A Look Back at 2022

I didn’t want to write about 2021 for some reason. I think I was feeling quite depressed and simply didn’t have the energy. This time around, however, I felt like firing up the blog again and put down some thoughts on what has been another challenging twelve months for the human race (with a few nice moments thrown in just to take the edge off).

2022 seemed to be dominated by two things: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Climate Change. Both subjects have been covered by experts far better than I ever could, so I won’t ramble on about them but I’m very aware that both represent an existential threat to the world in a profound and disturbing way. On one side you have a deluded dictator sending waves of ill-equipped men to their deaths just to save face and assert some kind of projection of strength and power - and in so doing threatening to drag the whole world into a world war that nobody wants. On the other you have a global situation that is merrily destroying lives and yet those that have the power to stop it are doing as little as possible – either because they don’t see it as enough of a threat or they don’t want to upset their corporate paymasters. It really is quite disheartening.

As for me, I feel like I’ve had a very ‘full’ year with lots going on at home and at work. With lockdowns no longer a thing, and Covid treated as ‘just another virus’ (don’t ask me about that, I have no idea) life got back to some kind of normality in ’22. I was struck early on in the year how I reacted to having a big group of people round to our house for the first time in ages - I quickly got very irritable with them and wanted them to leave as soon as possible (but couldn’t say anything obviously so kept my thoughts to myself). We’ve since had a few more similar occasions (mostly just having couples over for dinner) and didn’t react the same way so I clearly needed a bit of time to adjust to the post-Covid scenario. On that subject I finally succumbed to the dreaded Coronavirus in the spring, right after returning from our skiing holiday (more on that later). It knocked me out for a good two weeks which was frustrating, but at least I didn’t have to go to hospital or anything. Even after that period I still didn’t feel 100%, which a lot of people seem to have experienced, and thankfully I didn’t get the long version which doesn’t sound fun at all. 

I’m very fortunate to have done a reasonable amount of travelling this year, some of it for work and some of it for pleasure, and am very grateful for those opportunities. In the spring we had a big family trip to Les Menuires near the French-Swiss border. Most of my brothers and their kids were there, along with mum and dad which made it quite special. The skiing was great fun, if a little scary at times, plus I was aching all over from day one. Even so, by the end of the week I felt much more confident and am looking forward to going again in February. Then in June I traveled to The Democratic Republic of Congo with my friend Alain who had invited to join him on a business trip. We got to meet some high-ranking people, which was a great honour, and explore the vast city of Kinshasa. It was a truly memorable experience, with a few hairy moments on the way, and my hope is that the work we put in with eventually bear some good fruit. Over the summer I visited Scotland on a family trip to see my younger brother who now lives on a farm with his partner and her parents.

I love Scotland and it was great to be back again after about ten years or so. As part of the trip we spent a few days in Loch Ness, which was not quite as magical as I’d expected but nonetheless a beautiful place to stay. In September I traveled with Alain again, this time to Geneva. This was to film and photograph a graduation ceremony which was fun, however I stayed a bit longer than anticipated and ended up staying another two days thanks to airport strikes in France. You might think that being forced to stay in a foreign city for a few extra days would be exciting but it did present a few challenges. Firstly, I hadn’t packed enough clothes for the extra time so had to buy more to keep me going and even the cheapest clothing wasn't cheap. Secondly, it cost me a lot of money in food and accommodation (granted the airline did compensate me for most of it). Also, it’s a bit weird being on your own in a foreign city if you hadn’t actually planned to visit for an extended period. Luckily I had two colleagues to spend some time with, so I didn’t feel particularly lonely (I do like my own company though) but it wasn’t like I’d planned to be there for all that time. Still, it was an experience and hopefully I won’t get stranded at the airport again for a long time now. In November I had the opportunity to do some filming in Liverpool (not very exotic, I know) but it was a city I hadn’t really visited before (apart from whistling through on the train many eons ago). Saying that, my visit was fleeting and I didn’t really get to see the place so not sure if that counts.

