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.