Myths About Britain - Debunked

 

I was sitting in a bar in Amsterdam many years ago with an British work colleague and a Dutch man who was a customer. We were enjoying a quiet conversation when we noticed two young Dutch guys on the other side of the bar lambasting a slightly inebriated British bloke who was on his own. 

“You don’t care about your children!” declared one of the Dutch guys. “You send your children away for months to school. No wonder you people are the way you are.”

We were slightly uncomfortable hearing this but we ignored them. Eventually the British guy had had enough and left. Unfortunately, one of the Dutch guys heard us talking and the two of them immediately came over to us with a view to continuing their attack on British people. 

“So, you’re English?” he asked us. 

Thankfully, our Dutch colleague turned around and said something to them in Dutch which sounded very stern. Within a minute or two they moved away. 

“What did you say?” I asked. 

He replied:

“I told them that I lived in England for four years and everything they said was a load of rubbish. I told them that their behaviour is terrible and they are letting down Dutch people by being such arseholes.”

This was a one-off because Dutch people are usually laid back and really friendly. However, this unfortunate episode leads me on to some common misconceptions about the place I call home that simply aren’t true. Let’s dive in.

All British people send their kids away to school for months

This is, as my Dutch friend said, untrue on the whole. Also, I heard a French bloke in a restaurant in Paris saying the same thing to an American colleague once. This time I interrupted and told the American that this simply wasn’t true. 

What is true is that we do have public schools such as Harrow, Rugby and Eton (which has barfed out some Prime Ministers like Boris the Clown). Public schools are fee paying and heaped in tradition and deep in the realm of the filthy rich of our country. In public school you will find the children of royalty and nobility and extremely rich businessmen etc. because they are the only ones who can afford them.

The vast majority of kids in the UK, (93%)  go to normal state schools in the same way most other children in the world do. I have only ever met one guy who went to public school and he hated every second of it. He was a really good friend at university and he had what can only be described as a posh accent. 

Talking of accents …

There are only two British accents: the royal accent and cockney

The “royal” accent is what I would describe the accent spoken by Charlie-boy, aka King Charles III. It is known as “received pronunciation”. The cockney accent is the accent of London. The truth is that there are so many accents in the United Kingdom that listing them all would take ages.  Here’s a taster:

My accent used to be “Black Country” or “Yam Yam” which is very close to the Brummie accent in the video above spoken by Ozzy Osbourne. I used to sound similar to him because he was born about ten miles away from Walsall, where I was born. But even in those ten miles, the accent mutated and my original dialect had words that perhaps even Ozzy never used. 

You may also note that the video described that accent “being rated as Britain’s least intelligent” and since I moved away from Walsall I can vouch for this being true. When I moved to Liverpool for university, people used to say “what part of Birmingham are you from?”. I was naïve and said “How do you know where I’m from?, which may have made them think that people from Walsall and Birmingham are as stupid as the accent makes them sound.

This was of course the first time I encountered the Scouse accent (spoken by people from Liverpool). When I tried to open a bank account as a naïve 19 year old, I really struggled because I could barely understand the woman I was dealing with. She was a fully-fledged Scouser and we struggled to communicate because my accent was so strong too. She got my name wrong about ten times and she probably thought I was stupid too.

Over the years, my accent has faded and now I have what Southerners would call a neutral Northern accent. Yet occasionally, my Yam Yam accent surfaces (usually when I am ranting). There is no Mancunian in there (well possibly a hint).

We all live in London

London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom but we don’t all live there. I have been asked by an American, “So what’s it like living in London?”

Now, London is a huge city but it is over two hundred miles away from Manchester. I have friends who live there and I visit the place quite often. It takes four hours to drive there from Manchester and this is why I usually take the train, taking just over two hours. 

But I am not from London and I don’t live there. And the truth is that 90% of travelling people from the UK that you will meet do not live in London either. Some even live in different countries (see below).

That said, London is a good place to visit. I love it but I wouldn’t want to live there at all. It is too chaotic and too busy for me. 

England is the United Kingdom

I was born in England and I live in England. I was also born in the United Kingdom. But the United Kingdom is not England. 

The United Kingdom consists of four countries: England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. If, for example, you were to ask a Scot whether he was English, you may well get a rude reply. Each country has its own devolved government for local issues but the centre of government of the UK is in London, so perhaps I can understand the slight confusion when meeting somebody from the UK. The accent usually gives it away. 

