Welcome to a very cold South Manchester and a slightly later than normal summary of what happened in 2020 in the life of the Plastic Mancunian.
I have a set of questions I usually use to summarise the year, but I thought that this year I would use the questions supplied by Sunday Stealing instead (though there is some overlap).
All I can say at the start is that I want to kick 2020 into the annals of history as a truly terrible year. We all know why but it does need to be said.
Without further ado – let’s dive in.
1. First things first, did you have a good year?
I had a terrible year. It was fine until the beginning of March, which is the time when I usually start getting over the boring winter period and look forward to a bright, warm and wholesome spring, summer and autumn. Instead of euphoria and optimism, we were subjected to a pandemic that is still going on. All plans that I had disintegrated and were cast to the four winds.
Here in the UK, as with other parts of the world, we have been confined to our houses, unable to travel, unable to go to the office to work and unable to socialize with friends and see family.
Of course, it is worse for those who have been victims of the virus and I feel for all of those people taken prematurely from us in 2020.
To add insult to injury, the UK has finally cut ties with the EU. We have a terrible trade deal but a deal nonetheless – it could have been so much worse. The architects of this travesty should be ashamed of themselves and all of them need to prepare themselves for a trip into deep space when I become World President – because that is where they are going to end up, special passengers on the spaceships I intend to build for them.
The one gold nugget in the sack of turds that was 2020 is that the USA finally got rid of the Orange Goblin. Good riddance.
2. What was your favourite article of clothing this year?
This would be a weird question any year because I am not a dedicated follower of fashion. In 2020, though, it is totally irrelevant because the only items of clothing that I have bought are two pairs of jeans, neither of which I have worn yet.
3. What song sums up this year for you?
I have lots of depressing songs that can sum up 2020 for me but instead of that, I am going to show you an uplifting song from 2020 that makes me feel more positive for 2021. This is a song by the symphonic metal band Nightwish. It is called “Music”, something that has helped me cope with the tedium of being locked down.
4. What was your favourite movie of the year?
I haven’t been to the cinema this year because of lockdown. However, I have seen a couple of films released in the early part of 2020 that made it onto Sky Cinema. Probably the best of those is “The Invisible Man”:
It was a creepy thriller and I enjoyed it.
5. Did an actor/actress catch your attention for the first time this year?
Not really.
6. Favourite new TV show?
We binge watched Stranger Things, a really weird but highly enjoyable show.
7. Did you make any big permanent changes this year?
Not at all, unless you count not going out, not going on holiday, working from home and being bored out of my brain.
8. What was one nice thing you did for yourself?
I grew a beard for the first time in my life. Does that count? I am fed up of it now so it is coming off tomorrow in fact. Hopefully that will signal good things ahead.
9. Did you develop a new obsession?
Due to boredom and the inability to go anywhere, I bought more CDs this year than I have done for a long time. Nothing else leaps to mind to be honest.
10. Did you move?
No – but my son and his girlfriend did, just before the lockdown hit. They lived with us and had been trying to move out for a while and just managed to move into a rented house a fortnight before we were locked down. And thank goodness they did because otherwise we would have all been working from home for months and on top of each other.
Now they have saved up enough money for a deposit on a house and got the keys in December. The house needs some work and they will be hopefully moving into their first proper owned home in March, at which time I hope this pandemic is beginning to fade.
11. Did you get a pet?
Yes, we acquired two black kittens called Ziggy and Star. We were going to take in their sister too but she was ill and needed more time to get over her illness. The three kittens were abandoned in an alley and left to die so for the first month or so they were quite ill. Ziggy and Star recovered and now the third one has too. However, the owner of the cat charity fell in love with her and asked if we minded whether he kept her. In the end we decided to leave her with him and his other cats. We know she will be well looked after.
It’s great having kittens again and they have made the end of a terrible year enjoyable. Here they are:
Star performing her famous balancing act
Ziggy helping me to write software
12. Do you regret not doing anything?
Yes – I regret not going on holiday to the Canary Islands in January. Mrs PM’s dad asked if we wanted to go for a week but I had run out of holiday and so I couldn’t go. Mrs PM went and had some winter sun in a dark month. If I had known what was going to happen, I would have taken unpaid leave to go.
