millionreasons | Recent Entries

What did you do in 2025 that you'd never done before?
Got married.
Did a day trip to France on the Eurostar (I've been for the day on a ferry, but not on the €*).
Had a PET scan (horrible as I couldn't eat for 6 hours beforehand and was faint, tearful and weak by the time it came to the scan. I would not survive a famine, despite my ample fat resources).

Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Since 2022, it's been to stay out of hospital.
My book resolutions were to get my TR list down to under 300 (it's currently 284) and to finish Rebecca West's overly long tome (1300 pages) about (the former) Yugoslavia as I'd already been reading it for 2 years.

Did anyone close to you give birth?
No.

Did anyone close to you die?
Yes, Sarah, in an awful and possibly avoidable way.

What countries did you visit?
Spain (Menorca)
Italy (Naples)
France (Lille)
Scotland (Aberdeen)

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What would you like to have in 2026 that you lacked in 2025?
Energy. Motivation.

What date from 2025 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
23rd April (wedding).

What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Keeping reasonably healthy.

What was your biggest failure?
Lack of exercise.

Did you suffer illness or injury?
I had a CT scan, an MRI scan and a PET scan for an elevated pancreatic tumour marker. They decided it wasn't anything. Hospitals/doctors are either: This need to be seen to now!, or: It's nothing, please leave now. Oh and a minor (local anaesthetic) surgery for a Bartholin's cyst.

What was the best thing you bought?
A new bed, meant to be bought in the January sales, in the end purchased on Black Friday.

Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
The stupid, flag-shagging, Reform-voting, ignoramus racists.

Where did most of your money go?
Food.

What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Seeing the first day of the Tour de France in Lille. Geraint Thomas cycled up and parked right next to us.

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Seeing David Sedaris as part of a Radio 4 recording. Foolishly, I forgot to take books for him to sign.
Getting tickets for the launch of the new Black Mirror series at Bloomsbury Curzon and sitting three feet away from Charlie B.

What song(s) will always remind you of 2025?

See other post.

Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) Happier or sadder?
A bit of both.

b) Bigger or smaller?
Fatter. I don't weigh myself but I've probably busted the 12 stone marker now.

c) Richer or poorer?
Richer as I took on a side job, which I mostly hate, but the £400 extra hits my bank account at the time of the month when I used to be panicking about having £30 until payday.

What do you wish you'd done more of?
Exercise. Same answer every year.

What do you wish you'd done less of?
Traipsing to Newham, Royal London and Barts hospitals

How did you spend Christmas?
Chez nous.
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Did you fall in love in 2025?
Nope.

How many one-night stands?
Nope.

What was your favourite TV program(me)?
Peacemaker
also enjoyed:
Gen V - going to University in the age of Trump
Mythic Quest - It's Always Sunny in a Gaming Company.
Pluribus - grumpy gal has to cope with invasion by happy aliens who only want to make her life better.

Black Mirror S7 - particularly Eulogy.
The Beast in Me - Clare Danes on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Dark Winds - like a cross between Fargo and Reservation Dogs.
The Residence - a White House murder mystery.
and on the BBC:
Film Club
Amandaland
Riot Women - with the caveat that I would rather have watched a programme just about women forming a band rather than one featuring misogyny, child abuse, domestic violence, misogynistic violence, ungrateful children and police corruption.

Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
About the same.

What was the best book you read?
King of A Rainy Country - Brigid Brophy. It's about a young woman in the 1950s who moves in with a young man in a platonic way. They start stalking a girl the protaganist knew at school who has posed for pornographic pictures and has nonetheless become a mainstream actress. She's appearing at the Venice film festival so they take jobs as tour guides in Italy for some Americans (the funniest part of the book) and track her down. It's very funny and stylish and a bit sad.
More books here.

What was your greatest musical discovery?
The Pill, Arxx, Nation of Language.

What did you want and get?
To get married. Not the ceremony, not the party, not the forever after bit, just to get the fucking thing done so I didn't have to think about it any more. I enjoyed both the ceremony and the do a few weeks later, but the stress of it all means I can never get divorced.

What did you want and didn´t get?
Holiday to Turkey.

What was your favourite film of this year?
Materialists

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?..
52. Went to Sorento on a rickety-rolly old train.

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What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Trump's death. Labour party being an actual left wing party. Racist wankers not being racist wankers.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2025?
Comfortable.

What kept you sane?
The Boyf and the cat.

Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Quite keen on Sepp "Seppy" Kuss.

What political issue stirred you the most?
The racist wankers (is it going to be every Summer now?). NYC Mayoral election.

Who did you miss?
People far away.

Who was the best new person you met?
Sheila and Tim of St Leonard's.

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2025:
It doesn't matter if you like things aged 52 (shopping at M&S, going to bed before 10 p.m., valuing comfort over excitement) that the 22 year old you would've despised.

Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
Keep on Keeping on.

Did you wrong or hurt somebody in 2025?
Oh, probably.

Is there some new place you are planning to visit in 2026?
Santiago de Compostelo, Istanbul (not Constantinople).

Where would you have wanted to go and did not in 2025?
See above

Did you learn any new life skill in 2025?
I started doing two days in the office, so the skill is looking like I'm working when I'm not.

Any new food or drink preferences developed in 2025?
I tried Columbian coffee, which is espresso with cloves and lemon slices.

What is your greatest fear for 2026?
That Farage gets even more of a toehold in political life.

Did you follow any sports event in 2025?
Tour de France, Vuelta de Espana, Giro d'Italia.

Which social media occupied most of your time in 2025?
Instagram. I don't follow any cat accounts or cycling accounts, yet all I get is cat videos and cycling videos, which I then scroll through forever.

Is there somebody you feel particularly grateful to this year?
davidnottingham for making me an honest woman (hahahaha).

Name a hope you have for 2026
World peace. Lol.

As usual, the first few songs are bands I saw at Rockaway Beach in Bognor, the festival that basically carries on New Year's celebrations for a few more days.

The Pill - Woman Driver. Often I find that bands that play Rockaway are 6Music-famous by the end of the year, Self Esteem, Fat Dog, Fontaines DC. Ditto this band who've been on permanent play on the indier of the 6M shows. This song is a lot of sarcastic fun.

Arxx - Crying In The Car Wash. Fun fact, Brighton's Arxx wrote the songs for the BBC's Riot Women. This one is electro clashing with indie with a bit of a Robyn vibe.

Fontaines DC - It's Amazing To Be Young. In which Grian sings. Not necessarily successfully but let's give points for effort. I like the jangletastic semi-shoegaze of the backing. Can't really empathise with the sentiment, obvs, although "sometimes I wake up and it's dark" rings some bells.

Wet Leg - Catch These Fists. They're back! with a second album! We went to the launch event where we didn't get to meet the band (and anyway, we already met Josh (keyboards, guitar) outside Purezza in Brighton back in 2021) but did meet the Goblin on the album cover. Anyway, Catch These Fists is Rhian being a fighter not a lover as some loser tries to chat her up, with a bit of Franz Ferdinand's Do You Want To thrown in.

Pulp - Spike Island. They're back! It seemed obvious after their triumphant return to live gigs in '24 that they'd want a bit more Arabacus Pulpy action. I had thought they'd squeezed everything they could out of pop, but i surprised myself by humming this a lot back in April. I was wrestling with the coat-hanger, can you guess who won? is classique Jarv.

Chuck D - New Gens. He's back! Damn, he's weird. I loved this track, which I assumed was about Gen X loving the Zs. Makes a fucking change for an elder statesman to celebrate the younger generation. Rest in place and cowabunga.

D Meletis - Niamos. I got bored during the second series of Andor, but I liked the wedding episode which was basically the characters dancing to this song for 50 mins. We both liked it so much that we had it at our wedding (party), but not for 50 minutes straight.

Erika Vikman - Ich Komme. Erika was robbed. This saucy seaside postcard of a song should've beaten that Austrian simp.

Sissal - Hallucination. The second best sing at Euroviz.

Pulp - Got To Have Love. As above but more electro-gospely.

The Pill - Posh. More from the Isle of Wight's second best band. Proving that youngsters aren't all sitting at home drinking kombucha and talking about #fitnessgoals. "Red wine, red lips, sore tummy and a bag of chips. I've lost my drink!"

Wet Leg - CPR. Is it love or suicide? Rhian falls in love. I worry if she falls out of love there's going to be a car crash of a break up album.

Suede - Disintegrate. I heard this song on 6Music and was like, who is this? Then Brett's whine came in. Given that I spent much of the early '90s with a dislike of Suede that was only mollified when Oasis came on the scene, I was surprised that i liked it - probably because it's sounds like early '80s Cure.

CMAT - Take A Sexy Picture Of Me. We've had country, alt-country, folk-country, and now Welsh-country. This was pretty much Ciara's year and it's good that popstars can still come up through the OG gig economy rather than the Simon Cowell route.

Bater Dury - Schadenfruede. Like the Suede song, I heard this on the radio and was all kindsa excited until I Baxter's nasal drone kicked in, but i ended up really liking it, despite the mispronunciation of schadenfreude. After all, It's my favourite emotion, I know how to pronounce it.

Wig Wam - Do You Wanna Taste It? I wrote last year that once upon a time I got to know music from adverts, now it's theme tunes frm TV programmes. This was the theme tune from S1 of Peacemaker, my fave TV show of the year. I don't usually like '80s themed hair metal but combined with the awkward dancing form the cast, it was a grower.

Foxy Shazam - Oh Lord. I didn't think the theme tune to S2 could be better but I ended up with a permanent earworm. Keep on. Keeping on!

Coach Party - Disco Dream. Pretty much like The Pill: loud guitars, shouty vocals, like being 21 again. Another from the Isle of Wight - Wet Leg has started a Solent revolution! The music. The dancefloor. The lights.

Humour - Plagiarist. Like the 2000s never happened, I like the way it goes from 1991 style industrial hardcore to indie-melodic grunge.

Nation of Language - The Wall and I.

picosgemeos and I saw these in November and given that I only knew one song (2017's Fractured Mind), I really loved them. They came off somewhere between The Postal Service and OMD, but unlike '80s electro bands they were active, not static behind synths and were very entertaining with some Napoleon Dynamite-esque boogieing. Also we had seats, which always helps.

Adrien Noelle, Nancy Wang - Sharevari. They also played this, which is a cover of the first techno song by A Number of Names from 1981. I prefer the cover.

Sleaford Mods & Big Special - The Good life. The Sleaford Mods mad-person-on-the-bus ranting broken up by the soulful crooning of Big Special.

Just Mustard - Endless Deathless. Let's finish the year with something that sounds like the Nightblooms why don't we?

The Spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7rjWB3CLBP9280WDhH159b?si=ZPUEp87XS6Gvr1ACjGvJnw

Riding on city buses for a hobby is sad

We fly to Glasgow from City airport, where our fellow travellers are sensible looking German families rather than hen parties. It's 24°C in London, yet, as when we went to Norway last November, we are dressed for colder climes. After an hour, we touch down at GLA; after another hour, we are still meandering through the streets of Paisley as the bus driver pootles along at 10 mph, waiting at each bus stop for 5 minutes. Top tip, never eschew the airport bus for the no. 77 - you will regret it, especially as we're then wandering the cold, rainy streets at 10 p.m and I'm vowing to never go on holiday again.

In a rain town, rain town, rain down

It's still raining but I cheer up when we find a brunch place, Spitfire, in Merchant City that we patronised the last time we were here in 2022. We have a moment of disorientation when we (or rather David) can remember where it is located, but google maps shows it on an entirely different street. Turns out, when we question the waiter, is that they moved round the corner when the rent went up. I always expect to find cities the same and of course, they change and then they change again. Anyway we have a Full Scottish and a vegan breakfast bun (veggie haggis, avocado, tattie scone, chilli sauce) and a decent coffee. I didn't sleep well as I kept hearing cars, voices, seagulls, and sirens and it's only when I woke up that I realised the window had been open all night in our hotel room and so my furious imaginary email about the cold room had to be deleted from my head.

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We set off on the next leg of our trip, to Aberdeen from Queen St. I love the compactness of Glasgow, how you can walk to the station, get a bus to the west end, take the Clockwork Orange to Partick (should you wish to). Small cities are the best thing. Before 10 minutes have gone, we're in the countryside, swollen green hills and smoky skies, Monet haystacks in the rolling blond fields. The train is quiet apart from the noise of it, they seem to have bought EMR's old diesel rolling stock and it's so old that there are paper reservations rather than electronic ones. It's great, though, to have a unified transport system (ScotRail), with one app for buying and holding tickets, checking disruption, claiming refunds. The train is on time and then we're in an even smaller city, one of silver streets, awe-inspiring buildings and vegetarian brunch places. We walk out through the docks and industrial estates to the Footdees, (or Fitties) in a rupture of sunshine, to where fisherfolk cottages have been colonised by artists and artisans. We only have 10 mins to look around as another burst of rain is a-coming in and we have to race back to the city to take shelter in the Fierce brewery, where a Saturday afternoon crowd is soberly drinking. Everywhere feels quiet: on the train, there's a low hum of conversation, in the pubs no-one is shouting or peacocking, people are friendly, but not all up in your face. There is very little homelessness and we only see one over flowing bin - it feels as if they used the oil money wisely. This is my kinda place and I could live here if it wasn't for October to March.

