We have in fact, regressed

(read time: a magnificent sausage roll, and disappointingly warm bottle of Coke Zero)

I finally have to concede that the C-Word is here… Christmas… though, while I am considering lighting and decorative strategies, I have already had to turn the radio off as I am not ready for Mariah, Buble, or Slade just yet. Knowing there’s another 20 days of this to come, I will resist embracing this level of merriment for a while longer yet. And while Christmas is certainly not approaching any faster, it is certainly arriving sooner (unless there’s been a calendar change that I don’t know about) than the torture of Auld Lang Syne, the New Year and all the new hope that the next year has to offer – which will all be VERY exciting, I am sure.

I know that a lot of people use this as a great time to reflect on the what, why, how, where, and what’s next. And to all of those who do and will, make sure it’s productive thought and bringing you closer to where you want to be and doing what you want to do, either individually or collectively. Or, you might be like me, and be fearing the fact that while the holidays are amazing, they are gone in the blink of an eye, in the flash of a cheap brightly coloured LED’s, shots from the shot-ski (yes, I have one, and love it, in fact it hangs right over my desk for when things get too much on a Monday morning), or as quickly as the cash from our bank balances which we’ll only really understand when we sit and review the cost of this years excesses.

This year will certainly be different in terms of expenditure. While I am not close to the big man himself (Santa, not god), I have heard from multiple people in the Christmas supply chain, and they’ve all said the same… it’s not going to pop like it has before. Apparently the tsunami of food deliveries isn’t coming like it has before, it’s not even on the horizon yet, and should we be surprised? Not really given our economic circumstances – but since the supermarkets and suppliers will all be basing their supply and stocks on demand predictions through their algorithms, might they just have it wrong? Perhaps, but not if the mail carriers are right, as they’re equally not seeing the bulging sacks (ours, not Santa’s) full of presents we’ve been buying for others, yet. Let’s see how this all pans out! Either way, I am ready to down tools, alongside everyone else and take a good look at the inside of my eyelids in front of the fire, not looking at some crap tv while eating a pile of leftovers, that should see me well in to 2026.

But while 2025 is drawing to a close (nee careering out of the door like a lunatic with their hair on fire and a chainsaw in their hands – or is that just Rachel Reeves leaving parliament heading for the Labour Party Christmas shindig?) that I am putting out a blog that actually began in spring 2022… a good 3.5 years ago, yet I just found it in my drafts, it having evidently not made it past my ‘what’s your point caller?’ test at the end of any blog session. I know some of my gabbles do take time to put together but this has certainly sat on the desk for too long. Frankly I forgot all about it, and the problem and defacto thing about time, is that things change, so may not be relevant in 3.5 years time. So as I begin my refurbishment, recycling this blog, it is interesting how little the world has moved forwards, and how a little tale I was telling back then just made me smile and has made it back to the front of the publishing queue. (Oh yes, you only get the highlights… there’s a myriad of paragraphs buried in my drafts folder that may in time see the light of day) So, before reading the next few paragraphs, you should go into one of those Scooby Doo ‘wobbly screen’ moments and go back in time… back to a not so different time, spring 2022 (with some small qualifications from today)….

‘It has, once again, been a while [since a blog]. Ahhhhh… a big sigh.

But the world has just about kept spinning in the interim period, and perhaps demonstrated that just when we thought it couldn’t become more bonkers here on planet earth, and in particular the good ship USS Great Britain, it surely has. With exception to a minor proportion of the population, COVID has to all intents and purposes disappeared from the USS Great Britain, and many have resumed the perhaps customary practice of licking door handles and kissing passers by to build up our immune systems once again. Perhaps it now seems something of a distant memory, like your first driving test. A clearly significant and in many cases tragic and traumatic event, but now the most talked about event of the last 50 years has already become barely relevant to any part of our day to day life.

But then, just when we thought we were back to normal, Mr Putin seizes his moment for the latest chapter of his tenure as the supreme overlord of Russia, it’s politics and foreign policy. Utter genius – and punchline timing that is only rivalled by the master that is Billy Connolly! (Not that Billy is anything other than a comedy genius and clearly one of the nicest men on the planet – quite far removed from Vladimir) One can only admire the stoicism of the Ukrainian people and Mr Zelezny in particular. David and Goliath all over again… and once again, David, with some help from his friends, is doing a bloody good job in proving that just because you’re big, doesn’t mean you are mighty. While I am sure that Vladimir would not love my commentary, fortunately I have never had, nor do I expect to have any desire to go Russia… or fly on one of their aircraft ever again. If there’s one at the gate, I’m not getting on it, regardless of where I am or am supposed to be going to. I’ve done a Tupolev twice – never, ever again!

