My Year in 2020

This time last year I wrote: 2020 looks like it will probably be the year when those various changes actually come about, and so I expect it to be another very busy year. But, hopefully, it will be a good one.

Dear oh dear.

2020 has been an absolutely disastrous year in so many ways and for so many people that my over-riding view at this point is "thank goodness that's over". And yet...

My Year in... Blogging 

For 2020 I set myself the same goal as in 2019 - 120 posts here and 60 on the Imaginarium. And, despite a major wobble, it looks like both of those goals are set to be achieved, if only just. I'm reasonably happy with that - for a year in which we've done nothing, it is something of a success just to find things to write about.

My Year in... Work

2020 started very well, picking right up where 2019 left off. Then, late in March, we were sent to work from home. This actually worked quite well - we had been equipped with everything we needed to work remotely, albeit for entirely different reasons, and so all of that just carried straight over.

Nonetheless, I had expected things to founder quite quickly - that we'd get through our existing to-do list and then grind to a halt. That actually didn't happen.

The upshot is that the first three-quarters of the year were absolutely outstanding at work.

And then the whole thing came crashing down. The sense that I get now is that the points have switched over, and my career has been moved from the express line to a siding. And there's nothing can be done about it. Looking forward to 2021, it's all just sickening. Gutted.

My Year in... Health

Obviously, this has been a year of real concern, though mostly I've been concerned about others more than about myself - both Lady Chocolat and Funsize have been at considerably more risk than I have been. That said, I had a major health worry about six weeks ago, to the extent that I genuinely thought something was drastically wrong. In the event, it all turned out okay, but that was still a worry.

My main thought for 2021: that vaccine can't come soon enough. (Unfortunately, I don't expect to get it in 2021 - for various reasons I am, rightly, at the back of that queue, and it's going to be a multi-year project.)

My Year in... Gaming

2020 has been a curious year, because the switch to doing everything online has actually opened the floodgates to a bit more gaming - my work game moved online, and when that proved a success that motivated me to start a second, online game. Which has been fun.

There is still something I miss, because there just isn't a real substitute to face-to-face gaming, but I'm in a much better and happier position than I was in 2019.

My Year in... Band

Conversely, 2020 has been disastrous for pipe bands. The lag inherent in online calls has meant that there have been no practices since lockdown began, and all of our events for the year were cancelled.

During lockdown proper, we of course had the "Clap For Carers", at which I was asked to play something. That's pretty much all I've done by way of performing this year, with next year also looking like it may be a slim year (vaccine dependent).

My Year in... Resolutions

As always, the wrap-up of annual goals, and setting of goals for next year, are handled in another post.

My Year in... Travel

I had one two-day trip to Copenhagen early in the year, and was just about planning another when lockdown hit. We also took a long weekend away in October. And that's about it.

My Year in... Faith

This has been a difficult year, because of the difficulties with everything else. Attending church via Facebook really isn't the same as attending in person.

My Year in... Sadness

We have come through 2020 blessedly unscathed, but that doesn't mean that it hasn't been without sadness. Unfortunately, Grandma's health continues to decline, and will inevitably continue to do so. And with lockdown her ability to receive visitors has essentially been curtailed. That's really not a good position, and the toll it is taking on people and relationships is very sad.

I also received another piece of very sad news recently - a friend and mentor from the Camelon & District Pipe Band passed away early in December. Apparently he had been ill for some time, but chose not to share this widely (as was his prerogative). There is yet another hole in the world where a person should be.

My Year in... Love

It occurs to me that I have not, until now, mentioned the single most important event of 2020 on this blog at all. Come April next year, and all being well, Lady Chocolat, Funsize and I will be joined by another little Tadpole! That is obviously great, and much-hoped-for news, though I must admit to a certain concern given the situation.

My Year... Overall

2020 has been a bad year. Things are looking up, but that hope is mingled with significant fear - there are just too many unknowns, and too much of that home is just fragile. So while 2021 should be a better year, I find that I face it more apprehensive than anything else.

As always, this will be my final post on this blog for the year, so I'll take the opportunity now to wish anyone still reading a very Happy New Year when it comes. Thanks for sticking with me!

End of Year Update on Goals

At the end of last year I set myself four goals. At the end of the year, then, it's time to look back:

• Books: I completed this goal with a little over a week to go. I'm also now digging in to the last 20 books on The List, which is a bit of a mixed blessing - it will be good to be done, but on the other hand I'm getting increasingly short of reading material. The full list of books will come in another post. 
• Weight: This goal looked to be going okay and then took a major turn for the worse. I'm now losing weight, but doing so having gained too much in lockdown. The upshot is that I've actually gone backwards this year.
• Blogging: This goal is not quite complete, but only because there is one more post scheduled for this blog later today. I have posted 60 times on the Imaginarium, and this is post 119 here, and so this goal is, or rather will be, complete.
• Work: This goal was thoroughly derailed by Covid-19, though I'm not certain it was ever really realistic. I'm also inclined to think it's out of reach for 2021 too, though for other reasons. All of which is fairly disappointing.