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It's a sunny Sunday so we walk out through the docks again, across the river (Dee or Don that gives Aberdeen (Obar Dheathain) its name) to Torry, which is definitely the wrong side of the tracks, to the Battery, an old fort, now a sort of tourist attraction, with a cafe selling buttery (a kind of salty biscuity-scone) and empire biscuits (basically an iced jammy dodger), and seals bobbing in the harbour.

Sunday evening is surprisingly lively with Smoke and Soul tap room, where I teach Dave to play whist and, despite complaining about the game's difficulty (Me: "It's only got three rules! I could play it when i was 8!"), he promptly beats me, and a Turkish restaurant in a sort of 1980s outdoor shopping centre with free hummus.

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Monday is back to rain so we visit the three museums in Aberdeen, the Provost Skeyne's house, a 16th century dwelling now dedicated to famous Aberdonians, the art gallery, and the maritime museum, which is part modern building and part in the Provost Ross's olde house (nice of him to donate it), all of them free. It feels like Scotland never gave up on municipal socialism.

Back in Glasgow (and more rain) we have our dinner in the delightful Stereo in the Blythswood district, which does indie music and hearty vegan food (haggis balls, mash, sauce; mushroom steak, mash, broccoli). Autumn is here already.

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The sun comes out for our final day so we do a three mile river walk along the Clyde, where Dave once swam on New Year's Day (good for a hangover cure, apparently), past BBC Scotland and the Hydro arena, where I imagine Lewis Capaldi has a residency, to the Riverside museum, a modern jag of a building next to an old ship on the river. There are the usual olde buses and trams and history of the docks and whatnot, but what interests me is the replication of not only old grocery shops and apothecaries but an '80/'90s record shop with videos to watch from Scottish indie luminaries such as Teenage fanclub, The Bluebells, Orange Juice and His Latest Flame, one of whose members bears a passing resemblance to me. Given that I always claim to have Scottish roots (my maternal great-grandma was from Fife and Stevenson is a lowlands Scots name), it's possible that we're 8th cousins, or something.

My country, the home of the free, such miserable weather

We then cross the river (on the new! Govan-Partick bridge) to Govan, which I always thought was like the last stage of hell, where no-one eats a vegetable and all the children have rickets (possibly because of Rab C Nesbitt) but it's cute and old fashioned. We eat in a cafe where the prices are like before Liz Truss fucked the economy and made a frothy coffee cost £4 (£3.50 a soup, £8 a big salad) and they play The Sundays whilst a pink haired girl walks across the square opposite, through the pigeons, like she's in an '80s film about a disaffected teen. We take the metro back to the city centre, which is ridiculously cheap (one flat fare of £1.85), clean, quiet (no endless announcements, no seeitsayitsorted, no mind the gap) and swanky looking - it has been refurbed since the last time we were here, although still doesn't run after 6 p.m on Sundays.

And then these wee Sassenachs go back down the road to south of the border.

A refutation of every town mentioned in the Guardian's Happiest Place to Live in Britain article.

1. Beriwck upon Tweed. Still at war with Russia. Dangerous.
2. Evesham. Where?
3. Caenafon. Wales. No.
4. Durham. Full of public school students going punting.
5. York. Full of boomers eating scones.
6. Padiham. Rain.
7. Devizes. Tories.
8. Lewes. Full of boomers going antiquing.
9. Newport. Too near Portsmouth.
10. Exeter. The most boring places I've ever visited and I've been to Peterborough.
11. Penzance. Not near anywhere else.
12. Chichester. See 7.
13. Cirencester. Full of boomers wearing wax jackets.
14. Aylesbury. Well, you might as well live in London.
15. Chesterfield. Come on! Be serious.
16. Shrewsbury. Only an hour from Birmingham. Nuff said.
17. Worcester. Once spent an afternoon there trying to find something to eat. Failed.
18. Perth. Cold.
19. Haddington Cold.
20. Aberystwyth. Probably the worst places I've been to in Wales and that includes Swansea.
21. Enfield. What??
22. Surbiton. Fuck off.
23. Clapham Junction. A railway station that got out of hand. Dapper Laughs.
24. Bounds Green. I have never met anyone who lives in Bounds Green.
25. Bromley. I'd rather kill myself.

We are staying on Corso Vittoria Emanuele, a road high up above the town with a sea/city/Vesuvius view. I google Vittoria Emanuele and it turns out that he was the last Prince of Naples, the son of the last King of Italy (Umberto II, who reigned for even fewer days than Liz Truss). His full name was Vittorio Emanuele Alberto Carlo Teodoro Umberto Bonifacio Amedeo Damiano Bernardino Gennaro Maria di Savoia, but that wouldn't fit on the road sign. To get there from the airport, we have to take a bus, a metro and a funicular, which doesn't actually stop at the stop we want and we go all the way up and then down again (fortunately it's not run by the same people who operate the cable car). The city transport is good though, reliable and cheap, but most Napolitanos drive small cars and/or mopeds, the latter have an annual quota of pedestrians to maim, or so it seems. There aren't pavements in the older streets, but there are bollards to separate pedestrians and killing machines, but the fact that many of them are bent out of shape makes me think that they're not that helpful. We have electric bikes now - we don't need leaded-petrol mopeds, there are even lime bikes and electric scooters to hire. I mean, they have funiculars, FFS.

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If you walk down Corso VE, and hang a right, you get to the Spanish quarter which is sort of the Soho of Naples - it used to be a grim den of prostitution, gambling and generalised vice, but is now gentrified with little cafes and restaurants, murals and plants, heart shaped banners and light twinkles. There's even a Maradona murals section, with Pope Diego I, Maradona comforting a small child, Maradona running at a goalkeeper whilst carrying a bottle of Aperol. Local bars and cafes sell blue Maradona spritz or blue Maradona doughnuts. Some young women, probably not born when the hand of god hit the football, take photos. I want to say to them: Name three of his best goals.

dave

The Spanish area would be delightful if the mopeds would just fuck off. Windy warrens, Christ on the cross who saved the locals from cholera (apparently), the surprise of a bar, shrines to dead relatives (probably killed by mopeds) and a fantastic pizza place (La Anctica Pizzeria Prigiobbo) that does €4 pies (€1 extra to eat in); the sort of gaffe that the Lonely Planet loses its shit about: mostly locals, great food, no website, not much choice, to drink you can have Peroni or aqua or vino, that's it. I ask for a biccheiere di vino blanco and the owner brings me the litre bottle and says sternly: "One glass", although he leaves the bottle. I think of ways we could annoy him: requesting gluten free bases or vegan cheese, order a half an half, asking for chips or garlic bread, wanting to replace anchovies with mushrooms etc. Americans used to Pizza Hut or Olive Garden must also lose their shit having their first proper pizza in Italy. Conversely, I hope the Neopolitans leaving Italy for the first time don't try the Easyjet margherita pizza, they may just decide not to go into the UK and take the first plane back home again.

Onto Vio Toeldo, the Oxford st of Naples, and get an ice cream at Casa Infante (these are grown up ice creams though: limonccello, pistachio, nocciola) and wander the back streets trying not to meet the moped with my name and date of death on it (they have a saying around here: Gain A Moped, Lose A Son). They ignore the "pedestrian zone" signs, they ignore one way streets and red traffic lights, they go onto the pavement when stuck in a jam and lift tape that is blocking off a street so they can go under it. I wonder if I can forcibly send Sir Sadiq on a secondment. He would clean up this city, introduce LTNs and ULEZs and congestion charges.

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Naples' chaos continues in the morning as we try to get the train to Ercolano. The information on the internet is incorrect, there is no timetable at the station and no ticket machine but a very long queue. There is no indication as to which train goes from which platform and we get three different answers when asking for help in our cattivo Italian. Eventually we get on a train which is more like a tube train with hard seats and a rickety roly gait. The odd thing is that if we go right out of our hotel, towards the sea front, rather than left towards the town, we can get a sort of equivalent of the Elizabeth line with comfy leather seats, on-board information monitors, even toilets, whereas the Herculanem/Pompei/Sorrento train does not have a loo and takes 70 mins. Ercolono station is much more informative with a Napoli/No Napoli platform indicator (and actual toilets). We mosey on down to the Herculaneum, the Avebury to Pompei's Stonehenge and apparently better preserved. The ancient town was not covered in lava and ash like Pompei; instead a mud slide killed them all. They knew what was coming as they were all sheltering in the basements, their skeletons cowering in the face of death. Cats slink around, the ones here are the descendants of the gatto originally imported from Egypt (apparently). The info tells us that Ercolano was originally on the seafront, i suppose they got around by EasyChariot.

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The archaeologists reckon that they've only uncovered about a quarter of it but have decided to put their efforts into preserving what's there rather than finding more. We wander around houses, shops, blacksmiths and bakeries, communal bathhouses. I consider using one as I need the loo but don't want to cause an international incident. Wandering around old buildings gets tiring so I retire to the cafe for a break, this turn out to be three vending machines. Gail's would clear up here! However I have a €1 coffee from the machine and it's actually very good. Plus a machine doesn't judge you for having cappuccino (rather than espresso) after 10 a.m. I sit and listen to the Americans next to us who are face-timing a friend to tell him that they are in Italy and that "Trains haul ass".

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*
Breakfast is served in the room, which is good for not having to do small talk with other people or queue for the pastries and also great for squirrelling away items for later without having to secrete them about your person whilst standing under a sign that says, "Do not remove food items from the dining area". Perhaps it's because I've been mainlining The White Lotus S2 but the decor seems very influenced by that show. As long as one of the moped riders isn't our murderer.

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Today is Giro day, as they say in Liverpool, and we are travelling to the countryside to see it. As the Neapolitans don't like providing any information, Dave uses the Moov-it app to see how to get to a town at the foot of a hill. The app suggests a bus from the main station, where we ask how to get to Monteforte. He gestures "on the left", which turns out to be a quarter of a mile away in a different bus station to the local one and where you can go all the way to Luxembourg (on a Saturday). We ask which bay the bus goes from and are told "over there". it seems that the buses just turn up and leave from whichever spot they feel the most vibes from. We are meant to get off the bus at Monteforte Iperino, where the cyclists will start their final climb but the bus has other ideas, not stopping there because the roads are closed. There is a very Italian stand-off with the driver and some policemen, which other passengers get involved with, shouting and gesticulating at the cops. In fact Naples seems to be the most Italian bit of Italy: a woman yelling at a dignitary when the cycle race starts, and on the way back, when the bus is delayed by 90 mins, the driver opens up the door of the bus to scream at a car that was trying to cut him up. There is literally nothing that makes you appreciate your own country more than other countries' transport.

Waiting to board the bus, I buy cappuccini from the station cafe and am given two cups of coffee flavoured hot milk, the sort of thing you'd serve to a baby. I don't know if this is punishment for having cappuccino after breakfast time or they think this is how tourists like it. The irony is that it costs three times as much (possible tourist tax here) as the €1 caffe I bought yesterday. On the Friday, I have the most delicious coffee of the trip, a caffe pistachio, which I thought would be with flavoured syrup but is espresso with a big lump of crema di pistacchio which melts as you stir it, half bitter, half super sweet. We take it Italian style at the counter.

We go through green valleys and Swiss-style house with sloped roofs and iron balconies to Avellino, which has a big bus station with bays and informazone and yes, toilets (no paper or soap). We wander out of the town, following the pink balloons strung up around local businesses (Naples itself seems very uninterested in the Giro, there is no mention of it anywhere) and sit and eat our picnic lunch at a bus stop. The road is flatter than expected and the cyclists go through in a whooooosh, only two leaders, no stragglers and when we watch the highlights on the TV later on, the whole section is not shown. We get a hat from the dancing caravan although I am already wearing a Strada Bianche hat and Dave his Bastogne-Liege t-shirt (similar to wearing a different band's t-shirt when you go to a gig).

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We came to Naples 18 years ago and didn't leave the city, and I recognise a few things from before, the Galleria Umberto, the Caffe Gambrinus, where a cappuccino costs an eye-watering €6.50 and Soriso Integrale, a vegetarian restaurant just off the Spaccanapoli. They've now got a second branch down at the seafront, but still the same menu where you can get a "unified plate" of various things (risotto, cauliflower galette, soup, vegetables, polenta with mushrooms) for, like €13.
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Yesterday was rainy and fairly cold, but today it's bright sunshine and we go back to train station to travel to Sorrento, By now, we are seasoned travellers and know the station, advising other Inglese on what to do. The journey is 70 mins of rocking and rolling across Campania, including a busker who seems to be playing old Eurovision hits on his accordion, accompanied by a fiddle. It's more entertaining than the theme from the Godfather at least.

