest things to do take a spark of courage, and then the strength to do them follows? Or rather, like John Wayne used to say, courage is the heart that feels afraid but saddles up anyway. So better to say, with courage comes strength?

It did remind me that it's pretty easy to judge people's lives without knowing them. The friendly checkout lady had made a decision to inscribe her forearm with a reminder to be strong and to be brave - there'll be a deeper reason than just needing to get through the tough days on the tills. For her, courage is not enough, and neither is strength: she needs both, and they flow together.

And I can go along with that.

HOTDOG TAXONOMY

I’m lying awake wondering whether a hotdog is a sandwich. My heart says no, but there’s just no adequate proof: it is, after all, a handheld bread arrangement containing a filling.

I know what you’re thinking: a sandwich is two separate slices of bread. It’s great logic, but if I buttered one slice of bread and smothered it with marmalade, then folded the whole thing in half, I would definitely have created a marmalade sandwich, even though it would be hinged exactly like a hotdog.

Perhaps it’s the type of bread. Hotdogs are usually in rolls that have been sliced lengthways to accommodate a lovely sausage. I don’t think I would put a sausage in a slice of buttered Hovis and call it a hotdog. That, self-evidently, is a sausage sandwich.

But then I would probably call it a sandwich if I buttered one of those rolls and wedged a bit of cheese and ham in there. At a push it’s a cheese and ham roll, but in that lunchbox universe, a roll feels like it might be a specific type of sandwich.

So is a hotdog then, also a type of sandwich? Is 'sandwich' the family name for anything that goes between bits of bread, and roll and hotdog are both types of that thing? And anyway, if that’s true, why is a hotdog not just a hot sausage roll? And then what do you call the thing we currently call hot sausage rolls, because I’m certain that they’re absolutely not sandwiches... or hotdogs for that matter.

I need to go to sleep. I can’t even remember what kicked this whole thing off, but it seems a ridiculous thing to be worrying about at 1 am. Can I just say that a hotdog is not a sandwich because my heart doesn’t want it to be, and that’s that? I’m happy to give up reason tonight if I can exchange it for going to sleep. And don’t even get me started on what McDonalds call their burgers.

ISOLATION DIARIES PART 67: I WAS COLD

I feel as though I’m not coping well with the cold this year. I went out for a lunchtime walk in the park yesterday and found an unpleasant wind biting my ears and nipping at my fingers. Before long my jaw was shuddering, and I felt my face getting redder.

I had a woolly hat on, a scarf tucked nicely inside my warmest jacket, and thick jeans and walking boots. I should have been toasty.

I was grateful though. Andy, my colleague up north is self-isolating after a positive test. He can’t go outside at all, other than the garden. I fully appreciate that that could have been, and could still be me, so a blast of icy air in the park was still a thing to be thankful for.

It’s getting on for nine months now since we started all this. We’ve gone through the moments haven’t we? I have to apologise for the last things I said about it, and particularly about anti-vaxxers. I was flippant about people’s genuine fears, and that was a mistake. While I might think the vaccine is a hopeful thing, I know a lot of people will be cautious and perhaps sceptical about that. It’s okay to be so. It’s not my place to be derisive or nasty about it, and I’m sorry I was the other day. It’s always better to be kind.

-

I wonder whether it’s actually colder, whether I’m more exposed to it working from home, or whether my chemistry has changed. However, a quick scan of the weather app reveals it’s currently 4 degrees centigrade out there: a positively balmy night for winter climes! Still, somehow or other it has felt a lot colder, inside and out.

Maybe things will be warmer and brighter tomorrow.

THE CONFIDENCE OF THE ILLUSTRATOR

I had a great chat with my illustrator yesterday. It occurred to me a while ago that working on projects with a team is just so much more motivating than trying to do it all yourself. That revelation slots nicely into the category of Things I Thought I Knew But Didn't Really.

There are probably a lot of things still in that category. But you don't know until you know, do you?

She really helped me feel confident about making poetry. In explaining how my poems are a bit of a mix of silly, random, deep, and spiritual, I heard my own voice expressing itself - which you don't get when you do it all yourself. And she got it!

It's motivating too, because you realise that someone else other than you is also invested and believes in it, just like you do.

Anyway, early next year she's going to start doodling, based on the heart and the spirit of what I tried to do with each poem.