So, two completed and two failed. Not a great showing. Still, given the general awfulness of 2020, I think that can be understood.

I'm not going to set any goals for 2021. In truth, the reading, blogging, and weight loss goals would just have carried over, with one more that will be needed anyway, so it wouldn't exactly have been an inspired list. I'm even considering just abandoning the practice as not being terribly helpful, since if it's just the same set every time then what is the point? But that's a question for late 2021.

And that's that. A somewhat downbeat note on which to come to the end of the year, but given the nature of the year it could have been much worse.

#61: "The Pillars of the Earth", by Ken Follett (a book from The List - nineteen to go)

The List

Three years ago I posted that I was into the final fifty books on the List. Given that I average roughly one of the books a month, it isn't a surprise to note that I am now down to twenty remaining volumes. It is possible that I might get one more finished by the end of the year, but given that I've hit my goal I may well not push it - and indeed there are certain advantages of going into the year with a long book nearly finished!

Of the twenty remaining books there is one from the British side of the List, being the "Complete Works of Shakespeare". My intent is to read that at the rate of an Act a day across several months (with the weekends dedicated to sonnets).

The remaining nineteen books are all from the American side of the List. (There are no longer any appearing on both sides.) The only duplicate author is Ayn Rand, who has both "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged" listed. I'm not exactly looking forward to these, which is one reason they've taken so long to get to. Margaret Laurence did also provide two books - I read "The Stone Angel" earlier this year, but don't know when I'll get to "The Diviners".

Finally, there are six very long books (at more than 1,000 pages each), seven short books (with fewer than 500 pages), and seven in the middle ground. My hope is to read four from each of these groupings next year, as that will allow for a predictable rate of progress.

And with that, here is the remaining List. Note that the numbers here don't correspond to those from the original lists (Shakespeare was #14, for instance), but they are at least in the same ranking as before...

1. Complete Works of Shakespeare
2. The Stand (Stephen King)
3. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
4. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
5. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
6. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
7. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
8. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
9. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
10. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
11. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
12. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Ann Brashares)
13. Shogun (James Clavell)
14. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
15. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
16. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
17. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
18. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
19. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
20. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)

#60: "A Christmas Carol and other Christmas writings", by Charles Dickens (a book from The List)

The Big Shop

For the past few months, the Tesco shop has been first thing on a Friday morning - I would drop Funsize at nursery, head to Tesco, get it done, and then start work for the day. This has the big advantage of getting to the store when it's really quiet, and also doesn't take away from any of my 'good' time - that is, evenings or weekends.

Unfortunately, yesterday I was booked in meetings from 8.30 right through the whole day, which meant that I couldn't do the weekly shop. And, of course, the next two Fridays are unavailable due to the store being closed. This meant that the weekly shop this week had to be pushed back to today, and had to get enough supplies in to last us well past Christmas.

And, to add to the fun, I discovered this morning when assembling the list that many of our stocks had run out, so that needed added. The upshot of that was that today's list was going to be a big one - and to be done on a Saturday which is, of course, the worst possible day of the week to go for.

In the event, it wasn't too bad. Although I just couldn't face getting up at 6am this morning, I did get ready reasonably early, and so got there before the big rush. And thanks to a carefully-constructed list, I was able to get around reasonably quickly. The only real annoyance was in the few occasions when I really wanted to get past someone - which is normally fine, but not an option in these days.

I'm now very hopeful that I've got everything to cover us until the Monday after Christmas. I really don't want to have to head out again before the big day - each day is just going to be that bit worse, and the only day I'm not working is Christmas Eve. But if there's a need...

But with that, and all being well, that's all my preparation for Christmas done.

The Seductive Danger of Big Numbers

Today the government has announced that they have vaccinated more than 130,000 people in the first week since they began. Which is absolutely fantastic news. Except...

Firstly, they haven't vaccinated anyone yet - all three of the vaccines require two doses, significantly spread in time. So what they've actually done is given 130k people the first dose. That's not the same thing.

Significantly more concerning, though, is what that says about the overall problem. The thing is, 130,000 people is indeed a lot. But the population of the UK is 66.65 million or so.

What that means is that to get to everyone, if we proceed at that rate, we'll take more than 9 years. Just for the first dose. (Fortunately, you don't need to get to everyone... just 80% of people. So that's 7 years and 9 months.)

I really don't mean to denigrate the achievements here. Just getting the vaccine out is fantastic, and delivering 130,000 doses is great.

But the news isn't as good as is being made out. We really need to be targeting at least 300k doses delivered per day - at least a 15-fold increase in the rate. That would allow us to deal with the virus in about a year.

Perhaps more important even than that, we need a media that actually provide that context, because big numbers are seductive and can be misleading.

Three Down...