I can imagine that there are other things that confuse foreigners too, especially when I mention the word "British". I am English and I am also British. Where does “British” fit in I hear you cry? Why are we also called Great Britain? 

Allow me to explain. 

See the following diagram.

The big island that contains England, Scotland and Wales is called Great Britain and people who live in all of those countries are British. There are a lot of smaller islands off the coast of Great Britain but they count as British too (for example the Isle of Man and the Isle of Wight). 

The other major island is Ireland and this comprises the Republic of Ireland and Northen Ireland. The islands of Great Britain, Ireland and all the other smaller islands make up the British Isles. From the perspective of Ireland, the Republic of Ireland (or Eire) is an independent country but Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. Hence the full name of the United Kingdom is The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. 

I hope that clears things up and makes sense.

And Finally …

There are a couple of other myths that need to be debunked so I will do that in another post. 

A Question of Balance

 

There is a saying that I’ve heard a lot of blokes say and it is this:

“Happy wife, happy life”

I think that this saying is a bit biased towards the female side. Basically, to me, it says, if you keep "‘er indoors" happy then you will get a peaceful life. Nevertheless, there has to be balance in this equation and I am all for balance. 

The idea for me is to keep each other happy. If, as a man, you are happy and your significant other is also happy then that is the ideal situation. Life isn’t as simple as that though and this is where compromise comes into that equation.

It helps if you both enjoy the same things but there comes a point when you have to do something that is not your favourite thing to do in order to keep that balance. 

I have a couple of examples of this in action. 

Recently, when were in Lanzarote, Mrs PM who has just started a new job, asked me what I was going to do when we returned. 

“I’ll pop to the cinema to see Captain America: Brave New World” I said. I can do this at any time because I am retired. I don’t mind going to the cinema on my own at all. Mrs PM surprised me and said:

“I’ll come with you if you like. I haven’t been to the cinema for ages.”

I was surprised by this because, although Mrs PM doesn’t mind Marvel films, she usually waits for them to come on the TV rather than going to the cinema. It was only when I checked the cinema listings that something clicked. 

“I see that Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy” is on as well,” I said.

Basically Mrs PM doesn’t like going to the cinema on her own at all and she really wanted to go and see it. I had seen the previous Bridget Jones movies but generally I hate romantic comedies and I would never actually watch them on TV let alone pay money to see them. 

I sighed and rather than arguing about this I decided, in the name of compromise and balance, to agree to see it with her. 

Last Sunday we went to see Captain America together and she enjoyed it. Yesterday we went to see Bridget Jones and she really enjoyed it. There were not that many blokes in the cinema at all and the ones who were, were in the same situation as I was. I did notice there were quite a few groups of three or four women all giggling and crying as the film progressed.

Did I enjoy them?

Captain America was not the greatest Marvel movie I have seen but I enjoyed it, especially when the Red Hulk appeared. 

Bridget Jones? I’ve seen them all and I have chuckled at some scenes but it was such a girl movie and I had to try to resist using the sick bag on a couple of occasions (using Newton’s Laws to express your love for somebody? Do me a favour!). The highlight for me was seeing Sally Phillips, who I really like.

I won’t see any Bridget Jones filmsa gain but in the interest of balance I have kept my thoughts to myself. The film was okay but definitely not my kind of movie. Mrs PM enjoyed it though and that is all that counts. 

Balance has also branched out to music now. During the pandemic when we were locked down in the house, we had to compromise about music. Basically Mrs PM loves dance music and I love rock, prog and heavy metal. Our tastes are quite different. However, we discovered that we have an overlap and we managed to create a joint Spotify playlist that we play very often. You can read about it here:

The Playlist 

The playlist has grown since then and we have 436 songs at the time of writing. I never thought that would happen.

In the last couple of years we have extended this idea and actually started going to gigs together, which is something I thought we would never ever do. I have been to hundreds of gigs and Mrs PM would have hated them. Nevertheless we both decided to give ourselves a taste of some bands that we wouldn’t normally see. 

And we are doing it again this year. 

In the past couple of years, I have seen Alison Goldfrapp and Sophie Ellis-Bextor (although the latter was supporting the Human League who we both like). 

In return, Mrs PM saw The Stranglers and The Foo Fighters. 

Now I do like the band Goldfrapp, and Alison Goldfrapp as a solo artist did play some of those songs but her newest album is pure dance so it was a little out of my comfort zone. But it was fun. We both loved the Stranglers though and Mrs PM was slightly out of her comfort zone with the Foo Fighters.