We started the year without a foster child having decided to take a break over the Christmas period. Instead, we opted to do respite care and only had a couple of placements before our skiing trip. Seems like I contracted Covid at some point during our visit to France (probably from the plane journey back) and one consequence of getting ill was having to postpone our longer term placement for a couple of weeks. While not ideal, we muddled through and welcomed a little girl into our home at the beginning of May. She was with us for about six months and during that time we supported her in getting over several phobias (water being one of them), which felt like an achievement. She was remarkably bright and incredibly sociable - and will no doubt go far when she grows up.

Family life has been fairly uneventful, with the ongoing struggles of having a grumpy teen in the house putting a dampener on things from time to time. As I keep saying, we are doing our best to ride out the teenage years in the hope that no. 1 son will eventually come out the other side as a normal human adult. We’ll see. Having a toddler in the mix does make life more complicated, so I’m grateful we had some time at the beginning and end of the year where it was just the four of us. The boys are pretty much self-sufficient these days so it means I can have time to myself again (living the dream!). My youngest has suddenly become obsessed with football, which is a surprise but also great that he's involved in such a 'wholesome' hobby. We've done plenty of 'training sessions' on the rec (both in the boiling heat and freezing cold) which is a good little workout for me, plus he's joining a football club in the New Year so I'll likely end up a soccer dad going to games every Saturday morning. 

Work has been fairly steady over the year, though I’ve still had the usual periods of feast and famine - but I have managed to stay out of my overdraft for most of the year (I think) which is a first. I’ve had quite a few of the more interesting assignments which helps maintain my sanity too, which I’m grateful for. I’d still like to up my game a bit, though, and get higher-value, more interesting projects more often. I’m working on a few ways to achieve this, but as with most things it comes down to time and money.

Church stuff has been plodding along as usual. The good news is that we have appointed a new pastor following on from the last one who retired in '21. The church leadership has been carrying the weight of running things during the interregnum so it will be a relief to have a full timer in post to help take some of the strain. I have a good feeling about this new appointment and hope that God will use them to take the church forward in its ministry.

This year I was pleased to achieve a Merit in Grade 1 electric guitar. I’ve always wanted to play guitar properly but I’ve never really stuck at it so I started lessons last year in the hope that it would help keep me focused and on track. Being accountable to a tutor each week really does help with this and even though it’s often frustrating at times I feel like I’m making progress. I wish I’d done it years ago when my brain was better able to learn new things but cost was always an issue - plus I do my lessons over Zoom which is not something I would have considered a possibility three years ago.

Another thing I started to learn last year is Welsh. I’m still doing entry level, and it’s very hard going but I think I’m slowly getting the basics. I never learned it at school, because they didn’t make it compulsory until I was much older. I did French up to A Level and I’ve managed to maintain some remnants of what I learned (despite having a useless teacher), but I’ve wanted to speak Welsh ever since becoming a nationalist and republican. I want to play my part in keeping Welsh culture and language alive - something that the English tried to eradicate back in the day. Also, learning Welsh is heavily subsidised so lessons are pretty inexpensive. Plus the language is everywhere I go, from road signs to official letters from government - so it’s not too hard getting exposure. What would be nice is to have someone local who I could chat with to help sharpen my language skills, which shouldn’t be too difficult but I need to work on that. I use Duolingo every day, which is a good way of keeping me topped up and I’m always surprised about how much vocabulary I’ve managed to learn – the problem is stringing these words together in a coherent sentence, combined with the relevant tense. I’m sure I would have hated Welsh if I’d been taught at school, so at least I’m doing it motivated by adult intentions - the only downside is that (like with my guitar playing) lacking a youthful, stretchy brain means learning new stuff is a lot harder.