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Sorrento is three bits, the outskirts where we pose for seaview pics, the old town and the seafront. We eat a delicious antipasto (Greeks have mezze, Italians have antipasto, England has "picky bits") and pasta lunch, where the prices are definitely for tourists, and wander around the Limoncello shops. Last time we were here, you could get Limoncello in bottles shaped like cellos (geddit), the virgin Mary, the Eiffel tower, breasts, penises, but things have changed and apart from a little penis or two, most are in normal shaped vials. Perhaps the Catholic church had a word about the blasphemous bottles? We also play our part in educating the future generation as a gaggle of tween schoolchildren surround us in order to ask us questions: "where are you from? what is your favourite food? how old are you?" Telling them my age, one of them says: "Oh I did not think you were that old". I bet she says that to all the middle aged matrons, but I do want to scoop her up and adopt her, Angelina Jolie style.

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We take the lift down to the sea front and wander around, you can't actually go on the beach unless you pay, so we look around the harbour and at the 190 year old hotel that summons up a time when people arrived by steamer and donkeys carried their bags up the hills, and you couldn't buy penis shaped bottles of lemon spirit (unless you asked very nicely).

1. Menorca is part of Catalonia and was Republican during the Spanish Civil War (unlike Majorca which leaned towards Franco) and even after Barcelona fell to the Fascisti, Menorca held out, and it was up to the British to broker a peace deal in which Menorca had to capitulate (sounds familiar).

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2. This wasn't the first time the British did deals for the Menorcans, they set up camp here (literally, over the water from where we're staying in Mahon, at what is now known as the Arenal). When we try to walk around the headland, over to the island, we are stymied by a big naval base that you're not allowed to enter. The Menorcans apparently welcomed the Brits as they didn't like the Spanish Inquisition running Menorca (nobody likes the Spanish Inquisition) and preferred being ruled by Georgian Brits who let them speak their own language. Some British words entered the Catalan dialect, such as bow-window (boinder) and pilchard, (pintxos, which, as anyone whose visited BCN knows, is anything edible on a stick, rather than just small fish. Although they have their own version here called Gilda, which is anchovy, olive and chilli pepper, named after the Rita Hayworth character who was salty and spicy (but not fishy, one presumes)). Talking of food, the Brits also formed the dairy industry (for which I am grateful, we have some delicious Mahon cheese) and of course, mayonnaise is from Mahon (or Mao, in Catalan).

3. They love a bit of wickerwork: lampshades, chairs, magazine racks, a lot of furnishings are wicker-made. I imagine if Edward Woodward had visited here, he would have kept a sharp eye out.

4. We soon learn the Catalan for closed which is "tancat". Everything is closed until April, when tourist season officially begins. Even the supermarket, even the ATM are closed for winter. Seriously, guys, people still need to eat! As well as this, most things are closed on Sundays and a lot on Monday and Tuesdays also. The places that are open shut between 1.30 and 5 (they seem to use this time to burn wood, there is a smoky smell when things reopen in the evening). One cafe we go into tells us that the kitchen is closed between 1 and 2. It's difficult to tell if something is shut for a few hours or a few months. We have ideas of going to a vineyard within walking distance, the gin distillery on the waterfront, a boat ride around the harbour – all are shut until April. But the places we do go to (a hipster coffee shop, a delightful seafront cafe, a vegetarian restaurant in Ciutadella, a place that does Menorcan-Japanese food based on the slightly shonky premise that they are at the same latitude, a vermuteria) are all delightful. Winter is also building time, we see houses and restaurants being renovated, or at least spring-cleaned. And the off-season means that we get a fancyish hotel for 80 a night and a welcome dearth of other tourists. Also, because we’ve run out of things to do by Wednesday, we adapt to the slower pace of life; instead of rushing around doing the things we can’t do, we potter, wander, spend ages over a café amb llet.

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5. Menorcans like to repurpose their buildings. Our hotel used to be the French consulate, the market used to be the cloisters of the Iglesia de Carme next door, then it became the law courts and is now a food market. We eat at Sa Petita, because it is not unkind to vegetarians. A townhouse near to our hotel, Can Olvier, has become a museum and art gallery, free to visit, or at least it is in winter, ditto the museum and the cathedral.

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6. All the churches and cathedrals have fearful symmetry and pretty rose windows.

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7. The museum tells us about the Taliotic people, bronze-agers who lived here before the Romans and built many taula (tables) and kiln-style houses around the island, many of which still exists. One talaiot is a mile out of Mahon and we walk to it, no-one else around, no gift shops, no entrance fee, just us and the stones and sunshine.

8. Most of what is good about being on holiday is being away from the daily irritations. Although here people also leave their car engines running on the street, ignore the speed limit, park on pavements, go into a restaurant and chat with their friends on speaker-phone; it’s not just London that annoys me.

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9. Menorcans like brown ale. We take a bus to San Climent to visit the brewery there. It’s hot outside on the country roads as we walk around waiting for the brewery to open but cold inside as we learn about lagers, pilsners, IPAs and stouts - but the biggest seller is the Newcastle-style brown ale. It tastes of 1992.

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10. Menorca (and Majorca) is keen on its Catalan son, Joan Miro. We visit a nearby town, Alaior, to go the modern art gallery there, featuring a Miro floor, sculpture as well as painting. There is supposed to be a Mariana Abramovich exhibition as well, but it’s closed - maybe she’s not going to turn up until April.

Current Music: Under April Skies - Jesus and Mary Chain

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We miss the first band because we're in the pub. We miss the second band because someone said they were bad. So the first (third) band was Man/Woman Chainsaw, who are noisy post-punk rockers and are indeed a man, a woman, but I don't see a saw, chain or not.

Then it's a choice between Hamish Hawk and Pete Wylie and the Mighty Wah!; we choose the latter because you never know when the over 60s are going to go to the John Peel stage in the sky. He's entertaining with his Scouse banter, although we have to wait a long time for the hits but when they come (It's Sinful, the sublime The Story Of The Blues) it's worth it. He also does The Day Margaret Thatcher Dies and references Keir Starmer as being the same thing. I mean....I can't say I'm a big fan but Starmer has yet to dismantle the manufacturing industry or reverse the post-war social contract, so I'm reserving judgement until half way through the first term. Interesting though that the legacy bands talk about left-right politics, whereas the Gen Z bands reference Palestine. Also that the older bands are mostly male and the 6Music roster are majority female. They also don't have that Butlins knobbly knees association and mostly seem happy to be here rather than the oldsters rather taking the piss about playing a holiday camp (Pete Wylie says he feels like he should be playing Neil Sedaka songs).

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Jason Spaceman of Spiritualised doesn't say anything about Butlins, he doesn't really say anything at all, sitting down with his guitar, his voice still incredibly pure. They play for 2 hours though and although I'm not the oldest here, I can't stand up for that long. I didn't see Arab Strap; I went for a power nap and woke up 4 hours later.

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Saturday, we've only just finished breakfast when the first band come on so the first one of the day for us is The Pill, who have songs about mullets (they're against), Women Drivers (they're for), Blondes (ditto) and Salt Father, the opposite of a Sugar Daddy, about going out with an older man, who doesn't turn out to be all that. I'm not sure if they realise that they're dissing 50% of the audience here, but they do it con brio. They've been compared to Wet Leg as they're from the Isle of Wight and they are (as a sexist person said) one blonde and one brunette but they're not like them musically at all, they're rocking to the beat.

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Next up are CTL DRP, who are not my thing, sounding as they did like a cross between The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Rage Against The Machine, but I like their front woman (above).

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Then Meryl Streek who is an aggrieved Irishman, a kind of unholy mix of Sleaford Mods and Kneecap. We return to the chalet for home made margaritas and then down again for the synthdie stylings of Brighton's Arxx, my fave band of the weekend, who sound like they should be playing at The Bronze in Buffy. Then again, they were probably being born when the first series of BTVS aired, so let's say instead that they sound like they should be on the soundtrack of some Netfix show like Heartstopper. They already sound accomplished; some of the other new-girl/boy bands make a hella racket and have a lot of enthusiasm but sound like they need a few more rehearsals. Lime Garden were good on record (Spotify playlist) but turn out to be a bit boring and seemed to annoy everyone with their song about wanting to be Kate Moss's daughter.

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We miss Mim Grey and Georgia, the latter of whom is effectively supporting her dad, for the headliners are Leftfield.They don't bring on Johnny Rotten for Open Up (Burn Hollywood Burn), but they bring the party vibes. Final band of the night is Bodega, who I've seen before and didn't really like. Reports say they are a mix of every NYC band (Television, Talking Heads, The Strokes, The Ramones) to which I say - get your own sound! But they start off with a cover of Rockaway Beach, which is so fun it seems unbelievable that no-one has thought of doing this before.

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Afterwards, we try to do the indie disco but the DJ seems to have got the wrong memo and is playing indie landfill from the 2000s. Gen X wants to hear the music of its youth, not the next generation down's tunes. So we we decamp to the silent disco where they're playing 70s disco and 70s post punk.

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Sunday is all about the Sunday roast at The Fox in Felpham, even though it involves a walk in the pouring rain, so don't see any bands until Katy J Pearson; I catch the last two songs and wish I'd seen more. So it's up to the main stage for the Mikki Berenyi trio; (fun, but the same set we saw in St Leonards back in September, albeit to a much bigger crowd), Sprints (more rocky than on record; much like their compatriots, Fontaines DC, they have one poppy song, the ace Literary Mind, which I thought was FDC when I heard it, and the rest is noise) and then the final headliners, Ride, except I go for a lie down and never get up again. Wel, until Monday morning when it's to Syrup cafe for a much needed brekkie and then the slow, delayed train ride back to London.

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What did you do in 2024 that you'd never done before?
Had a mammogram. Saw Tadej Pogacar cycle up a hill. Went on safari in the UK. Slightly different experiences.

Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
It was to keep hospital and dr's appointments to a minimum. More of an aim than a resolution.

Did anyone close to you give birth?
Work colleague

Did anyone close to you die?
There were three work-adjacent people who died, one only a year older than me, very suddenly when he was on holiday, and that was pretty heartbreaking.

What countries did you visit?
Spain (Tenerife)
Belgium (Liege)
Norway (Tromso)

What would you like to have in 2025 that you lacked in 2024?
Energy. Ability to stay up past 10 p.m.

What date from 2024 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
7th August. David's birthday but also the day the far right were rumoured to be rioting in London, including outside of my work. A scary day but also a good one when people came together to see off the scumbags.

What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Keeping healthy

What was your biggest failure?
Lack of exercise

Did you suffer illness or injury?
I had various hospital appointments for a slipped disc.

What was the best thing you bought?
I bought a cool bottle to replace the one I dropped on the floor and broke. Cold water in the summer is tres necessaire. Down with lukewarm water!

Whose behaviour merited celebration?
I did like Tim Walz a lot.

Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
The USA.

Where did most of your money go?
Eating out.

What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Tadej Pogacar cycling up that hill

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What song(s) will always remind you of 2024?

Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) Happier or sadder?
A bit of both.

b) Bigger or smaller?
Much fatter.

c) Richer or poorer?…
Richer in income, poorer in outgoings.

What do you wish you'd done more of?
Exercise.

What do you wish you'd done less of?
Traipsing to Newham hospital

How did you spend Christmas?
Chez nous.

Did you fall in love in 2024?
Nope.

How many one-night stands?
Nope.

What was your favourite TV program(me)?
True Detective, Fargo (best series since S2), Fallout (whoops apocalypse), The Franchise (much better than the reviews suggest), Gen V, Ripley (Italo-noir), Mr Loverman, Lady In The Lake, and Hacks (which gets better and better).

Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
About the same

What was the best book you read?
I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home - Lorrie Moore

What was your greatest musical discovery?
Get Down Services, Ian Sweet, Lynks

What did you want and get?
Holiday to Norway

What did you want and didn´t get?
To see the northern lights

What was your favourite film of this year?
Kneecap, All Of Us Strangers (different ends of the films spectrum)

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?..
51. Went to Charlton. I think i will go somewhere nicer next year,

What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
A Harris win.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2024?
Comfortable

What kept you sane?
The Boyf and the cat.

Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
My future ex-husband Cilian Murphy although I do quite like the Gen-Z stylings of Harris Dickinson now that he seems to have lost the 'tache and the mullet.

What political issue stirred you the most?
USA election.

Who did you miss?
People far away

Who was the best new person you met?
I don't think I met any, sadly; but it was nice to catch up with people I haven't seen for a while, Charlotte in Nottingham, Gwen in Bristol, and our friends Helen and James came back from Kenya, although not to live in London

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2024:
Being in one's 50s is weird. On one hand, you're the same person with the same likes, friends, lifestyle. On the other you feel completely different. I never thought I'd get old if I kept the same mental attitude (obviously I knew my body would age!) but you don't realise that you have little control over this.

Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

we will become silhouettes when our bodies finally go

Did you wrong or hurt somebody in 2024?
Oh, probably.

Is there some new place you are planning to visit in 2025?
Aberdeen

Where would you have wanted to go and did not in 2024?
Aberdeen

Did you learn any new life skill in 2024?
I made a Microsoft Form! My life is so thrilling

Any new food or drink preferences developed in 2024?
Bubble tea (behind the curve as per)

What is your greatest fear for 2025?
Trump 2.0.

Did you follow any sports event in 2024?
Tour de France, Vuelta de Espagna, Euros, Liege-Bastogne-Liege

Which social media occupied most of your time in 2024?
Nothing but Bluesky from now on

Is there somebody you feel particularly grateful to this year?
davidnottingham

Name a hope you have for 2025
It'd be nice to have a summer, wouldn't it.

These first 4 songs are from bands I saw at Rockaway Beach in Bognor in January.
Ghost Car - Selfish, Spoiled. Awkward, angular.
Hifi Sean and David McAlmont - Beautiful. If you'd told me some years ago that the fella from the Soup Dragons would be collab-ing with one of McAlmont and Butler,Ii'd have assumed the latter. But these two make beautiful synth chamber pop together.
Heartworms - Consistent Dedication. Robert Smith lives just up the road from Bognor, but is unlikely to appear at Rway Beach, so this lot'll have to do instead.

Fat Dog - King of the Slugs. These were the most entertaining band at RB and I thought they were a bit of a novelty act, but they've been getting some traction since then with their brand of power goth pop. This could be Albania's Eurovision entry - and that is high praise.
Gossip - Real Power & Give It Up for Love. They're back! with a funkadelic synthy R&B song. If Beyoncé had released this, i don't think I'd be surprised. And Give It Up for Love sounds like 1964 in Detroit.
Lambrini Girls - God's Country. As angry and as brilliant as God Save the Queen (Sex Pistols version).
Billie Eilish - Bury A Friend. I get my music from three places now - 6Music, davidnottingham's Spotify discover playlist and TV theme tunes. This was on one of my my fave TV shows of the year, the semi-reboot of True Detective. It very much suited the whirling snow of the show's setting.
Nia Archives - Crowded Roomz. Nu-jungle but I've filed it with Little Simz's Introvert for subject matter.

John and Jane Q - Watermelon. Dave got me to watch the film Dinner In America by telling me it was set in the 90s and it felt like it could have been made in the 90s with its angsty anti-hero and awkward, aspergsy Dawn Wiener-esque heroine. I said it was a John Waters film directed by Tood Solondz. She's an autisic nerd and he's an angry punk singer and they energise and soften each other, respectively. This was the break out pop hit as they collaborate on a song that sounds like it would have been released on Kill Rock Stars in 1993.
Getdown Services - I Wish It Didn't Bother Me. Soft bois from Bristol do indiepop with a bit of synth undertones. I can imagine this as the background track of a film in which the awkward hero and heroine (or hero and hero) get over their misunderstandings and run over a field of wheat at sunset.
Gretel - King of Nothing. I thought Gretel (previously Gretel Hanlyn) was Scandinavian or at least German, but no, she's a posh girl from West London. But i liked this angry misandrist song "Big time fucker. You say you love women but you only love your mother" la la la.
Big Blood - 1000 times. I remember my 20s when all that mattered was if that boy/girl looked at you. It seems quite odd to hear a song basically lusting after someone when most people in their twenties/30s are singing about how crap men are or how terrible the govt is. Good old fashioned l-o-n-g-i-n-g.
Dream Wife - Orbit. I saw Dream Wife about 8 years ago and thought they sounded like a good impersonation of Blondie. They've moved on since then into dreamppop a gogo.
English Teacher - R&B. I saw English teacher at a free festival in Brighton in 2021 (I was there to see Wet Leg) and I didn't think much of their shoegaze-lite, but they've grown on me, mostly through 6Music's bullying.
Ian Sweet - Your Spit. Ian Sweet isn't a man or even a band, but an indie-girl from LA called Jillian. I love this sweet (geddit) love song.
Home Counties - Bethnal Green. Anti-gentrification synthpop.

St Vincent - Big Time Nothing. Squlechy swampy song from Ms Clark with a few Chic-y riffs.
Dig feat. Rhian Teasdale - Orlando Weeks. Wet Leg took a bit of a break this year, so I was glad to hear a little bit of Rhian in this.
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross - Compress/Repress. I never thought I'd dig something that NiN were involved in, but here we are. Apparently this was on the Challengers soundtrack - I haven't seen the film but I liked this upbeat, piano-y, dirty Depeche Mode-esque song. 1! 2! 3!
Kaleen - We Will Rave. the true winner of Eurovision (in my head anyway) from Austria. Got bangerz.
Baby Lasagna (sic) - Rim Tim Tagi Dim. As above, but Croatian. Miaow cat miaow back!
The Bug Club - Marriage. Someone is a bit annoyed about having to go to his cousin's nuptials. This song is a bunch of fun though.
Lynxs - Silly Boy and Pedestrian at Best. We saw Mr Lynxs at Wide Awake, where he was the break out star of the festival with his fetishwear, backing dancers/tennis players and slagging off those annoying straight men. Plus a Courney Barnett cover!
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Burning. Another theme tune, used in the Marvel TV show about a Deaf superhero, Echo. "Whatcha gonna do when you get to the water?"
Self Esteem and Moonchild Sanelly - Big Man. Lipstick lesbian uplifting pop.
Anna Erhard - Botanical Garden. This slab of tweepop could have been released any time between 1986 and now, although no-one wrote songs about 2 star reviews of gardens back in the 80s.
The Waeve - Can I call you. Members of Blur and The Pipettes making music to soundtrack a minor apocalypse.

Kneecap - CEARTA. I'd never heard of Kneecap before we went to see the film but their spunky mix of Gaelic, rap and rock was entertaining. Here they are rapping about language rights.
Postal Service - We Will Become Silhouettes. Along with LCD Soundsystem, Gossip and Young Fathers, I loved The PS doing their one, classic album, Give Up, at All Points East festival and this song floating out into the sky as the sun settled was a genuinely magical moment. My very favourite song about nuclear annihilation.
Deadletter - More Heat. One of those post-Idles bands, all shouty vox and hard guitars. Deadletter seem the best of the bunch though.
Piroshka - Scratching at the Lid. We went to see the Miki Berenyi trio in St Leonards in September and this was their best non-Lush song.
Meghan Trainor - Criminals. Another one from a TV soundtrack, this time The Perfect Couple, the schlocky, glamorous Nantucket murder mystery starring Nicole Kidman's immobile face and a schlubby Liev Scheiber.
Soft Play - Everything and Nothing. This band used to be called Slaves but they changed their name for obvious reasons. This sounds like REM sacked Michael Stipe and employed someone who's eaten gravel instead of food for the past 20 years. I dig.

Spotify Link: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/20XT4SqmzxwjfifUGBsmnF?si=0xh8dSxFR2OksFKu_Jj1rA

Current Music: Give It Up For Love - Gossip

Firstly, Tromsø is an island. Or rather, Tromsøysa is an island, of which the city of Tromsø is the capital. It's surrounded by mountains, which shelter the town and which we drive through to get from the airport to the city. I don't think I've ever seen roundabouts inside of mountains before. We wander around the town where it's already dark at lunchtime, but the lights are on and the snow is gently falling over the gingerbread houses and it looks as if Narnia had built a city centre. Xmas has come early and I consider stealing one of the fairylit fir trees that throng the high street and claim it's recompense for the war. Might be a bit difficult fitting it in the overhead locker on easyjet though.

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The snow is a bit less gentle as we head to the harbour and we get a bit stuck in a swirling snowstorm, so take refuge in Brewyard, a hygge pub down at Vervet, a new looking area at the end of the harbour, past the house where Roald Armundsun stayed before setting off to....well, his death. In the polar museum another explorer, Henri Rudi The Polar Bear King, is venerated for having killed 713 polar bears, which is a bit like praising someone for killing all the bees. One of them (possibly) is in the nearest tourist shop, along with other taxidermy there to persuade you to buy a toy troll or a pair of fleecy gloves (as well as reindeer biltong and dried whale. Yum! You can go on trips with reindeer or whale watching, although presumably you don't get bits of dried animal as the takeaway present). Also many Moomin themed things, which are not Norwegian.

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There are a lot of these tourist shops selling warm clothing, presumably for the tourist who doesn't check the weather before setting off. I am ok outdoorswise with my six layers and borrowed coat but I hadn't really thought about the indoors, which is hot, and I don't want to tromp around indoors in my big walking shoes. We end up buying some spikes to wrap around shoes to get better purchase on the snow and (worse) the sleet pushed up against the side of the kerb. In fact it takes about twice as long to get anywhere, what with putting clothes on, picking our way anxiously through the snow, and taking things off on arrival. Having said that, sections of the street are clear of snow, there is no grit used here but there is under pavement heating, which melts the snow away as it hits it. Yet it's only on certain stretches, so you're walking fast - slow - fast. But sitting down, I can tap my spikes on the floor like Fred Astaire doing a soft snowshoe shuffle. I wonder about old people, how do they get about, but we see some with Nordic poles and wheely walkers, no staying in watching Boliger Under Hammeren for them. Despite the fact it seem very difficult to get vegetables and most people seem to live on herring and pastries, everyone seems healthier: the only people I see smoking are tourists, the fellows next to us in the Ollehallen pub go home at 8.30, people's hobbies are troll- hunting, skiing, and other outdoor pursuits.

Some facts about Tromsø: it is the mostly northerly city with a population of over 20K (not inc. tourists), it has the most wooden houses in a northerly town, it is apparently warmer in winter than in Oslo because of the gulf stream and protection from the mountains. It also has the most northerly brewery in the world (closed for winter!), the most northerly pancake stand, the most northerly churreria etc (it's tempting to move here and open up a creperie two metres north of the most northerly pancake kiosk). We buy some snacks from a supermarket, including a blueberry Danish, which is ridiculously cheap (like, less than £2) although I remember that blueberries grow here, they're not a high cost fruit like in the UK, they're probably consumed like apples. Contrarily, when we go to an Indian restaurant we pay about £20 for a main course - Indian food is not cheap and cheerful here, it's an imported luxury.

The hotel is quite quiet, apart from a junior hockey team marauding the corridors although they do shut up when I turn Karen and go to complain to the receptionist (I guiltily remember staying in hotels and youth hostels when I was a teen, running in and out of each other's rooms, acquiring illegal alcohol, staying up past bedtime). We see them at breakfast the next day and they seem pretty well behaved, although one of them just has a pile of gluten free biscuits for frokost - that's not going to win you any tournaments. There are a lot of signs at our hotel, warning us to not waste food, not use fingers to pick up food, put your plate on the trays. In fact, there are signs everywhere in the city: don't touch the stuffed polar bear, enter the amount into the card reader, take your snow spikes off before entering. Either Tromsø is dealing with a lot of idiotic tourists or it's a very ordered society. Indeed, people leave their phones on the table when they go to the bar or the toilet and they're still there when they get back. My rudimentary knowledge of Swedish (tak, bra, kanelbullar) is proving quite useful, although for years I thought goodbye was hej do, rather than what it actually is - adjo, like adieu.

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We tread through the snow to the Troll Museum, which Dave says will be empty as trolls don't exist and I say will be full of those horrible toys people had on top of their computer monitors in the 90s, but it's neither, it's a fun journey through the troll myths of Norway, complete with interactive and fun bits. The idea of giants treading the land is nothing new, as well as mythical beasts living in mountains - when we went to Lanzarote, we were told about the diablo who resided in the volcano. But I didn't know that Ibsen wrote Peer Gynt, I thought it was a folk tale set to Grieg's music. I'm not a massive fan of classical music but I can always shake a tail feather to In The Hall of the Mountain King or Morning Mood.

In the evening, we try a few places to get dinner, which are all booked up because it's Saturday night and Tromsø is 50% tourist in the winter, so we end up eating at a Yonas Pizzeria, near the harbour, where i witness someone putting ketchup on their pizza. This is all you need to know about Yonas' gaff.

cat-in-christmas-tree

Across the water to Tromsdalen and up the mountain (Tromsdalstinden) via cable car, rather than via crampons. Here, I really need my spiked shoes: here it is waist deep when you stray from the path. We go for a snow-walk along the side of the mountain where there is nothing but a guide rope between us and tumbling to a a frozen death down the side. I do not like danger or anything where I might injure myself through my own stupidity, so I much prefer sitting in the cafe and making rude remarks about all the other tourists, whilst eating a very expensive sandwich. I think of the man I saw whilst staring out of the window at Kaffebonna who was cycling past wearing shorts. I am, in Doncastrian parlance, nesh.