This year I have a few gigs planned but Mrs PM is only coming to two of them. 

The first is a real blast from my past and hers: Electric Light Orchestra, one of my favourite bands when I was a child. We both love them.

The second is Nine Inch Nails. I jokingly asked her if she would ever see them and she told me yes. They are definitely my type of band and the only thing she might like about them is their more mellow and electronic side. She likes this song for example. 

But she will have to put up with this:

I’m not too concerned though because there are a lot of different styles in between plus a few more mellow songs they may perform.

It might just challenge the balance and compromise but I like to think that I can cope if she doesn’t. I am a Libran and the scales are the symbol of my star sign. I don’t believe in all of that nonsense but I do believe in balance and I will try to achieve that no matter what. Let’s just hope she doesn’t hate Nine Inch Nails to the point where I have to see somebody dreadful (and believe me – there are many terrible songs in Mrs PM’s collection).

The gig is in June and she has asked me for a Nine Inch Nails Spotify play list that will give her a taste of what to expect.

Wish me luck.

Coming Home

Mrs PM and I have recently returned from a week long break in Playa Blanca, Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. We were meant to go to Malaysia but Mrs PM’s job situation scuppered that somewhat and forced us to postpone that wonderful trip until 2026. The good news is that the situation is now resolved but sadly it was too late to organise that trip to the Far East. Instead we opted for a short European trip to get some winter sun.

Whenever I am abroad, especially in winter, I barely think of Manchester. As we walked along the promenade after breakfast, listening to the Atlantic Ocean lapping up on the sandy shores and rocks, the dreadful rainy cold weather that we have to endure in February in the UK is so far from my brain that Manchester may as well be on another planet. 

Even the evenings are beautiful and clear in Lanzarote, if not a little chilly. All that means is that I have to wear long trousers instead of shorts as we dine within earshot of the waves. And talking about planets, we actually managed to see a couple of them with the naked eye. Mrs PM mentioned that the news had an article about all the planets being aligned. I love a good sunset and as we were sitting in a bar watching our star slowly descend behind the horizon, seemingly into the horizon, I used an app on my smartphone to find the planets – the app is called Sky Map and well worth a download. Here are a couple of sunset pictures I took.

Mercury was close to the sun but invisible and a bright spot nearby turned out to be Venus. As the sun disappeared and the sky became darker, other points of light in the firmament became visible and, with the aid of Sky Map, I could clearly identify Saturn, which looked a little dull compared to Venus but still there. The app also told me that just below Venus but perhaps too far away to see with the naked eye was Neptune. 

As I moves around the sky, I then identified and saw Jupiter and Uranus. Jupiter was perfectly clear and Uranus, like Saturn, was quite dull but just about visible. 

The only one I couldn’t find was Mars. 

It would have been amazing to have seen this exact sky with a telescope from the desert where there is no light pollution to shield the planets. I remember a trip to Barbados where we had a little session with an astronomer who used a telescope to find Saturn for us. That was amazing and I could even see the rings. 

On our last morning, we had a leisurely breakfast and had time to take a walk along the promenade for a coffee before having to return to the airport for our flight home. I enjoyed sitting by the ocean, listening to the waves and enjoying the clear blue skies and the sun reflecting off glistening turquoise water. 

I felt totally relaxed. 

About eight hours later we had landed at Manchester Airport and were in a cab, driving through the rainy cold streets of my home city. I looked through the rain spotted windows of the cab and the sky was dark and covered in clouds that hid any stars and planets. Part of me was disappointed and I craved sitting by the beach, stargazing while listening to the calm sea. Mrs PM was excited because she was starting her new job the following day and she was also looking forward to seeing her “babies”, that is our two domineering masters, our cats Ziggy and Star(dust).

I allowed my mind to briefly return the scene from eight hours ago, the taste of the coffee, the warm breeze, the sound of the ocean, the colours, the people. 

And then I realised that in a few moments I would be home. 

My home is my castle, the place where I feel most comfortable. It’s like my central office, even though I don’t work anymore and I love being there. My brief longing for Lanzarote gradually faded and once I had braved the rain, entered my house and unpacked, I had the chance to sit down with a cup of tea and think about my trip. Star(dust) put her two front paws on my stomach and stared at me as she purred. She then lay down next to me, clinging to my leg like a feline leech and fell asleep. Ziggy was sitting next to Mrs PM.