I haven’t watched as many films as I’d like this year, but most of the ones I did see at the cinema were big, dumb blockbusters that left an unpleasant taste in the mouth. Bullet Train was alright I suppose, but it felt like a slightly missed opportunity to be something truly original. As for films on streaming channels, I watched a few things which were fairly forgettable. I managed to find ‘Resistance’ on Amazon Prime, an interesting adaptation of the novel of the same name (which I read years ago). Set in an alternate 1940s where Germany won the Battle of Britain and successful invaded the UK, a small squad of Nazi soldiers station themselves in a quiet Welsh valley to watch over the locals. It’s a great premise, but sadly the low-budget nature of the film lets it down somewhat. The performances are great - with authentic Welsh accents, which is refreshing (Andrea Riseborough does a great job in one of her presumably early film roles) but the story feels just a little bit too small. 

I’ve watched a lot of TV this year thanks to the teenager’s insistence on watching stuff together. It’s great to be bonding in that way, but it does mean I don’t have time to watch stuff that I want to see. We burned through Peaky Blinders, Utopia, Umbrella Academy, Rick and Morty, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul and are now in the middle of Walking Dead. All excellent shows. I’ve been watching Schitt’s Creek with Wifey, which is really funny. I was unimpressed with Boba Felt, which was an absolute mess – but Andor was a refreshingly good slice of Star Wars (if a little slow). I am sticking with Willow, which is actually quite funny at times, but gave up on Rings of Power (probably because it took itself too seriously). I’ve probably forgotten loads of stuff I’ve seen this year, but I’m reminded of this sketch (https://youtu.be/waqFxv4l85U) by comedian Matt Green. It makes a great point about the splinterisation (is that a word?) of entertainment. Not everyone can afford to pay for each and every streaming service (on top of the licence fee), of which there are a surprising number. And so, whenever you meet up with people for a chat you inevitably spend ages trying to identify a TV show you’ve actually all seen and can talk about (sometimes unsuccessfully).

Regrettably my book count took a sharp nosedive in ’22 thanks to all the late-night TV show bingeing, not leaving much time for reading. I finished ‘A Memory Called Empire’ just before last Christmas which was an impressive piece of sci-fi but too dull and drawn-out for my liking and only then started reading Mark Kermode’s The Good the Bad and the Multiplex which took me an entire year to finish. It's an interesting take on the film industry (with a big focus on how stupid 3D films are), if a little dated. This is not a complex book, but the opportunities for reading it were few and far between. I did get a new book for Christmas (Babel by RF Kuang) which I’m looking forward to starting so hopefully I will be spurred on to read a bit more in ’23.

One highlight of the year was going to see Stereophonics at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff in June. The concert had been postponed from last year after they cancelled due to the pandemic. I went with some old friends from school so it was nice to see them. It was a great gig, they played all their hits and even Tom Jones joined them for 'Mamma told me not to come' so I'm glad I got to see him live (Tom's getting pretty old so I don't think he'll be around for long). Their songs are the kind that get cheapened by way too much exposure as muzak in lifts and shops which is a shame because it's good music (IMHO). When you hear them live, however, they have a new lease of life and you realise just how good the 'phonics are. Kelly Jones is a masterful musician songwriter and it was a privilege to watch him and the rest of the band perform.

I won't say much about the state of British politics (I've written a rant here), other than it does feel like now Boris has gone things are less turbulent than they have been for a few years which is kind of a relief. That being said, the Tories need to go as soon as possible given the damage they have caused to the country, but I don't feel particularly hopeful they will anytime soon.