As for sport, Manchester United continue to implode like a bizarre cosmic event (2025; 2 years on from this comment, is there just a glimmer of something happening? Not if the last 2 games are anything to go by…. urgggh), and the circus that is Formula 1 becomes more and more of an American box office money printing farcical sitcom thinly disguised as a sport. The new cars clearly make the racing more interesting, but are the size of a house and look like the back end of a bus… but the novelty of a two hundred mile per hour race car having more bounce than Tigger on a particularly lively batch of narcotics, is amusing if nothing else (2025; I know there’s less of this, but it’s still there! Ask Lando when this years title has been decided on Sunday). But why three races in the US, opening ceremonies and endless hours of coverage trying to convince us that this really is the pinnacle of sport? I know why, and I don’t like it. Again, they have succeeded in making the farce off track more interesting than the racing on it. For me, MotoGP (2025; though now doomed as the same bunch who own F1 have bought it!), British Superbikes and the bi-annual (2025; now 5 yearly as I am not racing him again until he’s weighing the same as me) karting face off between me and my racing snake nephew remain the real pinnacle of motorsport…

Economically I believe that we’re at the beginning of what can only be described as an utter ‘sh!t-show’. If offence is taken, I apologise, but hear me when I say that ‘sh!t-show’ will be in a future release of the Oxford Dictionary to describe ‘the fiscal and socio-economic events of the mid-2020’s’. Where politicians are becoming increasingly robust to criticism (and even breaking the law (2025; sorry to all those of you who were caught!)) and the opposition leaders (never mind back bench mp’s) frankly couldn’t win a game of pin the tail on the donkey while wearing a blindfold made of cling film. Politically we’ll continue to exist in a big dollop of vanilla politics for the foreseeable (2025; though who saw Farage’s return coming… or Donald V2.0!). And really, aside from the passionate few, few seem to care what’s really underneath – other than perhaps voting for a change of leadership because we can, as we’re all totally confused as to what difference anything actually makes. I predict massive societal unrest, and a drive for change, that will culminate in spectacular headlines and a minor course deviation as we skirt the iceberg, before carrying on as normal when the price of energy, food and crucially TV subscriptions finally stop increasing faster than my late fathers blood pressure would be if he were reading this (he worried greatly about my blog!).

Which brings me nicely to free speech and that Twitter is now worth 4 times the GDP of the entire world. I despair. Log out of Faceache, Tw@er, Instaboast and DeLinked, stop reading this blog and go and do something, talk to someone, give them a hug. Look into their eyes, ask them how they are, and have a dose of real life.

But all is not lost.

You see last week… something happened that moved me. There’s a substantial risk that you won’t believe this story, or not see the relevance… but it’s true, it happened and I took from it what I took (as well as a photo!). While sat at an outdoor table having a rather nice coffee, a Robin flew down and landed on the menu holder, before jumping on to the table. It kindly paused for a photo… before hopping onto the rim of my glass, no more than 50 centimetres from my face. It then looked at me squarely in the face… looking me up and down, before turning and looking at the sky, looking at me once again and then flying off.

Whether this was purely coincidence or not, I don’t care. This was a very special moment… where another species had found me, and was communicating with me in whatever way it was, saying whatever it was saying. I have my own view on what and why that may not be popular or barely believable, so this will remain with me. But certainly, this was a special moment and a reminder of what’s really important right now.’

And so back to December 2025. (….wobbly screen moment…)

Clearly, on reflection, my musings on Russia were why this particular bloggage never made it to me pressing ‘publish’. (There is quite an adrenaline rush each time… trust me!) And I will concede that I have ‘toned this down’ a shade. But the rest, swearing on my life and everyone else’s life, even those who I only remotely like, is, as was. Either I’m a genius, or the world doesn’t actually change that much. Ok, it’s the latter!

Interestingly though, my engagement with the Robin wasn’t my only close encounter with nature in 2022. The other took place during the Raid Alps, cycling across from Geneva to Nice, the finest week on a bicycle I have ever and will ever spend. It was on the climb of the Col D’Iseran, following another rather fantastic coffee and croissant stop in the sunshine in Val D’Isere, while approaching the top of the climb I stopped to admire the view back down towards D’Isere, and a butterfly chose to land on my finger, and once again hung around long enough for a photograph.