I then started thinking about our next trip to Malta in May, where we will be taking Mrs PM’s mum for a celebration of her 80th birthday. I will once again be beside the sea with a chance to explore Valetta. It will be warm sunny and in terms of weather, a million miles from Manchester. 

Mrs PM broke my reverie.

“I’m glad to be home,” she said. 

And, to be perfectly honest, so was I.

The Couch Potato

I have a routine now that I am retired but occasionally I have to summon some willpower so that I don’t fall into the trap to becoming a couch potato and spend the whole day in a stupor in front of the television watching daytime TV. 

The thing is that most people who watch daytime TV are also retirees like myself and at the moment I only reserve 45 minutes during my routine for watching daytime TV on Monday to Friday. The programme I watch is a quiz show called Countdown and is on Channel 4 in the UK at 14:10 in the afternoon from Monday to Friday. 

Countdown is a game where contestants try to make the longest words from nine letters within 30 seconds. For example the letters might be:

R L T C R A E E A

A contestant who makes the word LACERATE would beat another contestant who makes the word CATERER because LACERATE is longer. There are several rounds of the letters game and a couple of numbers games which are equally challenging. 

I watch the show because I can play along and it helps keep my mind sharp. 

However, there is a problem. Channel 4 is a commercial channel so I have to suffer adverts in the middle of the show. I have grown out of the habit of watching commercials since streaming and recording has taken off but in the case of Countdown I watch the show as it is aired (to fit into my routine). 

Generally, the people who watch TV at the time Countdown is on are older people like myself who have retired. And the adverts are targeted at us and boy are they depressing. This is the sort of thing I mean:

I was happy when I started watching Countdown and all the commercials are trying to remind me that I am an old git who will shuffle off this mortal coil and should therefore start planning my funeral right now!

So you choose to destroy any happiness I might have by thinking about the time when my body decides to release me to the afterlife? 

How utterly depressing. 

It’s not just funerals they advertise during daytime TV. We get insurance adverts, medical adverts and adverts for contraptions that miraculously make you able to walk better if your legs and feet are too old to cope with your body falling apart, for example:

I know I’m an older man do I need to be reminded of that on a daily basis?

I also think that they portray older people in a strange way. As you can see from above, you’ve got the active grandad up the ladder but you also get old couples who are acting like they are teenagers in love. 

I mean, really? 

Okay – enough about commercials. I must admit that there are some daytime TV programmes that start to draw me in if I decide to watch a little telly in morning with my breakfast. One example is Homes Under the Hammer is on BBC1.

For those of you who don’t live in the United Kingdom, Homes Under the Hammer is a programme about property development. An “expert” goes to a house that is for sale at an auction and tells us about it and the surrounding area. The house is sometimes in a dilapidated state and requires a lot of work and he or she make suggestions about what needs to be done to it. The house is then sold at the auction and the “expert” interviews the buyer asking what they are going to do to it. Later in the show, we move forward magically in time and see for ourselves how the buyer turned the wreck of a house into something that you can move into and what the buyer intends to do with it. And, of course, how much money the buyer could make. 

The show is quietly addictive, in the sense that you get drawn in and find yourself waiting to see how the house was transformed and before you know it, an hour has gone by. I have to dig deep into the depths of my willpower to switch it off. The good news (or bad news?) is that because Homes Under the Hammer is on BBC1 there are no TV commercials to remind me that perhaps I should be up and about instead of festering on the couch.

There are lots of similar (and sometimes more inane) programmes for example: 

A Place in the Sun – an expert takes a couple to Southern Europe to help them buy a holiday home.

Bargain Hunt – Two teams buy antiques and try to resell them at an auction for the biggest profit. 

Money for Nothing – an “expert” takes people’s junk from tips and tries to make some money out of it by modernising or repairing it. 

Escape to the Country – similar to A Place in the Sun but this time with city dwellers trying to buy a house in the country. 

Come Dine With Me – five contestants take turns cooking for each other and marking the efforts of their competitors.

Four in a Bed – Bed and Breakfast (B&B)  owners compete with each other to see who has the best B&B.

Most of it is inane drivel but there are occasions when I have been sucked in and ended up watching an episode without actually realising that I am completely wasting my valuable time. 

To be honest, I think watching daytime TV or even streaming decent shows in the daytime is a bad thing for me. Countdown aside, I don’t want to spend all day lolloping on my sofa when I could be doing something far more productive. 