As I noted late last month, I had four tasks for Christmas: the decorations, the cards, the presents, and the food. As of this weekend the final presents have been purchased and, where applicable, wrapped. The cards were dealt with last weekend and the decorations the week before so, unless I've forgotten something, I have now completed three of my four tasks.

I should also note that in that time I have also managed my Christmas baking - another batch of mince pies. These were great, but for two small details: firstly, the plan had been for Funsize to help with these, but she opted to sleep instead; secondly, Funsize also rejected the mince pies as something to eat, which left me with the full batch to consume. Oh, the horrors!

Anyway, the upshot is that I now only have a single task remaining for Christmas, which leaves me with a Christmas that is perhaps not stress-free (since nothing is this year), but is at least as relaxed as the year will allow. Which is a win in my book.

(The menu for the Christmas food has been settled on also - turkey dinner with the usual trimmings on the day, followed by a turkey and ham casserole on Boxing Day, and then curried turkey later in the week. LC is going to provide the starter and the dessert on Christmas Day, and we'll be having a non-alcoholic sparkling not-wine with the meal. And, of course, a nice buffet supper later.)

The Celestine Prophecy

One of the advantages of having a reading list put together by others is that every so often I come across a good, or even great, book that I otherwise wouldn't have seen - "The Shadow of the Wind" and "The Kite Runner" being key examples (though even things like "Bridget Jones's Diary" and "Confessions of a Shopaholic" were more enjoyable than I'd expected).

The flip side of that, however, is that every so often you come across a real stinker. Sadly, "The Celestine Prophecy" falls into that category.

The problems start right from the outset. The novel is built around the mystery of nine "insights", which the hero goes in search of. But the first of these establishes the notion that there are no coincidences - that as soon as you become aware of the First Insight you will start generating coincidences to take you forward.

Which, of course, means that the rest of the plot is then built on a sequence of coincidences, with the hero just happening to encounter exactly the right person, circumstance, or event to take the plot forward.

Thereafter, the book has a fairly routine sequence - the hero meets some character who just happens to have access to the next insight, which leads to long and preachy discussions in which this insight is expounded. These insights being a mix of low-grade philosophy, misappropriated scientific jargon, and unadulterated hippie crap.

Meanwhile, our hero is opposed by a bunch of faceless good with no real direction or purpose, except of course to advance the plot. Every so often it looks like some action might break out... but it tends not to, due to fortuitous coincidences.

Ultimately, it all feels like a less well-written version of "The Da Vinci Code", minus the compelling protagonist, the interesting antagonists, the thrilling plot-twists, and the car chases that causes it to race along. Pretty much the only redeeming feature of the thing is that it's only 331 pages and ticks along at a fairly good pace.

Avoid.

#59: "The Celestine Prophecy", by James Redfield (a book from The List)

Experimental Cookery 2020: Spiced Chicken with Couscous

This one comes from "The Hairy Bikers' Mediterranean Adventure". Like many of their recipes, this one is straightforward, and although the elapsed time was about an hour a lot of that was taken up with waiting.

The resulting meal was really nice, although Funsize refused it outright. The only tweak I'm inclined to make is to switch the chicken legs for thighs, and get the "bone out" variety - my understanding is that they don't taste as good, but I really don't like the hassle of bones.

There's not really anything much to say about this. It was good, we'll have it again, but it doesn't make its way into my all-time favourites list.

Jack Ryan

My experience with Tom Clancy's hero is somewhat mixed - I've read one of the novels but didn't like it, I've seen all but one of the films and liked three of them, and I've now seen both seasons of the Amazon Prime series. I very much enjoyed the first season, which felt like it had the makings of a decent "24" replacement.

But the second season was a disappointment - all through it I was waiting for a big twist, such that it turned out that the obvious evil bad guy wasn't actually the bad guy... and it just never happened.

So the 50% hit rate seems to be holding up. Given that "Shadow Recruit" is also available on Prime, I'll probably find time to watch that in the next few weeks, for completeness if nothing else. And I'll watch season three of the series if it ever materialises (naturally, with the events of this year, everything is much more uncertain than it once was).

I'm not sure if that's a recommendation or not. Guess you'll just have to see for yourself. (I would give the trailer a go. That gives a pretty good idea of what it's about, without too many spoilers. So pretty much does what a trailer is supposed to do.)

#58: "Sharpe's Christmas", by Bernard Cornwell

Snow Day! Oh... no, wait

 It snowed last night, much to Funsize's excitement.

Naturally, the main consideration I have when it snows is whether I'll be able to get the car out, and therefore whether I'll be able to go to work or not. Of course, that's yet another thing that the pandemic has ruined for us - if the answer had been "no", I would still have had to work - though I'd have had to look after Funsize at the same time.

As it happened, I was able to get the car out fine, so she went to nursery and I have retreated to my box. And all is well... ish with the world.

That's all.

#57: "Icewind Dale - Rime of the Icemaiden", from Wizards of the Coast