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In the evening, a serendipitous find: Svermeri kafe, which with its coffee and cake menu, charity shop crockery and upcycle vibe must be the originator of Tromso, the Forest Gate cafe we went to all the time when we first moved to E7 and was part of the inspiration to come here, so everything has come full (arctic) circle.

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Caught a bit of Starmer on BBC Breakfast talking about asylum seekers, illegal vs legal and it seemed to me that this is like austerity in 2010: everyone accepts that “illegals” should be sent back just as everyone seemed to accept back then that we needed austerity to bring down national debt. I remember the BBC doing vox pops, asking people what things they thought should be cut. No-one said: We don’t need austerity - this is nonsense, it’s just the Tories using shock therapy to reduce the state! So much for fair ‘n’ balanced.

There were 40,000 people who arrived illegally between Mar 23 and May 24. There are 100,658 vacancies in the NHS as of March 24. It’s simplistic to say those 40K could be trained as nurses, radiologists, radiographers, anaesthetists etc but my point is that we have shortages in all sectors, we are not full up. London schools are closing because there aren’t enough kids (as people move out to more affordable areas), we are not full up.

I started thinking about the 2015 election and how devastating it was that people had had five years of austerity and thought: Yeah, I’d like a bit more of that. You can blame the bacon sarnie or Labour’s unimpressiveness, but in the end it was people’s cretinous belief that the Tories were better for them. I’d like to blame the rich and their desire for a second yacht rather than paying their fair share of tax, but it’s the other people I blame, the ones earning average wage or less who thought austerity would only affect asylum seekers and benefits claimants, not the things the lower/middle middle class want (clean streets, bins collected, NHS appointments, clean rivers and seas, decent police force).

They were the ones who gave the Tories the majority they didn’t have in 2010. I thought the increase in the number of people using foodbanks (40K in 2009/2010 to over a million in 2014/15) would persuade people to vote Labour but no. It felt like a kick in the kidneys watching the 2015 exit poll - it’s horrible to feel you’re living amongst so many stupid and/or selfish people.

Capture

I’m glad people now have turned against the Conservatives after fourteen years, but wouldn’t have it been nice if they’d rejected Cameronism 9 years ago? Or not been fooled by the clown that is Boris Johnson in 2019? They may have turned on him post-partygate, but wasn’t it obvious to anyone who just looked at him that he was a wrong ‘un? Maybe this is the famed London centric-ness: we’d had him as mayor for 8 years, so we knew what he was about (I once saw him jogging in Highbury Fields (back when he was MP for Henley), maybe I should’ve kneecapped him then). But people wanted their fucking Brexit so they voted for Boris and his bollocks boosterism.

Of course, we wouldn’t have had Brexit if Cameron et al hadn’t won in 2015 with an EU referendum in their manifesto. Yes, Farage would have been more of a thing if Remain had won, but then Farage is still a thing, just as the national debt, the one that was supposed to be reduced by austerity and which is now 99.8% of GDP (it was 64.7% of GDP in the first quarter of 2010 i.e. when Lab were last in power) is still a thing.

At the same time, I realised anyone aged 18-27 now, the Gen Zs, wouldn’t have voted in that election (and older Tory voters will have died off). Like Winston Smith and his shaky faith in the proles, I have faith in the young, despite their bad clothes and terrible haircuts.

The Last Of Us

I was unkeen on watching this as it is based on a video game and I'm not a gamer. Plus I watched most of The Walking Dead, so I feel like I've done zombies, culturally. But the show had good reviews, and Pedro P fills out a pair of jeans nicely, even in an apocalypse - he's pretty much the only man who can rock a moustache. This isn't The Walking Dead, there are no roving gangs battling each other under the Mason-Dixon line. There is still a putative (military) government with the attendant corruption and black marketeering, and I was more interested in this world than the actual fungus-zombies. Pedro has to accompany a teenager to a safe house because she might have the clue to a cure and also because he is quite tough. I thought it would be the gruff old man has his heart melted by daughter-substitute kind of tale, but the teen is quite an annoying, stroppy girl who is not being played by a doe-eyed former child model but Bella Ramsey who, and I hope she wouldn't be too offended, kinda weird looking. The show held my attention more than anything else at the beginning of the year. Also, it's the only survivalist show I've seen where the issue of periods is raised (one of the adults gives Bella a menstrual cup). In Lost, the women had time to shave their pits whilst running away from the smoke monster.

Party Down

I started watching this purely because it was a Rob Thomas TV show (he of Veronica Mars and iZombie). Indeed, most of the cast, including the guest stars have been in Veronica Mars - even Kristen Bell shows up (no Teddy Dunn though). Each episode takes place at a different event at which the depressed cater-waiters turn up and get into scrapes. A senior singles party, a Sweet 16, a dodgy investors' event, a corporate away-day. Each time, something goes wrong and it's a surprise that they're hired ever again. Their google reviews must make atrocious reading. My favourite episode was when Kevin Hart told Ron, the team leader, not to invest in a franchise of "Soup 'n' Crackers" because no black person would go to that. My least favourite was the porn star awards in which a pre-Me Too Ryan Hansen squeezes all the breasts of the participants to see whose are false/real. The second series relaxes the format a bit and the characters start to get a few wins. So they cater an aftershow for a Marilyn Manson type pop star (the lovely Jimmi Simpson), in which he befriends the crew, a funeral at which the gang actively tries to do good (to no avail), a party at Steve Gutenberg's house, where he praises everyone's abilities, an am-dram evening at which Ronan, the sci-fi nerd, finally gets a snog. Also in S2, Jane Lynch is replaced by the sublime Megan Mullally. No disrespect to JL but her playing nicey didn't really work, whereas MM brings a chaotic naivety to the proceedings.

Reboot

Keegan-Michael Key is a jinx. This is the second sitcom he's been in that I've watched that has been cancelled by Netflix, the first being Friends From College, which I, and only I, liked. This is not KMK's fault, he is brilliant in this show as a network TV actor with pretensions of the theatre, but goes back to a Malcolm In The Middle-esque mid-'00s sitcom reboot because it has an "edgy" new writer (Rachel Bloom) who has her own reasons for wanting to revive it. The second best character is the cute kid who is now not such a cute adult, desperate to fit in but being ignored by his aging co-stars.

Some of the episodes are written by John Enbom, who wrote the aforementioned porn episode of Party Down and in one of his episodes, Judy Greer is exposed topless. Does John Enbom just write TV episodes in order to see boobies? You know there's an internet now, don't you John?

Emun Elliott, Hugh Bonneville and Charlotte Spencer in The Gold.

Emun Elliott, Hugh Bonneville and Charlotte Spencer in The Gold.

The Gold

I had not heard of the Brinks-Mat robbery but I'm a sucker for anything set in the '80s. Plus it was written by Neil Forsyth who wrote the excellent Guilt, and as such has a lot of "state of the nation" speeches from the main characters. If I'd played a drinking game in which I took a drink every time someone said "villains", I'd have been half cut by half eight.

Poker Face

When I first head that Rian "Knives Out" Johnson was doing a whodunnit series staring the divine Natasha Lyonne (and her lioness's mane), I was thrilled. When I first watched it though, I was slightly underwhelmed. It seemed - from the stylised opening credits to Lyonne's laconic delivery, to the plots (when we see whodunnit and are waiting for our heroine to catch up and nab the bad guy) - that Johnson was paying homage to Colombo. However there's a reason for Natasha to be in a different town each week - she's on the run from a casino criminal so there's an extra, thriller side to it rather than it being Murder, She Croaked. Each different scenario, from barbecue restaurant to stock car racing track was conceived brilliantly, my fave being the 90s riot grrl band (fronted by Chloe Sevigny) going back out on the road.

High Desert

More sleuthing from middle aged women, this time Patricia Arquette, fresh from being creepy as hell in Severance. This is a pretty different character - an ex-junkie deadbeat working in a wild west re-enactment park who decides to turn her life around and become a PI. She achieves this by bullying a local private detective into taking her on as his assistant and then solving the mystery of the disappeared wife of a local weatherman-turned-guru, helped and hindered by Matt Dillon, who's in it for some reason as Peggy's ex. Unfortunately, we'll never see what happens next as Apple cancelled it.

Dolores Roach

Reviewers of this show said you could have it on in the background or they didn't understand why a mild mannered woman would turn to serial killing. It seemed obvious to me - here was a woman at the end of her tether: her old boyfriend had fitted her up for his crimes then disappeared whilst she'd spent 15 years in prison, her new boyfriend was a cannibal, her area had been gentrified by hipsters and podcasters, every man she massaged in her new masseuse business was a pervert and wanted a release of the sexual glands ratter than tired muscles. It wasn't social realism but body horror with a bit of gentrification satire thrown in, a gender reversed Sweeney Todd and Mrs Lovett. Another one that got cancelled. Maybe viewers just don't like stories about middle aged women?

Beef

Tiny, ferocious Ali Wong went up against Steven Yeun, playing against type as a dodgy slacker, after some road rage beef. Forget about an act of revenge necessitating the digging of two graves, these two pulled everyone in their orbit into their row. As well as the dramatic amusement of their argument, it had stuff to say about the various Asian-American communities, something Iknow very little about: the Chinese feel established and secure in their status and look down on the Koreans whom they view as the working class, but both hate the pretentious, bougie Japanese-Americans.

Deadloch

This is a Nordic noir set in Australia, as far south as possible (Tasmania) so as to get grey skies and grim vistas rather than sun 'n' surf. Usually, local crime involves a seal trying to steal a fridge - until a dead body is found on the beach. Solving the case are the trad. odd couple buddy buddy cop duo (the uptight and by the book local cop vs the slobby and maverick foul mouthed big city 'tec) - the twist being that they're both women, and the dead naked bodies that keep turning up are - for a change - male. This being set in Australia, there's some funny bits, but it's a police procedural mystery rather than a comedy-pastiche. Most of the humour comes from the bogans, who are forever throwing dead livestock into the lake/loch and wanking at funerals vs the bougies who are worried that the murders are going to ruin the food and art festival (Feastival).

City on Fire

This came off as a kind of 500 Days Of A NYC Summer until some disparate characters (other than smoochy teen comic book geeks) came along to solve the crime, notably Jemima Kirke's brittle mum, the beautiful Xavier Clyde as Mercer, a beleaguered boyfriend of Jemima's brother, plus Jemima's husband who was having an affair with the manic pixie dream victim (but didn't kill her).

Bodies

High concept detective show whereby four police detectives in four different eras (Victorian, wartime, present day, apocalyptic future) try to solve the same murder of a naked man who suddenly appears in an alley in Whitechapel with markings on his hand. It was on Netflix, but felt very Sunday night BBC crime drama (with a sci-fi twist).

Only Murders In the Building S3

I didn't think much would top OMITB S2 (these things usually run out of steam by S3) but this series just got better and better. Add a touch of megalomanic Paul Rudd, Dame Meryl Streep playing a failed actress (complete with terrible accents), and moving the action from the Arconia to Broadway was just brilliant. Plus getting rid of Martin Short's son and Steve Martin's step-daughter was a good way to clear the decks of mush. I loved the songs and really want to see the off-off-off-Broadway version of Death Rattle Dazzle. I don't think we ever found out which of the Pickwick triplets did it, did we?

Boat Story

This seemed to be an attempt to create a British Fargo (the TV series, not the film), You've got the cold, out of the way setting (east and west Yorkshire), with the generally nice people, the hapless amateur crims, the ultra-violent gangsters, the voiceover, the episode titles. The only thing missing was the dogged female cop. Instead we have the chubby lummox who's determined to hunt down the criminals. I already liked Daisy H and Ptterson J, but my MVP was Vincent (Adam Gillen), the leader of the local drug dealers, last seen playing a hopeless teenager in Benidorm, now all grown up and qute terrifying.

Fisk

A half hour comedy from Melbourne in which divorced small time lawyer Helen-Tudor-Fisk tries to get through the day without being harassed by Roz, the amazing/terrible office manager/mediator. Fisk's main concern is getting un-banned from the local hipster coffee shop so she doesn't have to drink $1 java from the convenience store. Because Fisk (Kitty Flanagan) is Gen X, there's no mental health stuff, no dealing with bad relationships, just a terrible brown suit, baby boomer parents who are having a better time than her, dealing with the idiots who come through the door and bonding with the firm's millennial webmaster (receptionist). Fisk is pure slacker.