Maybe that’s the role of these terrible commercials. Whenever I see one, my immediate thought it to rant and moan but then I realise that it is targeted at an idealised version of me that probably does spend all day on the couch watching adverts about getting deals for my own funeral. And that is a kick up the arse and makes me think – “Right! I’m still young (in mind) – let’s get up and do something constructive before it’s too late.”

In a weird way – they actually help. I hope that other people similar to me realise that talking about funerals and wishing your life away is totally depressing and counter-productive. 

I’m old – but not THAT old. 

Thank goodness I have a teenager in my head who screams “BORING!”

The Truth is Out There (Maybe)

I am a close personal friend of Taylor Swift and last week I played the piano for her. She is so impressed by my progress over the past couple of years that she has asked me to perform on her next album and accompany her on her next world tour.

How incredible is that? 

It is totally incredible and it is, of course, totally false. 

Nevertheless it is more believable than some of the bullshit that has been spread across the planet in the past decade or so. This explosion of lies has increased exponentially with the rise of social media. 

Coincidence? I think not. 

Two things surprise me about the spread of lies as “truth”. The first thing is that the lies are becoming more and more outrageous. The second thing is that people actually believe them despite the evidence to the contrary. 

It isn’t surprising that there are now far more conspiracy theories out there and that more and more people believe them. Nor is it surprising that a lot of politicians are blatantly lying to the world. 

Take Donald Trump for example. This man is the worst person ever to have held the position of president of the United States. He had four years of power and it was a total disaster. And yet he won the last election and today he will be back in office for yet another four years. Some of the lies he told in his campaign are breathtaking. 

Such blatant lying isn’t limited to just the United States. In Britain we have Boris Johnson who has given Trump a run for his money in the past.

BBC news has a “fact checker” where they analyse statements by prominent politicians and indicate the veracity of some of these outlandish statements basically indicating whether they are true, exaggerated or simply blatant lies. Yet I have read comments from people online who refuse to believe that their politician of choice is lying and say mad things like “The BBC is totally biased against the Conservative Party and is lying!”

One of the things I’ve noticed about such people is that they simply refuse to admit that people like Trump and Johnson are capable of telling lies. The same is true for conspiracy theorists. 

I’ve mentioned “Flat Earthers” before and this applies doubly to them. They refuse to believe that the Earth is a sphere despite the overwhelming evidence to support it. They believe that the Earth is a giant frisbee and although scientists can prove that it is not, such people seem to thrive on this and tell scientists that they are liars and part of a global conspiracy to fool the people. 

I mean WHY?

What would be the advantages of denying that the Earth is a pancake? And I’ve found that the more you try to convince such a person that the Earth is a globe, the more entrenched they become in their views, the more angry they become and they more they think that you are an idiot for believing that the planet if a sphere. It’s like they are digging themselves in and will never ever admit the folly of their views. 

Such people claim that there is tons of “evidence” out there – and they are right. The “evidence” is on social media sites and comes from nutcases who believe that Terry Pratchett’s Discworld is based on the shape of our own planet. 

Here is an amusing rant from comedian David Mitchell about this:

What he says is exactly true. The rise of the internet and social media makes it easy for kooks to get a voice and spread disinformation as if it is gospel. In the past certain conspiracy theorists have struggled to get their weird views to the world, having to resort to being interrogated on mainstream TV or having to write books about their views. 

One of the best examples of this is David Icke, who I have mentioned on this blog before. Back in the 1980s he was a footballer and became a sports presenter on TV. But something happened and in 1991 he appeared on a chat show and claimed that he was the “Son of the Godhead” and wore turquoise to “channel positive” energy. 

He was ridiculed for it. 

Yet now, over 30 years after that ill-fated interview, he is a full blown conspiracy theorist and talks to thousands of people who are willing to believe him about things like interdimensional reptilian beings who can shape-shift and have been manipulating humanity through fear so that they can feed off our negative energy. He thinks that The Matrix is based on fact.

He has written loads of books on this and many other weird fantasies that he claims to be true. And his army of followers is growing. If you are so inclined you can check some of his nonsense on You Tube. I’ve watched a couple of interviews with him and they are hilarious. 

The reason for actually writing this post was because of recent events in the UK that involve Elon Musk using his Twitter account (I refuse to call it X) to launch attacks on the UK government based on lies. And of course liar number one is becoming President today. 

I wonder where this is all going to lead us in the future? 

Imagine if I suddenly became an “influencer” on social media and started my own conspiracy theories. Do you think that people would believe me? Do you think I could get away with telling blatant lies and peddling them as if they were the absolute truth? 