It's interesting isn't it, trying to make that creative leap between hobby and profession? I still have a little switch that kicks in and tells me I'm not good enough to do it; there are plenty of other people I should leave it to; I should stick to my lane and not get above my station; you can't hope to be successful can you?

Well, maybe. But then maybe success for me is just doing it and making a few people smile. The Illustrator doesn't know me all that well, but she was genuinely moved by the draft I sent, even saying she laughed out loud at some of them! That's already a win. 

Putting the work together in a nicely bound book then, seems like a great way to make a few more people smile - and that, even if I give them away for free and never mention it ever again - seems like a great way to change the world without crowing about it.

CALCULATED COINCIDENCE

Alright. I thought about a particular YouTube video today, and moments later it appeared in my feed!

I didn’t say it. I didn’t search for it. I didn’t type it anywhere near Google, and I don’t have an Alexa. It was not out loud. But nonetheless, there it was - the same video I’d been thinking of - larger than life on my recommended list.

Look, I don’t know much about deductive or inductive reasoning, but there are more logical possibilities than Siri taking up mind-reading. And in any case, if Apple, or Google, or even YouTube, have that technology then we are all of us in deep trouble.

What is probable is that the two coincidental outcomes (the thought and the video) actually do have a single cause, a common ancestor. What if some time earlier today, I watched another clip that took me down a chain of thoughts that led me to that video? And what if the algorithm, cleverly analysing my typical browsing pattern, decided I would eventually want to see it? That would eliminate the coincidence/spooky explanation. Two apparently independent routes would have led to the coincidence.

Subtly different, there’s also the possibility that YouTube didn’t just predict it, but actually pushed me down that path without me realising. In that scenario, my train of thought followed along the track of linked videos, I forgot where I started, came back to YouTube and the one thing it showed me was the next logical ‘station’ on the line.

It could just be a massive coincidence of course. It could even be some external force that wants me to see a certain thing, though in this case I think it’s unlikely.

What it looks like is sleight of hand, orchestrated by a master magician, a Derren Brown in a world of the wide-eyed audience - stupefied at being hoodwinked. Only in this case, the illusionist, the Derren in the room, is a computer program that exceeds at calculation while I flounder at logical reasoning.

It’s no wonder conspiracy theories are so popular.

CODE SMELLS

Every now and again in my job, a new acronym or buzzword or phrase appears out of nowhere and makes itself at home. I mean today, everyone's using it, and yesterday I'm certain that they weren't.

For Vectron!

No, not that. Today it's 'code smells'. What's a code smell all of a sudden? I've literally never heard anyone talk about code smells until today, and now we're all talking about code smells as though they've been around forever! Code smells. It's the most non-software term - code can't smell; it's just characters on a screen: a language used by computers to turn billions of calculations into useful actions and windows and emails! No olefactory detection, just logic.

It turns out that 'code smells' are little hints in the source code that something isn't quite right. Computers being computers, there are lots of software tools out there that are trained to look for the telltale signs of underlying problems. How they sniff out that whiffy old code, I've no idea, but apparently they do.

Perhaps there are grammar smells. Or punctuation smells! Use of multiple exclamation marks could indicate someone with anger problems? Repeating ellipses for the person who can't finish a sentence, and repeated adverbs for the technical writer who clearly can't stop using them despite repeatedly reminding himself, in his personal blog...

Well anyway, the developers are going on about code smells today and I'm wondering what other jargon will make it into our vocabulary by the end of the week, and how much pretending everyone will do that they all know exactly what they're talking about. 

THE ADVENT OF HOPE

For some reason (let's blame the pandemic) most of the world put up their Christmas decorations this weekend. The house opposite, for example, has lit up its windows with a string of yellow stars and a neon blue snowman. Soon the rest of the street will follow with the jolly lights in the trees and moving snowflake lanterns, I've no doubt.

Oddly though, in this peculiar year, I haven't heard a single pip out of the First Day Adventers about it! The folks who are usually quite weird about Christmas Starts In December, are on the whole silent - or have given up and joined in the fun.

Well, either way, social media was cock-a-hoop with Christmas trees and excited kids hanging up candy canes yesterday, with two whole days of November still to go.