A Murder At The End of the World

I watched the first series of the OA, the Brit Marling-written series about interpretive dance saving the world via kidnap, Russian aristos and restored eyesight. I didn't watch the 2nd series as I'd had enough by then. So I was a little dubious about Ms Marling's new TV show, but I love a scrappy heroine solving crimes, so I was immediately hooked. The series runs on two timelines: Darby's attempts to track down the serial killer of Jane Does and six years later, when the publicity of her true crime book leads to an invite to a retreat by a Zuckberg-cum-Musk tech bro who wants to bring together brilliant minds to solve climate change and other ills. Then someone is murdered and it very much becomes a country house murder, except in a hotel-slash-survivalist bunker in Iceland. There was a lot going on and I felt the true crime solving could have sufficed for S1 but then maybe Marling is wary of another show being cancelled. Plus I loved the two different timelines, the first taking place in a golden mid-west summer, the second in a Nordic blizzard.
Emma Corrie was brilliant as the vulnerable Darby and her boyf Harris Dickinson, who is so hot right now (even with that mullet), was great also. My only issue was the under-used supporting cast who only seemed to exist to fulfil a Benetton-style diversity clause. So the African-African character talks about the oral tradition and his Baptist church, the Chinese character discusses the Cultural Revolution, the Iranian character just talks about Iran, the disabled character is there to remind you that disabled people enjoy sex etc.

1. Today (Can't Help But Cry) - Greta Hanlyn. Sounds like Lush and The Heart-Throbs and all those early '90s dreampop bands that got eaten up by Britpop.
2. The Ick - Panic Shack. Saw these at the first gig (festival) of the year (Rockaway Beach). I like the uncompromising attitude of the singer: you shush her in the cinema, you put the milk in first - you're out, mate.
3. Edge Of The Edge - Panda Bear and Sonic Boom. I didn't see these at Rockaway Beach as anything on after 10 p.m. was too late for me, but I really like this west coast-influenced psych-pop.
4. The Disco - TRRUUCES. "You say you love me but then you don't answer the phone! Saturday night at the disco, you're dancing alone".
5. Complete Me - Django Django and Self Esteem. Ms RL Taylor took a break from her pop career this year to launch herself into light entertainment and the west end stage, so I'll take this disco crumb from her talented table.
6. Force 10 From Navarone - Sleaford Mods feat. Florence from Dry Cleaning. Another collab, with Florence's laconic tones going head to head with Sleaford Mods' more aggressive vocal stylings.
7. Literary Mind - Sprints. I could've swore this was Fontaines DC but it was another Dublin City band.
8. Isn't It Great To Be Alive - Spearmint. I think it was at this point of my recovery year that I realised that yes, yes it was. "I can't come to terms with ordinary life again now".
9. Cha Cha Cha - Kaarija. It was a stellar year for Eurovision with this being the goth-techno-disco cream of the crop (top). Surely the only Eurovision entry ever to riff off the Human Caterpillar.
10. Who The Hell Is Edgar - Teya and Selena. In which some Austrian pop-girls sing the joys of Edgar Allen Poe. Austrians!
11. Because Of You - Gustaph. This could've been a Euro-contender had Sweden not barged in. I liked its early '90s handbag house vibes.
12. Feeling Called Love - Pulp. We went to Pulp's big show at Finsbury Park and oddly, this was the one I was humming for days afterwards.
13.Talkin' To Myself - Sarah Shook and The Disarmers. Some years ago, song that were on adverts - from Ben E King to Flat Eric - became hits. This wasn't on an advert, but was the theme tune to Patricia Arquette PI vehicle, High Desert. I really like its country-folk ambience.
14. In Spite Of Ourselves - Viagra Boys. Coming off like a fucked up Moldy Peaches, this is the dirrrty remix version.
15. Time For You - Cable Ties. "I've got no time - but I got time for YOU".
16. Whole Wide World - Wreckless Eric. We Saw Mr Wreckless at the (return of) the Clerkenwell festival and he did his hit! It was really great.
17. For No-one For Now - Lael Neale. Swoonworthy
18 Which Of The Pickwick Triplets Did It? - Only Murders In The Building Cast. Similar to Sarah Snook, i got this from a TV show but it's so insanely Broadway-catchy.
19. We Came To Smash - Martin Solveig. I very much enjoyed all of the cycling grand tours this year - the epic battles of Geraint vs Roglic, Pog vs Jonas, Kuss versus the rest of his team, and this song exemplifies Jumbop Visma's mindset.
20. Pip Blom - Is This Love. I liked Pip Blom version 1, which was twee indie pop, but i like version 2 even better
21. CSS - Let's Make Love And Listen To Death From Above. Yes, let's.
22. Ho Ho Ho - Teya and Selena. The same song as before but Xmassy!

Spotify link:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5CyTdyDrEnhFiskFukqfGT?si=aa9b1dd574a44f00
This also features an in memoriam section, which sadly gets longer every year: Anita Pointer, Tom Verlaine, Bert Bacharach, Tina Turner, Andy Rourke, Astrud Gilberto, Sinead O'Connor, Shane Macgowan, Trugoy the Dove, Ruth Miller from Po!

I tried to do this last year but it was all about cancer, so I stopped. This year it's still mostly about cancer, but anyway:

What did you do in 2023 that you'd never done before?
Had chemotherapy

Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Yes, it was not to have any more overnight stays in hospital.

Did anyone close to you give birth?
No

Did anyone close to you die?
No. Celebs don't count

What countries did you visit?
Wales
Portugal
Spain

What would you like to have in 2024 that you lacked in 2023?
Energy. Ability to stay up past 10 p.m.

What date from 2023 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
15th March - last chemo session. Or the date about a week before when they told me I didn't have to do the last two sessions. I really can't remember a happier moment in my life.

What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Keeping on keeping on.

What was your biggest failure?
Faling to take the post-cancer optimism of March & April through to the rest of the year.
Not doing any writing. I think this is the first year in my Livejournal history that I haven't posted anything.

Did you suffer illness or injury?
Well....

What was the best thing you bought?
We joined the airfryer community and now I go on about airfryers the whole time, like a suburban rube.

Whose behaviour merited celebration?
The NHS. Apart from the appointments department - they are hopeless.

Example 1: Hernia check up. I received a text saying that it was a phone appointment, then a letter saying it was in person. I rang the appointments hotline and they confirmed it was an in--person appointment. I was about to set off to the hospital, when i got a call - which was the appointment. I then received a letter saying that because I'd missed the appointment, they were discharging me. I emailed them to explain their error but heard nothing back and there's still A Black Mark on my online appointment record.

Example 2: Menopause clinic. I received a phone call offering me a a phone appointment on a Sunday. Given I'd been waiting 5 months for this, I said yes. I then received a letter via email saying it was in person. I tried to ring the appointments hotline, but there was a 45 minute wait each time I called. So i turned up on the Sunday to find the building was all locked up. Two weeks later I received a letter, telling me that the appointment was going to be a phone one.

Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
The entirety of the Tory party.

Where did most of your money go?
Eating, heating.

What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Going to Porto in June, my first trip out.
It was also really ace to see picosgemeos in March and April.

What song(s) will always remind you of 2023?

Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) Happier or sadder?
A bit of both.

b) Bigger or smaller?
Slightly thinner after putting back on most of the weight I lost.

c) Richer or poorer?…
It feels like I get to the end of my salary before the end of the month.

What do you wish you'd done more of?
Exercise.

What do you wish you'd done less of?
Hospital visits.

How did you spend Christmas?
Chez nous.

Did you fall in love in 2023?
Nope.

How many one-night stands?
Nope.

What was your favourite TV program(me)?
Only Murders In The Building, Deadloch, Party Down, Poker Face.

Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
My hate levels are maintained at the same level.

What was the best book you read?
The Guest - Emma Cline.

What was your greatest musical discovery?
Käärijä.

What did you want and get?
To be cancer-free

What did you want and didn´t get?
HRT

What was your favourite film of this year?
Barbie.

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?..
50. Went to the olde British Musum Reading rooms.

What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
To have not been ill.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2023?
Mutton.

What kept you sane?
The Boyf and the cat. Although also a bit insane when either of them wakes me at 4 a.m.

Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Quite keen on Pedro Pascal.

What political issue stirred you the most?
I'd like to say Israel/Gaza but I really have to avoid it for my own mental health.

Who did you miss?
My hair, when it fell out.

Who was the best new person you met?
Not new but I was grateful for the friendship of Jacki as she supported me when I had chemo.

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2023:
Things don't follow a narrative.

Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
"Isn't it great to be alive?"

Post a picture of something that made you happy this year:

Did you wrong or hurt somebody in 2023?
Oh, probably.

Is there some new place you are planning to visit in 2024?
Hopefully.

Where would you have wanted to go and did not in 2023?
Norway

Did you learn any new life skill in 2023?
NHS negotiation.

Any new food or drink preferences developed in 2023?
Tonkotsu ramen.

What is your greatest fear for 2024?
The election going the wrong way.

Did you follow any sports event in 2023?
Tour de France, the Ashes, the Vuelta.

Which social media occupied most of your time in 2023?
Twitter. I've tried bluesky and mastodon but it just don't work for me.

Is there somebody you feel particularly grateful to this year?
davidnottingham

Name a hope you have for 2024
Better weather.

Some books Ive enjoyed this year, or at least given 4 stars to on Goodreads.

The Girls by Emma Kline. Suburban boredom, adolescent yearning, a murderous cult.

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton. We got stars directing our fate....Walter Moody and The Mysterious Case of the Missing Aurora Gold.

The Constant Gardener by John Le Carre. Death in Kenya.

Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg. Voodoo in Manhattan.

Winter by Ali Smith. Christmas in Cornwall.

In A Lonely Place by Dorothy B Hughes. The Making of a Murderer in 1950s San Francisco.

King of the Badgers by Philip Hensher. Small town class war shenanigans in Devon, kind of like Jonathan Coe, if JC wrote gay orgy scenes.

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem. In which Jonathan Lethem invents a new genre - neuro-divergent noir.

Outline by Rachel Cusk. A Greek businessman, an Irish writer and a Sapphic poet walk into a story.

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. Little Women in the Congo.

Station 11 by Emily St John Mandel. What will remain of us is art.

The Tremor of Forgery by Patricia Highsmith. A night in Tunisia; moral relativism in 250 pages.

Who Will Run The Frog Hospital by Lorrie Moore. Bildungsroman in upstate NY.

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes. Like Neal Stephenson and William Gibson crossed with Philip Pullman.

A Word Child by Iris Murdoch. A darkly funny melodrama about lives of quiet desperation and drinking on the Circle line.

Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem by Peter Ackroyd. On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Subjects of Literature.

A Writer's World by Jan Morris. Travel stories from Hillary on Mount Everest to the fall of the Berlin wall.

Some TV I have enjoyed in 2022.

Station 11
Station 11 is set during and twenty years after a deadly flu virus. Just what we need in these pandemic-y times, right? Strangely enough, it was. The storyline jumped around and so we saw that Kirsten, a child extra in a production of Macbeth survived into adulthood, becoming the leader of a ragtag bunch of touring Shakespearean players. It was almost a utopia, rather than a dystopia, as the gang travelled the eastern seaboard, all summer dresses and long grasses, contrasting with the almost nuclear winter that Kirsten and her involuntary guardian Jeevon survive after the autumn pandemic. Of course, there's always an antagonist and in this case it's an apocalyptic cult run by the Prophet, who turns out to have links to Kirsten. There's the notion of working through trauma via art as the Prophet plays Hamlet with his faithless mother playing Gertrude and father figure as Claudius, just as we're working through our pandemic trauma by watching this TV programme. There's also the tension between the befores and afters, the pre- and post-pandemic people with the under 24s rebelling against those who remember smartphones and ubers. This is a different twist to the generation gap. Finally, the Station 11 graphic novel has become a sacred text from the old times, used for good or evil depending on who is interpreting it.

The Woman In The House Across the Street From The Girl In The Window
Supposedly a parody of domestic noir such as The Woman In The Window, the pastiche bits weren't actually that funny. If the writers had played it straight, replaced the most obvious rip-offs with something more original, then it would have been pretty good in its own right. As it was, I enjoyed it but I am a Kristen Bell stan and only want the bet for her and her tousled bob (#hairgoals).

The Afterparty
Coming off like a millennial Breakfast Club - with murder, as takes-no-prisoners Tiffany Haddish investigates the death of a singer-slash-actor-slash influencer at an afterparty of a school reunion, featuring The Nerd, the Princess, The Jock, The Basketcase and the Criminal as well as Stath from Stath Lets Flats, Jean-Ralphio from Parks 'n' Rec, Alison Brie's husband, and Vicky the demon from The Bad Place. Each episode (chapter) is told from a different character's POV and each prefers a different genre: rom-com, action thriller, musical, psychological thriller, high school party film, anime, police procedural and Disney/Jim Henson kiddie film. It's a bit worrying that mid-noughties nostalgia is a thing now though.

Chloe
I thought this was a variation on The Talented Mr Ripley in which a lower-class person inveigles their way into the higher echelons, but it was a bit different. The titular Chloe was someone that the (anti)heroine Sasha (a.k.a Becky) stalks on Instagram and then when she commits suicide, Sasha/Becky is devastated enough to commit fraud to befriend the dead woman's friends and family and to find out what happened. There is a twist, although it's revealed slowly rather than being a shock at the end. In a story about duality - Becky pretending to be Sasha and then ending up living Chloe's life - it was interesting that two things could be true at the same time. Chloe could have mental health problems and be a victim of coercive control, Becky could be a right fuck up and be right about Chloe's hubby. There was a little dig about the power of social groups as well - how they close ranks to protect the group, abjure outsiders and excuse the bad behaviour of a group member.