I couldn’t do it – I am genuine about this. There is a filter in my head that would prevent me from inventing a story, say, about the royal family being descended directly from dinosaurs, no matter how much I would love it to be true. 

In fact, I couldn’t do it because somebody has already beaten me to it. Apparently, according to Mr Icke, the royal family, including King Charley boy, are all shape-shifting lizards. In fact it’s not just them – it’s most famous people. In fact, according to this video – you and I might be reptilian-human hybrids:

Who would have thought it? 

Brilliant!

Sometimes I can be a bloody idiot and when that happens I get really frustrated. For example, when I break something, lose my keys or forget something important. I am a little bit of a perfectionist and when such things happen I chastise myself for my carelessness and stupidity. 

And then I tell everybody about it either on this blog or in real life. 

Why do I do this? Because I like self-deprecation and I find humour in it, including when the perpetrator of such misdemeanours is myself. I used to entertain people in my office with such antics, either accidentally or sometimes on purpose. 

Picture the scene. 

I am working in a peaceful open plan office, which incidentally includes my boss. Everyone is working away in pure silence, the levels of concentration are so tangible that you could shake their hands.

For my part, I am staring at a piece of software that refuses to cooperate. Every time I run the code, it misbehaves and throws up an error. I have drunk countless cups of tea and as the hours have passed I have been metaphorically (and maybe actually) pulling out bits of hair. I have stared at the code, looked at the software environment and even thought about blaming others (something I try not to do). 

What on earth is wrong? Why can’t I see it? 

And then suddenly, out of the blue, I see something. I see a typing error where I have accidentally written a zero instead of an “O”. This is an easy mistake to make even for the most brilliant programmer.

Now you would have thought that I would be happy with that – and the truth is that I am. However, I have temporarilyy lost my sanity, my sense of perception and forgotten where I am and possibly even who I am. 

“YOU BLOODY IDIOT! YOU ABSOLUTE MORONIC CRETIN!” I bellow at a high volume, thrusting my face into my hands.

These words shatter the silence and when I hear my own words my sanity returns hand in hand with my perception and I know exactly where and who I am. My dignity flies off in a different direction to hide for the rest of the week. 

 I slowly lower my hands and look at the office. Every pair of eyes is staring at me. Some are chuckling; some have a look of concern and others are aghast with incredulity – including my boss.

“I’m so sorry,” I say with genuine contrition.

Most people roll their eyes and shake their heads before going back to work. The chucklers immediately start ribbing me. 

“We’ve been telling you that for years, Dave”.

“It’s taken you this long to find out?”

“So you’ve found one of the many bugs in your code then have you, Dave?”

I can take it. I know they are joking and I also know that I am blushing slightly which, for a person as pale as I am is a significant event. I look like a bright red Belisha beacon with glasses. 

Really it makes me think that perhaps I was too hard on myself. Of course I know that I am not really an idiot, a moron or a cretin. I know that I have done my job for forty years and generally (apart from a few cock-ups) I have done okay. 

In fact on quite a few occasions I have been brilliant. 

The truth is that so have most of my work colleagues. I have been in awe of the some of the people I have worked with over the years and each and every one of them (with a few notable exceptions) has done exactly the same as I have and questioned their own intelligence in the most derogatory displays of self-deprecation I have ever witnessed. 

There is something about certain people that prohibits them from singing their own praises. I am very guilty of this. I genuinely don’t say “I am brilliant” and I don’t think I have ever uttered those words. I used to work with loads of people who were the same as me. 

Of course I have worked with people who consider themselves to be the best of the best, even when they aren’t and such people are the complete opposite of me. 

I would never do that. 

When somebody blows their own trumpet constantly and never admits that they are wrong I am always suspicious of whether they are just arrogant or just narcissistic. Some of them are both. 

In recent years I have always given praise where praise is due. I’ve said things like:

“You are an absolute star!”

“Thanks so much for helping me; I wouldn’t have worked that out in a million years!”

Sometimes just a simple “Oh thanks man! That’s really helpful!” is all that is required. 

I’m a fairly modest guy but when people say such things to me, I get a little warm feeling in my core that brings a faint smile to my face. 

I don’t think that people show their appreciation of others often enough. There are certain industries that are exceptions, such as actors who love to say things like “Oh you were wonderful daaaaaarrrrrrrllllllingggg!” but in my former industry it was a rare occurrence. 