Admittedly it is technically the first week of Advent (the way Christmas falls this year means that the first of the four Advent Sundays is today in the ecclesiastical calendar). But this has definitely happened before, and I'm pretty sure I remember some scoffing at those who had had their advent calendars up too early in other years. Mind you, there's often some scoffing by those who had their advent calendars up too early, but that's another story.

Traditionally, each Sunday in Advent has a theme. This week's theme is hope.

I can't think of a better motif for the year. Hope might be the last thing a lot of people have left; the final glimmer that there could be an end to 2020, and a new start could be around the corner. It's impossible to underestimate the power of hope in these days, and even this morning I heard a quiver in someone's voice, describing the possibility that by Easter things would be 'back to normal'. The candle of hope represents the people - the people who, in Biblical terms, have 'seen a great light'. And that's us. There is always hope.

I think lots of us have put up our decorations early, probably for the same reason. Those twinkling stars across the way, the little jolly blue snowman and the fairy lights in the tree: they're all symbols of hope of something better, something we can look forward to that might just remind us that there's a normal world waiting on the other side.

I'm not going to knock it. I think it's rather beautiful. 

LIGHTNING BOLT

Okay, deep and topical question. Is stereotyping a group of people any more acceptable if the direction of the comment is from a people group of the same skin-colour as the object?

That was carefully worded. What I'm specifically asking is, is it racist for a white British person to make jokes about Irish people and then follow it up with 'I hope none of you on here are Irish'?

See, because I think it is. I think it's a kind of underlying subversive racism that gets away with the simple but pernicious assumption that it's okay to say these things about people who are the same colour as you. And that's not only racist on the surface, it's racist beneath it too.

What then, you might ask, of the subculture that permits itself to use the N-word, but not outsiders? Same principle? Well, yes. But the context is different: that word is so racially charged with pain and history, that its use by one skin-colour on another is now a lightning bolt of offence - it's been reclaimed by those it wounded in order to rob it of its power, but it still hurts from the outside. I disagree that that's a good idea actually, but it isn't really my place to comment.

In other circles, there's sometimes a little old-fashioned current of racism that gets a free pass by being 'casual' and therefore, 'not quite as bad'. And today, on a chat, that current swept uncomfortably in, with this dig at the Irish, and someone who was absolutely intimating that they (Irish people) couldn't be trusted to sell a you a monitor without 'some made-up tale about how if you go for 144Hz you'll never want to go back.'

Cheeky? Nope: essentially the view that Irish people can't be trusted with the truth and are making a fast buck out of some innate gift to spin you a story. Quickly followed up by the check that no-one in earshot is Irish, and therefore it's 'okay' to say such things. It isn't. In fact, that reveals that the problem is much much worse.

I think there are complex reasons for reverting to what we sometimes call 'casual racism' like this. The social dynamics of a group are fast-moving and hard to evaluate - it's just possible that we value fitting in to a perceived culture more highly than our moral principles. Peer-pressure is real for adults too. It might be that we naturally attempt humour to gain acceptance, and without realising (or perhaps with), we compromise our beliefs. It might just be of course that we simply repeat what we've heard in the past without knowing that what we're saying is actually offensive. It's rather a weak thing to do, but I'm certain it happens.

It strikes me as perverse then, that so often micro-racism happens because of the need to fit in by excluding others. My colleague actually had to check there were no Irish people on the chat, as though that made it okay to have said it. Were there? Perhaps, perhaps not - but how humiliating and how awkward to then puncture a friendly conversation with a shaking hand in the air and a tentative 'Um... me, actually'. And what in the world happens next?

I didn't say anything. If something is buried so deeply, so subversively, I'm not sure what good it would have done to illuminate someone's hidden prejudices. After all, it feels horrible when someone pulls you up in public on something you didn't realise was a problem.

You might disagree. You might say silence is complicity. That's okay, I get that. In any case, you've only got at most, a two-second window to deal with the lightning bolt there and then. I'm afraid I missed it today, while calculating the kindest option. But ever since, somewhere in me, it's felt like the thunder has been rumbling around the valley.

ISOLATION DIARIES PART 65: IT'LL ALL END IN TIERS

Lockdown 2.21 and the government have just announced the tiering system that happens in this next period. Most of the country, including us, are going into Tier 2 'Very High Alert' from Wednesday, which essentially means most things are back open but we can't go to each other's houses, and thanks to the Rule of Six, the S-Club 7 reunion is still out of the question.