13. Do you regret doing something?
Not really – there hasn’t been much to do.
14. Did anyone/thing make you so mad it stayed with you for days?
Boris Johnson and his government. His handling of the pandemic has been so bad that a totally incompetent village idiot could have done better. And to top it all, now that we have split from the EU, he is trying to sell it as an opportunity when everyone who isn’t a frothing-at-the-mouth Brexiter knows that we will be worse off.
Words fail me.
15. Did you lose anyone close to you?
We lost Poppy, our cat of 18 years. She had mouth cancer – and it was a very upsetting time for us and for a while we were a cat-less house. Ziggy and Star have helped to make the loss easier to deal with.
Here is Poppy:
16. Who was important to you this year but wasn’t important last year?
Nobody leaps to mind.
17. Who wasn’t as important to you this year as they were last year?
Again, nobody leaps to mind.
18. What was the best moment of the year for you?
I would say that it was the Delain concert I was lucky enough to get to in February before the shit hit the fan.
19, What was the worst?
Everything from March onwards.
20. What have you learned about yourself this year that you didn’t know in the years prior?
I have learned that I can grow a beard and that I can adapt to circumstances. I may have moaned about 2020 and the pandemic but by setting up a routine I can cope with it all. I have also learned that I need to escape quite often; I have missed holidays and just being able to go somewhere on a whim. I also realise that I have missed my mates – all of them.
21. What do you wish for others for the coming year?
A swift end to this pandemic so that all of us can get back to normality.
22. What do you wish for yourself?
I need a positive year and I need to get out there, so I really hope that this happens. By this time next year, I want to be a lot happier and also be a better person, which I can and will achieve in 2021.
2019 has been a bit of a rollercoaster year with quite a few ups and downs and, if I’m honest, I’ll be quite pleased to see is fade into history. I’ve totally neglected the old blog this year too having debated long and hard about whether to carry on with it. After a lot of thought, I took a break and have gradually eased my way back into writing my usual nonsense again and I have rediscovered the spark that I thought I had lost.
To ease my way back I’ve spent the last couple of months simply answering questions once a week on Sunday Stealing and have had a lot of fun doing so. I plan to continue in 2020 and also return to my usual absurd gibberish as I talk about life, the universe and anything else that pops into my weird mind.
I usually sum up the year with a standard set of questions but this year I will answer a slightly different set, again from Sunday Stealing that will summarise the past twelve months.
It’s quite cathartic doing so because it reminds me of what happened, where I was etc. and I encourage others to have a go. I have done it every year since 2009, only missing out 2008 – the year I started this blog).
It’s quite long, so get your scuba diving gear on and jump in.
1. First things first, did you have a good year?
As I said above, it was a true rollercoaster. I don’t want to get into specifics but I really hope that 2020 is much better.
2. If you travelled, where did you go?
We travelled to Vietnam and Hong Kong. Also, we had a week in Kefalonia, Greece in September to say goodbye to summer with a little sun.
Finally, my annual university reunion left England’s shores for the first time this year as we all had a weekend break in Barcelona in Spain. My grumpy old university pals and I have officially gone international.
3. Which fashion trends did you love?
I am not a dedicated follower of fashion and the trends of the last few years generally have puzzled me. I am too old for fashion and the nonsense that it entails. I rely on Mrs PM to make sure that I don’t look like a bag of mad badgers.
4. Which fashion trends did you hate?
The weird rubbish I see on “celebrities” makes me wince. If they want to look like arses then that’s up to them.
5. What was your favourite article of clothing this year?
The normal stuff I wear.
6. What song sums up this year for you?
Spirits Will Collide by the multitalented Devin Townsend
7. What was your favourite movie of the year?
That is easy. Avengers: Endgame – an incredible movie. I also loved Joker.
8. Did an actor/actress catch your attention for the first time this year?
I’ve been watching Lucifer this year and there are two actors who I quite like. Mrs PM rolls her eyes and punches me playfully when I mention them during the show (at least I HOPE it is playfully). Step forward Lesley-Ann Brandt and Tricia Helfer.