Managers are the worst offenders and really they should be the ones who do this the most to make their subordinates feel good about themselves. There are exceptions of course  (and if you are reading this and know me – you know exactly who you are) but I have always found such people to be a rarity. 

And while it is good to tell other people that they are brilliant, it is also good to realise that you yourself are brilliant. This is a major flaw of mine because I rarely admit that sometimes I am quite good at what I do. I am more likely to say the opposite even though others have endorsed my skills and appreciated them. 

I must try harder to tell myself that I can be brilliant. I will continue to tell others that they are brilliant too (unless I am taking the mickey of course). 

The caveat of course is that I will also continue the self-deprecation because I find it amusing myself. 

I’ll leave you with somebody who finds everything brilliant. 

Goodbye 2024

As we approach the end of 2024, it is time for me to reflect on the year just passed and think ahead to the new year and 2025. It’s quite amazing when you consider that it has been 25 years since the turn of the millennium. That year was iconic in many ways due to it being the end of a millennium, the end of a century and a year where certain ill-informed people thought that a computer bug was going to bring about utter chaos and the world was going to end with aircraft falling from the sky and all of your electrical and electronic equipment trying to murder you in scenes reminiscent of the Terminator. 

Of course none of that happened and people like me who worked with computers for a living knew it wouldn’t happen. 

What is even more surprising is that it was all a quarter of a century ago. I was a young man (if you count 37 years old as young) and 2025 was so far ahead that I barely gave it any thought. Nevertheless, a lot has changed in those 25 years; for example I am now an old git aged 62 years. 

Anyway, I digress. I am resurrecting some questions that will help me both summarise the past year and look forward to the next one. 

1. What did you do in 2024 that you’d never done before?

I retired. I know that people only retire once, usually, but this is significant because 2024 marked 40 years since I left university and keenly (and naively) joined the rat race like an excited young puppy. Those 40 years had their ups and downs and I can now look back on them with a mixture of happiness and gratitude. Granted, the last few years were not that fulfilling and I moaned like a grumpy old man as I approached the end. The company didn’t really want me to retire and I was asked to delay it a couple of times but my mind was made up.

I am also a bit of a perfectionist and I waited until September so that I could retire exactly 40 years after I started. 

During my retirement speech (it wasn’t a big one) I was positive about me career, saying that although I really wanted to retire, a big part of me would miss the people I worked with and the opportunities it gave me. And the words I spoke were true and sincere. 

Nevertheless, I am delighted that I did it and I am looking forward to 2025 with renewed vigour.

2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I did keep most of them but it was easy because really it was more of the same things I have been working in. I won’t bore you with what they were as I have mentioned them numerous times. 

For 2025, I have a slightly different plan which I will be reviewing in the next week or so but involves a more refined routine given that I now have more time on my hands. 

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Not this year although some friends of mine became grandparents again.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Thankfully, I have had a year free of funerals. 

5. What countries did you visit?

It was quite a good year for travel this year. I went to Spain twice (Gran Canaria and Menorca), France (Nice),  Greece (Skiathos), Hungary (Budapest) and Czechia (Prague). 

I enjoyed all of them.

6. What would you like to have in 2025 that you lacked in 2024?

It would be nice to have a better summer than the past year or two. Global warming means that we have decent temperatures but that combined with the UK’s geographical position means that we end up with more than our fair share of rain generally. We do have great years where we have hardly any rain but my nation is never happy. When it’s too hot and sunny people say “I wish we had more rain!” and of course when it rains they say “What happened to our summer?”.

Make your minds up, fellow Brits. 

7. What dates from 2024 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

Thursday 12th September – the day I retired.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

I don’t want to labour the point but I think retirement is a bit of an achievement. You could argue that it isn’t really because people have to retire eventually but looking back I am proud that I managed 40 years in the rat race without going completely bonkers.

Also, I’ve tried to be more positive this year and it has worked. My method? Simple – do not get involved in or think about politics!

9. What was your biggest failure?

Okay – I will come clean. Despite my answer to the previous question I have thought about politics once or twice and ranted mercilessly. I’m getting better though. 

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

I had a rather nasty virus a couple of weeks ago that resulted in a totally blocked nose and chesty cough for about two weeks. I was fine but it was very annoying and was a little too close to my trip to Prague. Thankfully I recovered in time. Sadly it jumped to Mrs PM shortly after our trip and she wasn’t best pleased. 

11. What was the best thing you bought?

A synthesiser. I mentioned it in my previous post so I won’t go into too much detail. I am looking forward to playing with it in 2025. 

