Horrible Histories 2023

January is always welcome.  I think most of the reason I hate December, apart from the obvious, is the darkness, every day forward takes us deeper into the gloom, shorter days and more dreary dampness.  By the time January gets here the sheep have finished troughing and the Solstice has passed, now every day forward the days are a tiny bit longer and we’re marching towards warmer days.  Although it’s still several weeks away spring is tangible now, it feels real again.

This place of optimism is the ideal vantage point to look back at the river of shit we’ve just waded through that history will call 2023.  With the new year came old problems. Covid was still a thing but it was no longer allowed to stop the wheels of industry from turning.  The former royal known as the Ginger Prince had a book published and there were rumours he may have written it himself but whatever or whoever the sales graph rose like Covid deaths and the overall goal of keeping the whining prick in the news was achieved.  The other tainted prince AKA Randy Andy spent most of 2023 lurking in the shadows which may be sensible but it’s the last place you want to find someone with his form.

In February almost half a million people went on strike which divided opinion but I never missed an opportunity to toot the car horn, power to the posties.  The Royal Mail, once a proud and efficient public service now just another crap courier company paying shareholders while raping their staff.  Talking of sexual offence, serial nonce and inspiration behind many rhyming gags Gary Glitter was locked up again.  You never hear his songs on the radio these days, unlike Michael Jackson.

In March we were talking about Covid again or more to the point the lockdown files which no one was in a hurry to handover to the inquiry staff and provided journalists with an easy buffet for several weeks.  Also another Gary, Lineker on this occasion, had pissed of the fascist media by daring to have an opinion different to theirs.  The former footballer, spud peddler and all round nice chap then played chicken with the BBC and in one of the great sporting fairy stories, actually won.

Spring came with warmer weather, freshening greenness and Extinction Rebellion reminded us of their presence.  They pissed off a lot of people with their form of action and were widely condemned but like their mad cousins Just Stop Oil, I can’t help sympathising with them.  This adverse publicity didn’t stop the Green Party winning its first ever council here in Mid Suffolk and I hope and pray this is the just the beginning.  You may say I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one.

The big news of the spring after much head scratching and planning, a massive effort and millions of pounds culminated in a bizarre and pompous ceremony, barely changed since the dark ages, the climax was a massive piece of bling being plonked on Charlie Wing nut’s head.  Royalty, FFS just take a minute to yourself, try to comprehend the concept of royalty.  I know!  They’ve been getting away with this shit for centuries!

Now summer was upon us and the Clown DePfeffel was found guilty of being a cunt and received no kind of censure but TV golden boy Phillip Schofield certainly did.  After surviving last years queue jumping scandal the press got their revenge by accusing him of being a sex pest then a few weeks later bagged a brace by pointing their shit stained fingers at Huw Edwards.  There were certainly fires beneath the smoke surrounding these two TV stalwarts but nothing illegal was ever mentioned.

An Ashes summer should mean it dominates the sporting news for as long as the sun shines and we did get a very good drawn series but it was all squeezed into second billing behind cricket’s bastard offspring the Hundred, I mean can anybody remember who won?  Actually it wasn’t a bad year for international sport; The England women’s football team were world cup runners up behind an excellent Spanish team.  Later in the year England flopped at the 50 over world cup which was eventually won by the bloody Aussies and England’s rugby team done better than anyone expected by reaching the semi final.  We were beaten by the saffers who were the eventual winners but honestly, how did New Zealand not win the world cup?  And while I remember it was a good year for boxing, after much frustration in recent times it looks like the big heavyweight fights will finally happen in 2024.  The British heavyweight champion comes from my own home town and our football team finished the year a division higher and ended the year having won more points and scored more goals than any team in England. 

Sensible politicians spend their summers hiding in tax havens but Greenpeace tried to lure little Rishi out of hiding by climbing onto the roof of his country pile where they unfurled a banner.  Little Rishi managed to survive the year with help from governmental colleagues who deflected attention by dramatically revealing their own stupidity.  All little Rishi had to concentrate on was to avoid saying or doing anything too stupid and the fact he managed to mostly achieve this shows he’s an improvement on his predecessor.  Yup that’s all it takes these days.

Early September was unseasonably hot just when I wanted to go fishing but after the sun came the rain, rain in more rain.  In fact in East Anglia it didn’t stop raining for the rest of the year and we’ve been doused by a succession of named storms and surely the wettest period of my life time?  Another celebrity found himself in bother this autumn and it was no great surprise when the sex pest tag was hurled in Russell Brand’s direction.  There has always been something vaguely slimy about this man but it has to be pointed out that he’s been a vocal critic of the British Establishment and he has about as much chance of a fair trial as Julian Assange.

In the autumn the latest in a long line of “look at me, I’m a cunt” style Tories began her campaign to become the next party leader, taking for granted that little Rishi is a dead duck.  After a succession of foul pronouncements, the pantomime fascist Suella de Vile talked herself out of a job which is exactly what she’d been trying to do.  Little Britain has a new figurehead.

Having grown bored of Ukraine, arms manufacturers needed another shop window and obligingly the whole Israel/Palestine shit storm kicked off again.  It looks like a Hamas suicide mission turned into an Israeli genocide excuse and all manner of horror has befallen since.  In the UK and around the world there have been millions of Pro Palestine supporters marching on the streets.  A new generation has been forced to immerse itself in the troubled history of the region but still many people think saying “FFS the Israeli’s have gone way too far man!” is rampant anti-Semitism, it isn’t.   

As the year drew to a close we lost two great poets in Shane MacGowen and Benjamin Zephaniah and our latest literary sensation, the Ginger Prince was locked in a court room battle against factions of the fleet street scumbags.  I tried to tune out but I think he finished the year how he started it, name making headlines with a few more quid in the bank.  The Ginger Prince vs Fleet Street, unfortunately they can’t both lose.  The Covid inquiry was still ticking on and all the major players were hauled in for an uncomfortable grilling which made it obvious that the British government in 2020/21 were frighteningly inept and obviously corrupt.  It’s a shame nobody pointed that out at the time.  But will they actually get punished?

So, 2024.  What do we have to look forward to? An election in which the Establishment friendly version of the Labour party should win in order to maintain the illusion of democracy.  If Labour wins it won’t be because they’re any fucking use but because the Tory corruption is so transparent even their own supporters are embarrassed.  This should be the end of the Etonians for a while but it’s worth remembering that their grandfathers genuinely believed they were genetically superior to the rest of us, we can’t take our eyes off them.  But wouldn’t it be good if people actually realised this two party face off is nothing more than theatre designed to distract and make us fight each other.  I like to think the generation coming through are smarter than we are and have sussed out that nothing will change if we keep voting for the same old shit.

But apart from that and aside from the wars, famine and poverty that are ever presents of the twenty first century there is still loads of good stuff to do.  Most of this good stuff is seldom mentioned in the news, outside of a two minute slot before the weather at least.  Test cricket starts again in a few weeks, five tests in India and by the time that’s done it will be March and we’ll be able to smell spring. Later on in the year we have home test series against Pakistan and Sri Lanka as well as the arbitrary pyjama cricket.  With longer warmer days the colour will return to the countryside again, time and space to keep doing the things that we love, the things that really bring meaning and happiness to our lives.