Goodbye 2024: not such a bad year after all

Dare I say it but the last twelve months were… okay?

It has become something of a recent habit, each December, to utter some thankful prayer to our chosen deity, spiritual or secular, that we’ve made it through another annus horribilis. Sure, we thought 2019 was bad but then came 2020. Still bookmarked in my now dormant Twitter/X account (RIP Twitter which died a spiritual death this year) is this tweet by Jon Snow on 1 January that year.

“Brave New Year!” he gushed. “It’s going to be a brilliant year! Can’t explain why - but for some reason I am convinced!”

That “brilliant year” involved most of us staying indoors and washing out kumquats in bleach as scientists rushed to give Right Said Fred more reasons to fear mobile phone masts.