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?

As usual, I award Plastic Mancunian Knighthoods to those heroes who dedicate their lives to helping others without wanting the plaudits that many more famous people crave.

I salute you all - you know who you are.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?

Okay – I said above that I don’t want to mention or get involved in politics but I will try to hold myself back. Basically we managed to finally get rid of the Conservative Party in this year’s election but Nigel bloody Farage was still around and managed to con a constituency into electing him as an MP. 

And Elon Musk I have a message for you. Keep your big nose out of British politics.

The less said about Donald Trump the better. 

Oh – and of course mad Vladimir Putin.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Holidays as usual. 

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

I wasn’t particularly excited about anything other than going on holiday and seeing a few bands around the city. 

16. What song will always remind you of 2024?

The new song that will remind me of the year is Powernerd by the great Devin Townsend. 

However, two older songs by rediscovered artists that I have ben into this year are worth a mention too. The first is Breathe by The Stranglers:

The second involves Alison Goldfrapp (from the band Goldfrapp) working with Norwegian electronic duo Röyksopp to produce this lovely tune called Impossible:

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: (a) happier or sadder? (b) thinner or fatter? (c) richer or poorer?

I am much, much happier. 

I am about the same in terms of weight and body shape (perhaps a little greyer I think with a couple of more wrinkles).

I am probably less well off – but I don’t care.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

I was quite happy with the balance struck this year to be honest. I have got myself into a new routine and it seems to work. 

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Worrying. I was a little perturbed about retiring until I actually did it. I had nothing to worry about but that’s easy to say. 

20. How will you spend New Year's Eve?

We are going out with some friends for a New Year’s Eve party. It should be fun.

21. Did you fall in love in 2024?

I was already in love. 

22. What was your favourite TV program?

There are quite a few that I liked. I saw enjoyed the three new Walking Dead spin-off series, the Boys, Sense8, Snowpiercer and I am currently enjoying reruns of Stargate SG1 (I have never seen it before) Also I am watching reruns of a comedy show in the UK called Taskmaster which I have also never seen before where a group of comedians take on ridiculous and humiliating tasks in the name of humour. 

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

I struggle with this because I don’t believe in hatred of a human being. I have to say that Nigel Farage pushes that belief to the absolute limit and the worst thing in the human frog is still around. And Donald Trump tests my resolve too.

24. What was the best book you read?

I’m currently about to finish a post-apocalyptic science fiction series called Under the Breaking Sky which is quite entertaining. 

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?

I’ve been listening to a lot of songs by a prog band called The Pineapple Thief having discovered them towards the end of 2023. However, this year has been a year of rediscovery with artists like The Stranglers, Ayreon, Goldfrapp, Queensryche (post Geoff Tate) and Rob Zombie.

26. What did you want and get?

I wanted a synthesiser and got one (but slightly earlier than I had anticipated). 

27. What did you want and not get?

More holidays? I spent too much money on travelling as it is but I could have done more. 

28. What was your favourite film of this year?

I really enjoyed Deadpool and Wolverine. It was a good laugh.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I was 62 years old. I ended up in Budapest with my old university buddies just before (the timing was perfect for that I guess) and when I returned I went out for a meal with Mrs PM on the day itself.  

30. What one thing made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Do I have to say this again? Retirement. 

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2024?

Non-existent. I do not understand fashion at all and my fashion sense is dictated by two things.. First, Mrs PM has the final say on things I wear because (and I quote) “I’m the one who’s got to look at you and be out with you – even if you DON’T care!”. Second, the shops themselves. The places I buy clothes do tend to follow the latest trends so I would have to go out of my way to buy something eccentric and weird if I was that way inclined. 

32. What kept you sane?

Mrs PM keeps me sane. 

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

The same ones as the last few years. I am a man of simple taste but too old to care too much. 

34. What political issue stirred you the most?

I am trying to avoid politics but as I said above I was delighted that we finally have a new party in government even if Farage is still hovering around like a putrid smell. 

35. Who did you miss?

Nobody leaps to mind. 

36. Who was the best new person you met?

Again, nobody leaps to mind. 

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2024.

Always plan your retirement. Mine took several years and I think I timed it perfectly. 

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

I love my coffee I drink it to keep sane

If I cannot have it then I cannot play the game

Will not play the game

'Cause the game is just fucking stupid

And finally...

I wish everyone who stumbles across this blog post a very happy and fruitful 2025. May all your wishes come true – unless your name is Nigel Farage.