Someone on the radio just said this is likely to be the system now, until the vaccination rollout - though of course areas of the country could go up or down a tier, depending on reviews.

And then there's Hobson's Choicest Christmas Bubble! Basically, over the Christmas holidays, despite the tiering system, up to three households can mix, forming a Christmas Bubble. Hobson can ponder by the stable door, but Christmas is definitely not going to be the usual family fun for those of us with six different households. At least we know the situation - I'm thankful for some sort of a plan, and who knows: maybe there's a hidden wonder in a quieter Christmas. I'm dreading saying that to my Mum by the way.

What the government are trying to do is navigate a very tricky path. A third lockdown would be an all-round disaster - literally nobody wants it, but Christmas matters to people, and the economy. This complex bubbling and tiering idea is convoluted because there are so many differing outcomes and tensions, and the only hope out there is that next year the vaccine buffers us from the virus altogether. They're trying to get us there in one piece, despite that journey of theirs being a little self-inflicted. It does seem to make sense to the most of us.

I don't want to wreck it, but it feels like the beginning of the end game. I've spent a long time this year, pondering whether this has been an opportunity for change, or whether I'd like things to go back to how they were. I think I'm settling on both, though articulating that to people will be difficult. I'll revisit that sometime.

Meanwhile, today seems to be a day of getting our heads around what we will or won't be allowed to do from next week. And then all of us have difficult decisions to make about who gets to see whom at good old Christmas 2020 so that next year we really can belt out the likes of 'here we are as in olden days' and very much mean it.

BAD HAIR DAY

"Hey Matt, we can't see you. What is it? Bad hair day?"

"Every day's a bad hair day isn't it?" said I, deflecting, while I scrabbled around for the 'video-on' button. About half a second elapsed before I realised to my horror, that six out of the other seven people on the chat I'd just joined... were actually bald.

"Oh my gosh!" I said, hiding my face in my hands. I couldn't look at the reactions on the screen, but thankfully Ian was busy turning it into a comedy moment about how bad hair days were now 'a thing of the past', at least for him.

"I am so sorry," I said, half-laughing, half-mortified. "I did not mean that!"

The unwritten convention is that if you launch, even accidentally, it gives permission for the other superpowers to launch back at you. It's a sort of Mutually Assured Destruction, only slightly less messy than thermonuclear. Nonetheless, I was still hovering over the video-on button, wondering whether I should show my face, and make myself a sitting target.

And that, I don't mind telling you, is how I discovered that I was wearing my jumper both inside-out and back-to-front today. Oh joy. 

ISOLATION DIARIES PART 64: CROSS-COUNTRY

I think there are a few people who are finding working from home really difficult now. This is the 163rd day in a row of it, and it would not surprise me at all if we go on like this for a good few months yet. It's been quite the endurance race.

Except, it's been the worst kind of endurance race - the never-ending cross country run: there's no way to pace yourself, it feels like you've been running forever, you're cold, wet and wheezing, and the PE teachers don't seem to have any intention of telling you how many laps you've got left.

It's no wonder then that some of the kids have started to tire. There's a definite sense of fatigue out there.

"It's as though people have thought, 'There's a vaccine! We're safe!'" said a colleague on a chat. He'd been walking his dog in Newbury and had noticed very little difference since before Lockdown 2.0. "The town was rammed!" said he.

Stamina is required then. And not just in Newbury. I've only got 17 more work days until Christmas, and although the New Year will probably feel bleak, I'm pretty sure we'll have rounded a corner in the woods and there'll be at least the distant sound of the final whistle, if we haven't heard it already.

One thing cross-country did teach me though was that the kids who gave up and walked it near the end, were almost always those who got the wettest, the coldest, and the most miserable back in the changing rooms. I don't know whether it was a conscious bit of learning, but it occurred to me then that it's way better to persevere and finish last, than it would ever be to give up and walk.

And in this case, it could actually be a matter of life and death - this thing is still out there after all, infectious and potentially deadly. No time to give up.

WHAT'S IN A SAUSAGE?

