A Coronamoaner Christmas

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

Me & Music in 2020

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

Coronamoaner: Cancelled Christmas

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

Why I’d Prefer No Deal

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

Coronamoaner: Lockdown Lunching

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

I Own 2,000 CDs

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

Life Update – Autumn 2020

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

Coronamoaner: The Fun Is Over

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

Actually Losing Weight

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

Post Covid Politics

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