The fact that both events occurred within 4 months made them even more impressive and personal, and made me even more convinced about what to take from both. And I am sure that this latest encounter was nothing to do with the handful of jelly babies in my hands – absolutely not! Equally, to put your mind at rest, I am well aware that I am not the modern day Dr Dolittle, and since nothing similar has happened since, I am sure these were important messages that I needed to receive at the time.

I am a big believer that ‘everything happens for a reason’, and it’s what you take from any event, or chain of events that really matters.

And so, this reflection takes me back to the now widespread practice of licking door handles (or how you certainly don’t want to) and crucially how on the back of COVID, all of the lessons were collectively learned when it came to ‘hygiene’ have not so much been forgotten, but we have actually gone backwards.  Bear with me here… though trust me, next time you’re out and about, you’ll notice that I am indeed right.

Remember our brief obsession, nee addiction with hand sanitiser? That seemed to make VERY good sense to me, and I still think it does. But go to a public venue, or even a business conference where shaking hands is more ‘customary’ than pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, and you will find hand sanitiser is rarer than Unicorn’s eating said pancakes. I don’t understand why the business community, with people flying from all over the world on a regular basis, don’t seem to care – weird! Even McDonalds have given up on hand sanitiser, a place where eating with your hands is part of the gig, surely you’ve got to protect the utensils, or at least provide everyone with the opportunity to have clean utensils, and washing your hands in the facilities makes sense, but is not without peril, more below. Natural selection can decide how this goes, and having used some of their toilets, I’d be bathing in their hand sanitiser before picking up my BigMac… because in general, and certainly pubs in particular, we’ve gone backwards. Perhaps the mens toilets are not a good example of anything other than how not to do things, and it’s certainly a good example of how people are not washing their hands. (Ladies, I am sorry for what follows) As the mens urinals are all ‘open’, it is blatantly obvious when anyone comes in, or leaves. And so it is also painfully obvious when they have not used a hand dryer, or even more painful when they went nowhere near the sink, and then use the same door handle that you’ve got to use to get out.

There are many tactics that you can adopt to deal with this. The ‘little finger-door pull’ (to minimise exposure, using only the least used digit). The ‘foot in the door’ just before it closes (mitigating needing to touch anything – but hanging around the gents waiting for someone else to use the door may raise concern for you and others). The ‘jumper sleeve’ over your hands so bacteria ends up on your clothes (but do you really want to carry ‘sweaty Dave’s’ bacteria around with you all day?). Or trying to find a part of the door handle that no-one else could have touched (always good fun and an opportunity for creativity!). It simply did not used to be this bad, and as face masks, jabs and hand sanitiser disappeared, so did long standing hygiene tactics that have served is well for years. Ladies, with your cubicles this is probably more difficult to observe… but I am intrigued whether it really is just testosterone fuelled madness, or a broader trend of laziness and complacency.

I do have some sympathy though…

There are occasions where I am convinced that public facilities taps are carrying more bacteria than anything else you may need to touch on your night out (your kebab for the bus home aside). And I don’t think I would be alone in saying that public facilities are, in general, a bloody disgrace. I genuinely don’t believe the providers of these facilities want or expect us to use them, otherwise they wouldn’t be left in a condition more akin to a World War One trench. I have been in many facilities that I think may carry an similar risk of trench foot, or other potential infections that those brave souls in WW1 faced (I know this isn’t true and I would never belittle what they went through, or what they gave for us. We will remember!). The absolute worst of all facilities are those upstairs in the Punch & Judy, in Covent Garden. It breaks my heart every time I go, as this is a very special place for me, and a pint costs more than the GDP of Belize, so don’t tell me you can’t afford to have decent facilities. Moreover, there are, very widely available today, truly excellent hand drying technologies and equally some very nice flavoured hand washes (I don’t suggest consuming them) that might all encourage the average punter to ‘wash their hands’ after ‘doing their business’, rather than having to dry their hands on their trousers, if they bother at all.

And so back to taking things away from your experiences, I do have to ask what we actually took from COVID… many things, I am sure… but on the hygiene front, I would offer that we actually took bugger all…

Or more precisely, we have in fact, regressed.