Finally, I can't look back at 2022 without mentioning the Queen's death. Queen Elizabeth II died on the afternoon of 8th September this year, ending the longest reign of any female monarch and ushering in a new era in the history of the British Monarchy with the reign of King Charles III. Given her age, it wasn't a complete shock but was certainly one of those ‘huh’ moments, as I’d only ever known Elizabeth as the Queen. She was one of those prominent people that had always ‘been there’ in the background since I can remember. My feelings towards the monarchy have changed over that time, from being pretty pro-monarchy when I was a kid to becoming very much the opposite over the last few years. I regard them as a parasitic, undemocratic, outdated institution that should be consigned to the dustbin of history and I think more and more people are coming to that realisation. King Charles was always going to have a difficult job following in his mother’s footsteps and he’s done a reasonable job so far I guess, although I don’t think appointing his son as the Prince of Wales was a great move. Most people were fairly indifferent to the news and probably didn’t appreciate the insulting nature of the title, but what was particularly galling was the fact it was announced so fast, without any consultation or ‘cooling off’ period following the Queen’s death (more here: https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/william-prince-wales-title-anti-monarchy-1866520). I didn’t feel particularly sad about the Queen’s passing. She’d lived to a good age, and to be fair served her country well. The outpouring of national mourning was understandable, if a little too much, but I’m struck by how quickly the nation has moved on since September after everything ground to a halt for two weeks. I find the royal family worship a bit bewildering and cult-ish – no criticism is permitted, no questioning of age-old traditions that make no sense in our 21st century culture. What is slightly depressing is that Charles won’t be around for long (twenty years maximum probably) so we’ll have to go through the whole thing again when he goes - what I am nearly certain of, however, is that the people won’t mourn his passing the same way they did his mother. To me, that says a lot about where we are at when it comes to the monarchy in these modern times.

So that, ladies and gentlemen, was my 2022. I look forward to 2023 with cautious optimism.

The downfall of a nation

I was working at a conference recently when the keynote speaker showed the video produced as part of London’s bid for the 2012 Olympic games. It’s a rousing piece, set to ‘Proud’ by Heather Small. Admittedly, the song hasn't aged well unfortunately given that it was used for comedic effect in the sit-com Miranda, but I must admit it brought a bit of dampness to my eye. Not that it was particularly soppy or emotional – rather, it represented, to me at least, something huge and significant that’s been lost. The Britain I grew up in, a nation that I felt proud to be part of, is no more and I was saddened to be reminded of this loss.

All the values expressed in the film are admirable and worthy – the kind any modern civilised nation would want to be. Sadly they don’t apply to Britain any more (although claiming that the UK was fully ‘inclusive’ and ‘tolerant’ seems a bit of a stretch even for the early 2000s). We have become a people divided and impoverished – both economically and culturally – thanks to decades of inept, short-sighted and self-interested leadership (on both sides of the political spectrum). Meanness, cynicism, indifference, hopelessness and selfishness pervades the land like a cancerous tumour.

As people struggle to heat their homes, pay their bills, see a doctor, secure a decent home, run their businesses or swim in the ocean without swallowing untreated sewage, the rich and powerful have gleefully hollowed out the soul of the nation and made a pretty penny to boot. It’s easy to blame Brexit and the manufactured culture wars (which I do to some extent), things which arose after the success of the Olympics, but I think the rot was there long before that. I’ve written before about how the British Empire is paying for its past sins (perhaps because it’s failed to really acknowledge them) and I think it just shows that, with the best will in the world, things will soon fall apart if you’re resting on shaky ground.

The spirit of 2012 showed us what we could have been, but maybe when we examined it closely enough we knew deep down that it didn’t reflect the true nature of Britain. I suspect all that baggage of centuries gone past was just too much.

An economy in turmoil, looming Scottish independence (with NI and Cymru not far behind), shrinking civil liberties and world events (amongst many other things) are conspiring to put that final nail in the coffin of the so-called 'Great' Britannia. Rather than address these issues with intelligence and care, our government is collapsing under the weight of its own incompetence. I don't think it's any surprise that I've heard the term 'banana republic' being used a lot to describe the UK recently.

And that is a scary and unsettling thing, even for a republican supportive of Welsh independence like myself. Like many I long for change – but I also long for life to return to 'normal' for a bit.

But, as they say, you gotta have hope. There is a rising tide of dissatisfaction with what is happening across the country, and eventually something has to give.

Whatever rises from the ashes of the Old Empire, I hope it is a nation – or nations – that values kindness, tolerance, interdependence and integrity above greed and self-reliance. Where the mistakes of the past are acknowledged and learned from, rather than swept under the carpet and left to fester.

That way, the spirit of 2012 – and the hope that it represented – won't be lost forever.