Yellow Jackets
The title put me off (I thought it was about the RNLI) but it's a tale told in three timezones of a teenage girls' football team flying across the country whose plane crashes. We see them in 1996 in school, then later in the forest after the plane has crashed, and in 2021 when some of them have become 40-somethings and some....haven't. The 40 year olds are played by stars of the 90s - Juliette Lewis, Christina Ricci, Melanie Lyndskey. I liked that the writers had made it about a soccer team, rather than cheerleaders (which a lesser writer might have done) and that some of the characters were quite questionable - none of the girls is very nice, but they are all very watchable. This is the first survivalist drama I've seen which deals with periods and washing rags. It's annoying in other TV shows *cough* The Walking Dead *cough* we see raids on supermarkets to get tinned food and bottle water but never sanitary towels.

Hacks
A Joan Rivers-esque comedienne has her Vegas club Friday and Saturday night slots cancelled unless she can bring in more money. At the same time a millennial SNL-type writer has been sacked for a twitter joke. Their agent puts them together and blam! comedy gold. I liked thaty it was about two spiky, snarky women, who are nonetheless eminently likeable. There is some millennial vs boomer humour (Debra berating Ava for not working hard enough whilst at the same time spending $10K on an antique pepper pot) and a load of great lines:
"This town is full of criminals and hookers and magicians - they don't care!
- You're forgetting about the group of people who love me: people from Florida"
"You look like Rachel Maddow's mechanic"
"This must be karmic punishment for getting fingered at my uncle's wake"
"Jokes are so male"
"Some people think it's rude to make fun of other's appearance.
- Yeah, ugly people"
"I don't like all this therapy stuff...
- It's not therapy, it's mental health TikTok"

Shining Girls
A story about a time travelling serial killer sounds schlocky as hell, but this was really good. Elizabeth Moss plays the hunted-turned hunter, tracking down Jamie Bell playing against type as a charming misogynistic murderer. It's not so much a whodunnit as a how's-he-dunnit. She is aided and abetted by a handsome Brazilian newspaperman and her sometime(s) husband Chris Chalk, another actor playing against type. It's set in the 90s, as everything must be these days in order to activate the Gen X nostalgia gland (mine was definitely stimulated when Elizabeth's riot grrrl mom complained about The Jesus Lizard) and also to make people solve things the hard way with microfiche and poring over newspapers, rather than just googling it.

Severance
As if Charlie Kauffman decided to do a remake of Terry Gilliam's Brazil.

My fave songs of the year.

A Certain Ratio: Shack Up. Let's start with something from 40 years ago. ACR were the best band at Rockaway Beach, bringing the party, the funk, the whistles. Of course, because all modern (6)Music is post-punk, this sounds like something released this May.

KVB: Unite. The second best band at Rockaway Beach: girl-boy synth-goth.

LIFE: Friends Without Names. The fourth best band in Hull go all moody 'n' melodic, like the autumnal sun setting behind the bridge in Hessle. I really miss yer.

The Lazy Eyes: Fuzz Jam. Funky, dreamy, rockin'. I want it all to be OK. I want it all to stay the same.

Wet Leg: Ur Mum. The Wetties continue their world domination with another single from their debut LP. It's almost kinda impossible for me to love them now that they're used as incidental music between TV programmes and are mentioned favourably on soap operas, but I still do.

Thank: Dread. I often hear a song on the radio and think: what the heck is this? before looking it up on the 6Music website and then never hearing from them again. This tale of renting horror is full of creeping basslines, spanking, spiky guitars, and incendiary shouted statements. And a saxophone.

She Drew The Gun: Behave Myself. I loved 2019's Something For The Pain and I love this one - about the power of misbehaving - too.

Nation of Language: This Fractured Mind. Synthpop-a-go-go.

Automatic: Strange Conversations. More moody dreampop. I go out, I go out, I go out on a Tuesday.

Nick Cave: Get Ready for Love. I've never liked Nick Cave, I thought he was an aged misogynistic goth singing about murdering women. Then I saw him at Primavera Porto and this upbeat slice of Cramps-y gospel-pop changed my mind.

Little Simz: Introvert. The best performer at Primavera.

Dry Cleaning: Strong Feelings. Another great Primavera performance, with the entertaining contrast between the static goth singer (she very much makes me think of the murderous Merricat from We Have Always Lived In the Castle) and the ebullient, metal face making guitarist. Spent £17 on mushrooms for you

Jungle: Good Times. I thought this song was recorded in 1975 in Detroit or Chicago, but nope, it's from this year from London.

Lande Hekt: Gay Space Cadets. This song has arrived here on a space ship from 1988. I'd be surprised if Miss Lande hasn't got some Motorcycle Boy or A.C. Marias in her record collection. I'm not that fuckin' stupid.

Gorillaz feat. Thundercat: Cracker Island. Usually I avoid anything Damon Albarn is involved with but I like this slab of electro-pop.

Special Interest: Herman's House. Really liked this punk-funk whoop-whoop song.

Morrissey: Trouble Loves Me. This song is not about being ill, it but just as when I was 15, Moz's lyrics seemed to be all about me: Just when it seemed like everything's evened out and the balance seems serene - trouble loves me.

Archie Bell and the Drells: Tighten Up. On a day at my lowest ebb, this came on the radio and I managed a shimmy around the kitchen to it and everything felt OK. I challenge you to listen and not want to dance.

Pigs x7 feat. The Lovely Eggs: Hot Stuff. I really dislike Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, but I really love The Lovely Eggs. Turns out when you put them together, they make a sleazy, hysterical version of the disco classic.

Deadletter: Binge. There are an inordinate amount of bands made up of athleisurewear wearing northern lads with a 'tude somewhere between Ian Brown and Mark E but I really dug this one.
Wants!
Needs!
Hopes!
Dreams!
Life's a binge!

Spotify link: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1HkbjKOgwcUJ0jqoTGsiEn?si=f47fda3958cf48f9
Also includes an in memoriam section: Roni Spector, Cathal Coughlan, Mimi Parker

I've always thought that if i had a serious illness, I'd do malicious and vindictive things that I wouldn't dare do in normal times, like acquiring a cattle prod and using it to get through crowds, emailing one specific person to tell her she's a self-righteous hypocrite and my life was made immeasurably better when she moved away, or dropping heavy objects on the bonnets of cars that park outside our house and play loud music or idle their engines. On the less malevolent side, I thought it'd be nice to go to places I've never been (Not Disneyland).

But when you're ill, your purview becomes a lot narrower. I just want to be better, I want to be well, that is all I want. Oh and to see the sea.

Hospitals are like airports, with the same personnel. At the top of the hierarchy is the consultant (the pilot), then the drs and surgeons are the co-pilots, the admin staff the air traffic controllers, the porters the luggage guys. And the nurses are of course the cabin crew, who look after you and bring you food and drink and are nice or indifferent according to their whims and personalities. You're waiting around for hours, no-one gives you any information and things don't happen when they're supposed to.

Talking of admin staff, the hospital care has been very good but the administration is fairly hopeless. I ws given an appointment for bank holiday Monday by phone, but received no confirmation letter. At one of my out patients appointments i queried this and was told it had been requested but not booked but I should still turn up. I didn't want to schlepp to the hospital on a bank holiday only to find out there was no appointment, so I called my support worker. She confirmed that it was happening, only to ring back 15 mins later to tell me that the relevant department claimed it had never been booked and of course it wouldn't be booked for a bank holiday and it was ridiculous to suggest it had been. I mean. Come on.

However, this is kind of a good thing that you have to keep advocating for yourself. It's very easy just to be ill, to be passive and dependent. When I was in hospital having fluid drained, a nurse asked David if i'd finished with my dinner plates, as if i couldn't answer myself.

That said, I bless the memory of the OG socialist Nye Bevan and the 1945 Labour government who made it possible for me to have all this treatment without going bankrupt or having to cook meth (I'm sure I'd be very bad at that).
"I would rather be kept alive in the efficient if cold altruism of a large hospital than expire in a gush of warm sympathy in a small one."

I'm not jealous of other people going about their normal lives, but i am jealous of my younger self - by which I mean me before 18th July, which is when I started to feel ill. I look at my Facebook photos from, like, June and think: that poor innocent ~~girl~~ middle aged woman.

Also re: Facebook, I look at my FB memories most days to see what I was doing on this day in history (back to 2008 anyway). At the beginning I used FB more like twitter to make funny/moany/dumb comments. One thing I wrote was: "i wish i was an invalid, lying on the chaise longue, being exhorted to "try a little something", Yep that's the life for me." Be careful what you wish for seems to be the maxim here.

One thing a nurse said to me that resonated was that it's often harder for those who've never been ill to come to terms with cancer. I had the usual childbhood things and I've had colds and migraines and sciatica and Covid, but I've never been ill-ill. The last time I had to stay in bed for more than a day was Xmas 1998 when I had a chest infection. I've always prided myself on my tough immune system. No longer.

It's weird who gets in touch with you and who doesn't. I 've received lovely messages from people i haven't spoken to for years and invitations to go recuperate in Melbourne, Kenya, Wiltshire. One friend even offered to pay for me and Dave to go on holiday! But then people who you consider close friends don't say anything, including those who have been ill themselves and know what it's like. I'm trying to focus on the positives though (apart from when I don't want to).

Speaking of positives, i now get free prescriptions and will be able to access free massage, shiatsu or aromatherapy. I told my mother this (not the world's cheeriest person) and she said: "Well I'm sure you'd rather pay for those things and not have cancer." Touché, mother, touché.

Last time we went to Porto, it rained for a week. On touching down, it's drizzling and it seems like history is repeating itself as we wander round the streets of Matosinhos admiring the art and eating veggie food at Ginger. Last time I was here there was one vegetarian cafe, which was more of an anarchist drop-in centre that also did food, now there are three just in Matos.

We are staying behind the sealife centre in a tiny bungalow (or casa de praia as I prefer) opposite the Castle of Cheese, a fort you can visit for the bargain price of 40p and which looks nothing like cheese, unless you'd forgotten about something in the fridge for a long time. A group of oldsters pulls up in a minbus outside the sealife centre, which has disappeared by the time we get back - do penguins feed on pensioners? * Thursday is bright and hot and we wander the back streets of Matosinhos, which is all fish restaurants and heavily tiled buildings. There is a market selling cheese, tripas (not tripe, but filled biscuits), waffles, weird dolls. There is an impressive church, called Bom Jesus because all churches are called that in Portugal. Matos is trying to be a separate place with its own street signage (and explanations of who they're named for - some of them (the Portuguese equivalent of conquistadors) probably need to be cancelled). There's also a photo booth where you can take pics of yourself and local scenes and we are forced into it by a tiny, voluble Portuguese man. I'd forgotten how small the Portuguese are - I loom over them like a great Dane. We find a) a veggie restaurant on a tree lined avenida and b) a craft beer place, which doesn't open til 4 so we're standing outside, noses pressed against the glass like an English tourist in Spain waiting for a restaurant to commence the evening service. I drink 2 halves and then have a headache for the rest of the weekend, precluding any more drinking, which is - as Larkin said - not the place's fault, but my middle aged hormones, or lack thereof. The festival is a lot smaller than Primavera Barcelona and it has also grass! Free stuff to claim! Wooded bits! Beanbags to sit on and let Stella Donnolly's music waft over. The first band we watch properly is the Unbreakable Kimmy Gordon, whose music I'm not that into but she's a performer and a half. The woman is almost 70 but she looks 45 and stomps around the stage like someone even younger than that in her silver boots and shades. Quelle senhora. Later we watch Nick Cave. I have never really been into the wailing goth singing about murdering women, but when he strides onto the stage to the gospel-soul sounds of Get Ready For Love, I am smitten, even more so with I Need You, a song about a woman leaving him, but I wonder if it's about his son who died. His intonation: just breathe, just breathe just breathe just breathe just breathe could be about someone trying to get through grief or it could be someone willing someone else to live. We wander off to take a look at Black Midi and then wander back again and Nick is doing Ship Song, a big old romantic ballad that I do love.

