Man of the week for me was
Mark Rutte, NATO’s secretary general, who named the fear to say Putin will make war on Europe and we should get our heads around it now -shortages, cold, bombs, disruption. File this under “prepare for the worst and hope for the best” which is a good way to live
I wish I could send cards
to everyone I wanted to but it is expensive, impractical and unrealistic. So here, for the record, are things in my stockings filed under what I want: what I don’t want: and what I wish for, denoted w, dw and wh.
I wish I could thank you all for staying with me this troubled year (w). I wish I could thank every journalist, writer and presenter who has given me pleasure – quite a lot, hooray (w). But you can’t get to them, even if you could fork out for the postage. I would ban, blow up or otherwise disable social media (w) which I regard as the Other’s War on the west,..However it came about – oh the hubris of humankind.
I’d like us all to do a bit more towards every kind of peace up
to and including world peace (w)and I would like to be out of pain (w). I would like to send a group card (w) to my local Waitrose – a shop staffed by kind professionals, a credit to the race.
Christmas brings out the competitive – the best food and drink, clothes, gifts, party, guest list, decorations – like the eleven plus with holly. I would ban the word “perfect” in this context.
(w) My Christmas is mine, about the past (both glowing and grim memories) but it couldn’t have started better. I hope in the smiling anterooms of another world that my parents know how much I appreciate their love, the food they gave me, the wonderful simple memories they created for years (w). I remember my son’s second Christmas and the smallest blue jeans on the planet.
Of course there is wish fulfilment at Christmas – there is leave, to go and meet (w), there is warmth and nourishment and colour and light and extra ordinary patience – with this one’s indigestion and that one’s paddy. But I w ill do it my way, not your way, and I’d encourage people to read everything they could about the origins of Christmas and the stories that have built up around it (w) – sure, they are stories. A Russian proverb says “A story is more powerful than the Tsar.”
Let’s hope ours, acted on, believed in and committed to, will be more powerful than Putin (w).
Forget endless food of no value overloaded with fat and sugar and heaven knows what else (dw) Only those catering to extended groups need food on this scale (dw) You make a selection from the trimmings the children adore – they are unnecessarily expensive unless they mean something to you (dw). I have unscented candles 365 days of the year (w) though I was tempted to one in a dark red glass container, scented with things I liked . But I don’t need it.
For the first time for ages, I saw a coat I liked (w), a bracelet I liked (w) and a tempting lip gloss (w) . A person can dream. All three of these could be countersigned as wishes (wh). I don’t need them and can’t afford them but it was lovely to see something I really liked, to have an innocent yearning for something that pleased my eye.
I wish(wh) to keep my temper better – I have lost it twice recently with twits. Yes that is a value judgement. Trimmed with your best baubles, a twit is a twit. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if people reinvested in basic courtesies and good manners , realizing that this is the hallmark of power and maturity, not necessarily weakness and evasion (wh). It’s all in the tone. Whoever is next in power, I hope they can communicate better than over the last many years (wh). It’s a learned skill, it should be mandatory in public life to learn it. Make war on dumped rubbish, large or small, get some of the bright directionless young to do something about it (wh) Believe in commonsense (wh), smile more often than frown (wh) and understand that this world is the only one we have and cherish it (heartfelt).
Annalog 