9. Favourite new TV show?
I really enjoyed The Boys.
10. Did you make any big permanent changes this year?
First, I set myself the task of trying to learn a set of Spanish words every single day using two phone apps and I managed to do so. The bad news is that I have forgotten quite a lot of them, but quite a few have stuck.
Second, I decided to post a photograph on Instagram every single day and I also managed to achieve that.
Third, I forced myself to write every single day in an exercise called Freewriting where, basically, you just write anything that pops into your head with a view to making it a habit. I now have a word document with 150,000 words of pure nonsense, some in diary form, some exposing thoughts from my head and others expanding writing prompts, both fiction and non-fiction. The aim is to just write, even if it is gibberish (and believe me, most of it is). But in amongst that gibberish are several little nuggets, ideas and thoughts that might become blog posts or even more in the future.
Finally, I tasked myself to come up with an idea a day for every day in 2019. Some of the ideas are self-improvement, plans for improvement, new hobbies, etc. Again, some of them are silly but others might just work.
As for 2020, I have a rough plan – but we will see where it leads me.
11. What was one nice thing you did for yourself?
I bought myself a new laptop to replace my tired old desktop. 12. Did you develop a new obsession?
I guess that most of the things I mentioned in question 10 became an obsession.
13. Did you vote?
Of course I did. Sadly, results didn’t turn out the way I wanted and now I see my country turning to the dark side of stupidity.
14. Did you move?
No. I am still in the same house.
15. Did you get a job?
No. I'm just winding down for retirement.
16. Did you get a pet?
No. Sadly we lost a pet – my big fat 17 year old cat Jasper. We are now down to one cat, Jasper’s sister Poppy.
17. Do you regret not doing anything?
Not really. I wish I had more money and more annual leave from work so that I could travel more – but you can’t have everything.
18. Do you regret doing something?
Again, not really.
19. Have you done anything that scared you?
Yes. While visiting the Cu Chi tunnels near Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, we had the chance to fire an AK-47 on a shooting range. I had never held a gun before and it was a brave decision to have a go at trying to hit a target in the distance. Sadly, I cannot shoot and I missed the target with each of my three shots. It was fun but I have no desire to ever touch a firearm again.
20. Did anyone/thing make you so mad it stayed with you for days?
Days? It is still with me after MONTHS! The nasty, lying idiot we have as our Prime Minister has been lying to us ever since his fat face appeared on my television screen. Boris Johnson and his government make me angry every time they open their lying mouths. I still can’t believe that he has hoodwinked so many people into voting for him, his party and Brexit.
I plan to step back from politics in 2020 for the sake of my sanity more than anything.
21. Did you lose anyone close to you?
Sadly yes. My aunt Margaret sadly passed this year. She was a lovely fiery lady in her 70’s who spoke her mind and was so funny she always made me laugh. She will be sorely missed by my entire family.
22. Who was important to you this year but wasn’t important last year?
Nobody leaps to mind.
23. Who wasn’t as important to you this year as they were last year?
Again, nobody leaps to mind.
24. If you could have a do over on one thing you did, would you take it?
I would repeat the holiday we had to Vietnam.
25. What was the best moment of the year for you?
Going back to Hong Kong. I absolutely love the city and the events of the last year sadden me immensely.
26. What was the worst?
Mrs PM was quite ill this year and she had to spend a week in hospital. She is back to full health now, thank goodness.
27. What are you most proud of accomplishing?
I am quite pleased with defeating procrastination and forcing myself to fulfil every one of my New Year’s Resolutions from 2018.
28. What have you learned about yourself this year that you didn’t know in the years prior?
I am a lot stronger than I thought I was. I managed to cope with all of the dips in the year, particularly Mrs PM being ill.
29. What do you wish for others for the coming year?
I hope that common sense prevails in 2020 but I cannot see that happening. For all of the ordinary people like me, I hope you all have a fantastic and joyful 2020.
30. What do you wish for yourself?
I have made a list of things I want to achieve or chip away at in 2020 that is similar but probably more far reaching than 2019.
And I am promising myself that I will be more positive rather than getting angry over politics.
