January

 

Welcome to a cold but sunny day in south Manchester. 

What a week it has been. First of all, the new variant of the coronavirus is starting to run riot in the south of England and creeping up north, causing our Clown-in-Chief, Boris Johnson to perform so many U-turns that he must be truly dizzy now (I’ve always thought he looked dizzy to be honest). Finally, he decided (yes folks – he actually MADE a decision) to put the whole of England under full lockdown. 

So we are back to where we were in April and May last year and this time it is cold and dark. To be honest, it doesn’t really matter to me because January and February are bleak months anyway and I am still deeply entrenched in my lockdown routine (for the 301st day) to keep me sane. 

We are now in a race between the virus and vaccinations. In the UK we now have over a million people vaccinated. Despite the lockdown, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel (and I hope it isn’t a speeding train).

The other night I was about to go to bed when Mrs PM said “Shall we just turn over to the news channels? Something’s happening in America.” I turned over to the BBC News Channel and saw that a mob of lunatic Trumpists had invaded the Capitol Building, having been goaded to do so by the Orange Goblin himself. I flicked channels to CNN and a couple of European news channels and it was all over the headlines. 

And now that it has all calmed down over there, the Orange One has had his Twitter account permanently closed, leaving him to stew in his own juices in the White House for what remains of his Presidency. 

It’s all very difficult to believe what has happened. I would be interested to hear what any American readers think of it all. 

I asked for an exciting 2021 and the world has obliged but sooner than I thought.

Time for some questions, courtesy of Sunday Stealing. 

1. What are your plans for January?

I don’t usually plan anything for January other than trying to consolidate my New Year changes. This year I am planning:

To continue writing rubbish, every day in my Freewriting journal (as I have been doing for just over two years now).

To step up my Spanish by effectively starting again with a free online course that uses memory techniques to help you to recall what you have learned.

To study creative writing more.

These plans will last for 2021 – if I can win the war against procrastination. If I treat them as daily habits they are much easier to achieve (you only have to pursue such things for 66 days straight for them to become habits apparently – it does seem to work I have to say).

2. What do you want to see happen in 2021?

I think the entire world agrees with me when I say that I want Covid-19 to be largely eliminated worldwide. 

Anything else good that happens will be a bonus. 

3.  What would you give a 5-star rating?

I am currently watching a show on Amazon Prime called “The Expanse” and it is amazing. I would give that 5 stars. I am on Season 2 and am totally hooked:

It is the closest thing to my favourite science fiction show, Babylon 5, that I have seen.

4. Do you have writing goals for 2021?

See question 1. I am also going to try to increase my output on this blog. Sunday Stealing is great fun but I want to try to return to some of the older-style ridiculous nonsense that I have contributed to The Plastic Mancunian over the past 12 years.

5. How do you feel about memoirs?

It depends who it is. I have read a couple of autobiographies and quite enjoyed them (especially “I Am Ozzy” by Ozzy Osbourne – it is hilarious). 

I have (sort of) started a memoir, basically something that my sons could read in the future. It began as a few notes way back in 2011 and I really need to revisit it. When I have tidied up the Japan travelogue, I may take a look. It is tentatively called “Insignificant Memoirs”. 

6. If you could join any musical group who would you choose?

I would choose a progressive rock or progressive metal group. Or try to team up with a genius like Devin Townsend, Steven Wilson or Mariusz Duda.  I am toying with the idea of writing a couple of posts introducing the world to these guys in the near future. 

I just wish I had the talent to do something like that. I can only offer my vocals at the moment and they are awful (I would have to use one of those machines that retune your voice).

It is times like this that I wish I had chosen to learn to play a guitar when I was a kid. 

7. What are your favourite genres across all media?

Science fiction (including super-heroes) and spy thrillers (Like James Bond, Jason Bourne, Mission Impossible etc.). All of my favourite films, books and TV series fall into those two categories mainly.

8. What candle scents are your favourite?

I don’t have any favourites. If it wasn’t for Mrs PM I wouldn’t bother buying them. They are pleasant though I have to say.

 9. How well can you mimic other accents or voices?

I’m not brilliant to be honest. I have lost my Black Country accent but I can revert back to that to amuse people who don’t know what it sounds like. As a reminder, it is something like this:

I can (kind of) do a Mancunian accent – but I have to say that I don’t have one. Mine is more neutral these days (and bizarrely regarded as a bit posh in both Walsall and Manchester). Here is a Mancunian accent:

I can do bits of a Scouse accent too (that’s the Liverpool accent like the Beatles in their early days) and I can go a neutral generic American accent (or at least I think I can).

My youngest son is very good at accents I have to say. His funniest is a Russian accent. He arrived one day at my house and when I opened the door, he said “Hello, bring me some vodka and women” in this accent and I almost fell over laughing. I wish I had his talent.

10. What books are on your TBR list in 2021?

I don’t have any in mind. I am considering “Ghost Rider” by Neil Peart and a book about retirement. I would love to read a decent space opera. At the moment I am reading Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari, so some non-fiction books like that are also a consideration. 

11. When do you decide it’s time to upgrade/buy something new?

In terms of technology, when there is a better model out there that has been tried and tested. For example, I wouldn’t buy the latest smartphone until it had been proven. I’ve seen people wasting money on the latest tech and then regretting it because it is buggy and full of problems.

With other things like clothes, usually when things start to wear out.

12. Why is your favourite colour your favourite colour?

I think my favourite colour is teal, a blue-green colour. There is nothing better than seeing a warm southern European sea that colour when the sun is setting. It makes me feel at peace and calm.

13. Who understands you the best?

Nobody understands me but me. Apart from me, the person who understands me most is Mrs PM but even so, I sometimes frustrate her.

14. Do you write letters?

Not any more. I send emails all the time as part of my job but if I want to get in touch with mates it is usually via my phone (Whatsapp, email, texts).

15. How do you keep going when times are hard?

Times are tough at the moment so I am right in that mindset.

Get yourself a routine and try to look for the positives in the situation. I have managed to cope with the last 300 days with these two important things in mind.

Goodbye 2020 - and Good Riddance

 

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.