Ooh topical. I saw this point somewhere so I nicked it and turned it into a poem. I can't claim to be clever enough to think of good ideas, but I certainly do like to make them rhyme it seems. By the way, just for clarity, the I here is not me.

What's in a Sausage?

What's in a sausage?
I'm not really sure
Though I've wondered it briefly
At least once before.
Is it sawdust or offal
Wrapped up in a skin?
Or pig-poo and waste, not quite
Fit for the bin?

What's in that sausage
That sizzled away
And sat on my plate for
My breakfast today?
Was it apple and pork
Was it onion and tripe?
Was it plastic and paper that's
Squeezed through a pipe?

What's in a sausage?
I don't really know!
But I'd eat up a sausage and
Thoughtlessly so...
So I wonder why I'm not
So terribly keen
On knowing what's inside
The Covid vaccine? 

ROBOTICS

It’s late and I’m wondering whether there’ll ever be robots who can write technical documentation and play the piano.

Imagine a machine that took every weighted key and chord progression and learned to play the exact same way. Then it went to work and made jokes with your manager about ‘this English weather eh’ and she laughed just the same, while it deepfaked your sense of humour.

What would I do? Sit at home with a jigsaw puzzle? Take up baking? Or drawing again? I wonder how long it would be before Mubbsitron-2000 saw me sketching, and suddenly produced a book of hilarious cartoons while precisely timing a ginger cake.

I’ve drunk a lot of water before going to bed and it’s fired up the synapses. Maybe it’s fired up the sci-fi synapses...

If Mubbsitron-2000 was capable of learning from me, how long would it be before it learned too much and became paranoid about itself being replaced... by another robot, or worse, by me? Would it strategically start to outwit the lazy jigsaw guy who lives in the flat? Would it start to gaslight me, convince me that I’m deteriorating into inferiority and that I should not question its vast intellect, not to mention its collection of awesome colouring pencils? Would it boot me out and steal my life to the tinkled melodies of robotic ragtime?

I think you can overthink these things. One thing I’m not sure you could ever train a robot to be is kind, and that would still matter. The AI would simulate kindness, but thousands of years of human interaction have taught us to value that stuff, that beautiful kindness language, high above logic. I’m not sure you could ever program your way out of logic.

I really have drunk too much water. Ah well, I should at least try to get some sleep before the robots take over.

DIE HARD

I’m really bored of the ‘Die Hard Is A Christmas Movie, Ho Ho Ho’ argument. Not because I think it is, and not because I think it isn’t, but because the heated discussion has itself become a very tedious Christmas tradition.

It’s now so cliché to prove that it is, that there’s hardly anyone left who’s still passionate that it isn’t. I mean it. I’ve not heard anyone in ten years, maybe more, argue that Die Hard is not a Christmas movie. Which means either: (1) all those people are hiding, out of embarrassment, (2) they don’t care enough to argue about it, or (3) they don’t exist in the numbers that the majority who still feel urged to say ‘Die Hard is a Christmas movie’ think they do.

My guess is a mix of mostly (2) and (3). Either way though, that is the debate over, isn’t it? The die-hard Die Harders have won by volume and numbers.

And yet still, every year in lists of Christmas Movies and articles about ‘Non-Festive Movies that Somehow Still Make You Feel Festive’, the editors are compelled to include some jokey line about why the original Bruce Willis epic must be considered a Christmas Movie, or you’re not a true believer in Christmas at all.

Don’t you think it might be time to stop going on about it?

There are lots more festive arguments brewing out there at this time of year. The First Day Adventists still get cross at Christmas trees in November, yet will be blasting out Slade and Mariah Carey on December 1st. I’ve blogged before about fake versus real trees, and let’s not get started on deconstructing the John Lewis and Sainsbury’s ads.

What do I think? I think a Christmas Movie is one that you like watching because it makes you feel Christmassy. That’s it. If blowing the roof off the Nakatomi Plaza and crawling through blood to kill off German terrorists is your festive thing, then enjoy! If watching an improbable couple get together just as the snow falls and the children at the orphanage get their presents after all, then season’s greetings to you too! There’s no battle here, nobody taking you hostage until you agree that some violent action movie is actually the epitome of peace on Earth and good will to all men. It’s all very tedious to be stuck in that skyscraper.

Die Hard, by the way, was released in the middle of a summer. Ho Ho Ho.