* It's Portugal Day so everyone is on the beach and there are helicopters and assorted planes flying over. I'm not sure Portugal has ever been involved in a war of the air, but so be it. Having gone north yesterday we go south today to Foz, the Broadstairs to Matos's Ramsgate and look at the Atlantic bashing itself against the beach. None of the locals, apart from a few hardy surfers, are in the sea. The warning flags fly perpetually red. The seafront is lovely though: a lighthouse, ice cream cone streetlamps, vanilla ice coloured promenade architecture, a cafe called Tavi, where the food is only OK but we sit just inside near the balcony, out of the wind but with a lovely seaview. It's great when we leave the holiday complex in the morning and (as well as the main road) the first thing you see is the sea. There is an obelisk amongst the rocks, potentially a monument to shipwrecked sailors and a sign showing the spot where some pagan knights converted to Christianity after witnessing a miracle. These old timey knights and barons and whatnot seemed very easily converted, it almost seems like they wanted to go with the prevailing orthodoxy and just waited for a convenient coincidence to come along. Festival fashion: Out - Four things t-shirts, plastic daisy crowns, In - ironic slogan t-shirts ("Record collecting ruined my life" "Tuning is not a crime"), fascinators made from actual flowers made by onsite florists. In - smoking, everyone is at it, even in the middle of a crowded front row. In - twenty-something Beanie Feldman lookalikes in square shorts. In - ugly shaved at the side haircuts which then fall to the collar like a de-gelled 1983 Howard Jones. I notice that old people wear band t-shirts and young people dress to impress. I also notice a kid without ear defenders and wonder who I should report his parents to. We lie on the grass letting Slowdive wash over us like the sea, waving at the drone flying over. Then Beach Bunny, tuneful if unoriginal indiepop, then Rena Sawayama, a popstrel with bits nicked from Ariane Grande and Beyonce's careers and lyrics about being a boss, slaying, crushing it, loving yourself and other Millennial propaganda (being a slacker Gen X is a lot easier). Rolling Blackouts run onstage enthusiastically. Aren't indie types supposed to mooch on looking sheepish? It makes sense when I realise that they're Australian and by local by-law gave their formative years to the Go Betweens and as such they now bleed Forster and piss McLennan. Two of them look like they work in a garage and I strongly feel that one of the guitarists goes surfing, so there's only the lead singer who looks like he doesn't believe the millennium ever happened (i.e. like an indie). They make a lovely pop racket and finish with their best song (as all the best bands do) and people mosh. I'm not sure anyone ever moshed to the Go Betweens.

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*
Spend the morning on the beach trying to paddle but it's too cold.

At the festival, we watch Dry Cleaning, nonchalant goths with a penchant for autofiction lyrics and looking (the lead singer at leat) like a character in a Shirley Jackson novella. Then Khruangbin whom we "watch" from behind the bleachers on a small hillock. They do a megamix medley of everything from Abba to Talking Heads. Then Dinosaur Jnr, who are more like Dinosaur Snr nowadays. Their luggage ended up in Valencia so they are borrowing instruments. I worry about the guitars getting back to their rightful owners - I hope someone's put stickers on things. They end with Freak Scene and then Just Like Heaven, which sounds...heavenly in the early evening air. One of the cleaners outside the toilets starts dancing and air-guitarring along with the music.

Last of the night is Little Simz, who with supreme (and deserved) confidence plays her hit first. She has a live band, rather than a backing track and is a massively charismatic performer: even though I only know two songs I'm quite bowled over.

We can hear the Grimes DJ set as we walk along the beachfront home and long after we've fallen asleep. DJ sets seem like a bit of a rip off. I mean, if you went to see Ian McKellen talk about his life and career and instead he just played his favourite Brahms concerto, you'd be a bit miffed, no?

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*
For the first time, we're not woken up by bands soundchecking at 9 a.m. There are bands I'd've like to have seen - Gorillaz, Tame Impala, Pavement, but all of them were on after the witching hour and I was exhausted each day by 11.30 p.m. After midnight, I start to turn into an abobora.

We get the hot tram into Central Porto and walk down the steep hill from the train station to the riverfront. I remember this road from 2012 when it was dark and lonely, now lined by cafes, brunch places, coffee shops, tourists as far as the eye can see. The buildings no longer look like they're about to fall into the Douro. I think EU money has been here. What idiots we are. We have an iced coffee and pastel de nata in a tiny cafe half way up a hill, then venture across the bridge to the rive gauche then back again to meet the others and have another (we're on us holidays) nata at a cafe that specialises in them.

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There is even a nata menu - pastel de nata and coffee, pastel de nata and port, pastel de nata and orange mocha frappuccino. We get a lovely wooden boat down the river, then up the river to see all 5 bridges and get a bit of a river breeze, then huff up the hill to a stretch of bars in the Miragaia area, which aren't that amazing but are cheap and have a westerly viewpoint so you can sit and watch the sunset with your Super Bock. We eschew this however for food, a little place found serendipitously which does a veggie set menu of bread and olives and cheese and salad and tart and with a glass of wine from the vineyard that the restaurant owns.

Walk back down the hill, clinging to the side of the wall, amusing an old lady taking the evening air. We get the bus back, which is like a London bus in reverse: double decker but you get on the wrong side, the stairs are on the other side, and it's blue. Oh and everyone wears a mask. It's made for Portuguese height, I have to dip my head as I walk along the top deck. It goes along the riverfront then makes a right turn where the river meets the sea at Foz. If only there were a river taxi/bus from central Porto to Foz, that would be amazing.

Its nice to be back in Matos with its wide streets, flat roads and the cooling ocean breeze.

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*
We go for second breakfast a.k.a Brunch at Picaba Natural cafe, a beachfront caff where I order a salad and get a toastie and an unexplained espresso, which I drink anyway. We go take a look at the park where the festival took place - the festival is still being taken down, the skeletons of the stages are still there (earlier, we saw chairs from the festival being returned to the seafront cafes) and will be for the next 6 days but the rest of the park is a shady delight, with a pine wood, very free range chickens and solitude until we come across several large schoolgroups.

Ditto when we go to Serralves - a tour of teenagers is being show around Mark Bradford's Pollock-esque work which is all about gay identity, systematic racism and the AIDS epidemic (apparently). Maybe Monday is school trip day? There is also Ana Jotta's exhibition of frightening masks that, as you approach, start talking to you in Portuguese-accented French. Creepy. Serralves is an open air sculpture park with 3 additional galleries/museums: as well as the cinema museum, the afore-mentioned Bradford/Jotta exhbitions, there is also a Miro exhibition in the Casa Rosa, an art deco ex-house. I'd've loved to know more about the house and its former occupants but the 1930s was a bit of an uncomfortable time for Portugal, perhaps they prefer to gloss over it.

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We came here before but in the rain so didn't get past the first few installations. This time we get to the farm at the bottom of the park and see some goats, although not the wine press.

We get the bus back into Miragaia, cunningly cutting off most of the hill and are queuing outside Farinha (Porto's "third best restaurant") ten minutes before it opens. Twenty minutes after it's opened and we are seated outside (next to some chatty baby- boomer Americans about to cycle to Lisbon) it's full and the waitress spends the rest of the night taking names for a list. The owner or manager sets up an impromptu bar at the wall next to the church, ferrying aperol sprtizes to waiting customers. I have a giant salad (and a smaller pistachio creme brulee, which is bruleed at the table for us) - it's nice to get some vegetables down my gullet as the festival food was mainly chips or the world's worst noodles, something Camden Town would be ashamed to sell back in 1992.

Back in Matos, we watch the egg yoke sunset melt over the castle of cheese.

Screenshot 2022-06-22 at 13-52-54 Rachel_S (@rachelinthatlondon) • Instagram photos and videos

Screenshot 2022-06-22 at 13-52-54 Rachel_S (@rachelinthatlondon) • Instagram photos and videos

When we're through security at St Pancras, I realise that our train is going to Disneyland Paris. That explains the hyped-up kids and the hen party in Micky and Minnie mouse ears. However, the kids in our carriage are well behaved and I wonder if it's not kids that I dislike but parents, specifically London parents who live in flats and small houses and let their cooped up kids run wild when they take them out, and are more likely than non-Londoners to keep hold of their previous childfree lives by taking their kids to pubs (a bugbear of mine).

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The first thing you see when you come out of Lille Europe station is a Westfield shopping centre. We might as well have stayed in Stratford! But once I've left the new(ish) buildings of Lillaeurope, and head towards the old town I realise I'm abroad! The fin de siecle buildings, the wide boulevards, the tiny strangenesses of different pedestrian crossings, street signs and car registration that tell you you're in a foreign country - even if it's entry-level abroad.

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Our hotel is just off the Place de Theatre, near la Grand Place with a view of the post office tower. We wander around the old town, past la Bourse (now housing a second hand book fair, which would be amazing if any of the books were in Anglais), the Saint Maurice church with its stained glass, new and old, the Notre Dame cathedral (commenced in 1984 and finished in 1999, hence the mish-mash of styles), the hotel de ville with its Unesco-approved art deco belfry, and the Gare De Sauveurs, an old goods yard now a bar/arts centre with une bonne terasse pour une biere. I do like new buildings but I'm also always happy to see them recycled rather than knocked down. We also pass la Pharmarcie Camus, where you can presumably get a cure for la Peste.

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There are plenty of domestic hen parties here (and even one stag party, all in red berets). I guess this is an import from England, but perhaps it is progress: when I lived in France, you'd never get groups of girls going out without men. Also everybody speaks English, perhaps because Lille is the first tourist stop on the way to Paris but perhaps also because we're in Flanders, where traditionally people spoke Flemish and English is an easier alternative to that language. I definitely hear other European tourists use English as a lingua franca - it's cheering considering the UK's current status as a European pariah. I thought there was no second language in France (apart from in Brittany and I suppose also verlan) but on the east edge people speak German and here official notices are translated into Flemish. I also notice that Easter doesn't seem to be a big thing, there are a few choccy eggs in supermarches but not the big window displays or adverts. Neither are there any billboards or political graffiti re: the upcoming election. I think Lille is just too bourgeois to get involved in tacky commerce or political machinations.

In the evening we eat at Itsy Bitsy, a very vegetarian vegetarian restaurant and have beers in Beer Market where they serve me an end of barrel which has a delicious taste of pipe cleaner fluid, so have to swap it for a new one.
*
It's Easter Sunday and I expect everything to be closed. When I lived in St Etienne in 1993/94, the only things open on Sunday were Auchan supermarket and McDonalds. But the Australian cafe we've chosen for breakfast (rather than eating at the hotel) is open, as are various other cafes. We take a Sunday morning stroll down to the market (where Stroopwaffels are purchased) and then the park and river, past the Zoo where monkeys do tightrope tricks for tourists.

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We take the train out to Baisieux and then set off for le Carrefour de l'abre, which is nothing to do with the supermarket chain, or trees, really. When I first booked this trip for July 2020 (shortly before cancelling it), we were just going to go to Lille. Then David wanted to go on the same weekend as the Paris-Roubaix one day classic (cycle race). So I rebooked it for October 2020, shortly before cancelling it again (with a little bit of relief as the weather was cold and rainy in Flanders). Paris-Roubaix was considered for April 2021 but the thought of leaving the country before we'd left lockdown seemed like madness and by October, when it actually ran, Delta was in the ascendency. But here we are. Leaving the train station we just follow the other people, who set a punishing pace and we're soon dropped as there's a breakaway and we struggle to bridge across to the remains of the piedoton, trying to get on terms. We walk through the town but then take a left on a gravelly path through a field to the Carrefour (I consider taking a short cut through the field but don't want to start an international incident). It's hot and the land is flat and un-ending, just dirt-fields, a few trees and miles of gravel and cobble.

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When we get to the Carrefour corner, Belgium has planted its flag to take the terrority and unfortunately someone has let the Italians choose the music. There are no UK flags, that would be even more embarrassing than Russian ones (we are handed two tiny Ukrainian flags to wave) but when it comes to watching it on TV later, our faces are obscured by the Finnish flags of the two Finns next to us. There is a party atmosphere: RVs, coolbags, sound-systems, picnics, beer, grown men doing a conga in the road, a carnevelo if you will, but what else are you going to do on a sunny Easter Sunday? Go to church?? We perch on a verge next to the cobbles, eat some lunch and get some genuine Paris-Roubaix tat from the caravan (an egg shaped stress-ball and a small Asterix comic). It's terrifying when the team cars go past at speed (the Ineos one has tinted windows so you can't peer in at Sir Dave Brailsford inside) and the cobbles are a mere 6 feet across,leaving me worried about cyclist crashes. I like Felippo Ganna as much as the next person but I don't want him tumbling on top of me.

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When it comes to it though, when we see the dust rising on the other side of the field and the helicopters hovering, it's like a war: he noise and dust and confusion, helicopters and vehicles and huge grim-faced dusty men moving at speed through the countryside to cheers and roars of onlookers and the rush of adrenaline. Not a conflict in Flanders fields, but like an ancient Mediaeval campaign to rid France of invaders.

We get the train back to Lille and go for the Eurostar which leave an hour late (or annoyingly 50 mina so we can't claim compensation). This time last year we left London for the first time after lockdown and all the trains were messed up. We leave the country for the first time in over 2 years and the same thing.

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millionreasons

Have collected up published writings in this other blog

December 2025

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A Million Reasons for Wanting to Carry on Living

A Life Lived Out Loud

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