Well…this years been a fun one hasnt it? Honestly; i've been kind of reluctant towards writing what is quickly becoming my version of The annual 'Kings Christmas Speech'. Usually writing these is a kind of cathartic release, a way of sitting down, taking stock of the good and the bad from across the year, summing up my feelings on where I am now and what i'd like the next 12 months to hold…I usually try to be optimistic, but realistic about circumstances…But this year?..Well; honestly its probably been the worst year i've had in a VERY long time, and continues a somewhat worrying trend of each progressive year being either worse than the last, or neutral.
Because so much has happened this year, and because i've only really talked in dribs and drabs about it across multiple different social media sites. Im hoping that in writing this years blog, i'll now have a single place I can refer people to in trying to explain exactly whats been going on with me for the last year, and equally; im hoping this will draw a line under everything so that I don't really have to explain 12 months of lore to people who've been asking me 'where I went to' or 'How come i've not done any new reviews recently'?
So kicking things off, around the time I was writing last years 'end of year' blog, I had just come off the back of a huge recording session for episodes of the show that made up season 13. And; as has generally been the case previously when I'd sit and record 8 scripts, non stop, back to back, over a 2 day window. I had a bit of a sore throat. This was actually kind of normal given the amount of recording i'd do in a single sitting, but heres the kicker; about a week after my last script recording…My throat was still sore…and if anything, getting worse.
Being a big dumb idiot bloke, I assumed i'd maybe just picked up a cold from somewhere and that my already raw throat was just experiencing amplified pain as a result of it…but 3 weeks after THAT not only had I realised that it wasnt a bug, but i'd gotten to the point where I could only softly talk for about 5-10 minutes conversationally, or sing or speak at room level for between 2-5 minutes before i'd be in such tremendous pain that I had to basically go mute for up to 2 days in order to just about recover back to the point where I could speak softly for 5-10 minutes again.
After a while (and my partner nagging me to go and get seen because my moaning was annoying her) I went to the doctors who, within 2 minutes of seeing me, diagnosed me with having a throat infection. They put me on antibiotics for a week, I took them, felt a little bit better, and booked in a follow up appointment to say 'they worked a little bit…but not really'. So they gave me another weeks worth. I took those, they did nothing.
A week or so after completing that round, my throat got significantly worse…It turned out that on top of the throat pain, I now ACTUALLY DID have a throat infection, it was so bad I ended up at the hospital, where they gave me some significantly stronger antibiotics and wrote a note to my doctors asking them to investigate further.
I went back to my local doctors again about 2 weeks after that incident and this time they changed tact. Telling me I'd got oral thrush and THAT was why my throat was sore. So they gave me some anti thrush medication. That LITERALLY did nothing, but they were adamant I 100% had oral thrush and couldnt be budged on it, so they gave me a stronger version of the thrush medication. I took it, it did NOTHING. I went back again, and rather than them try something different, they doubled down AGAIN on the thrush diagnosis, instead telling me that because Im fat, I must be diabetic and thats why I couldnt get rid of the thrush. I told them I absolutely wasnt diabetic as my partner IS diabetic and she checks my blood sugars semi regularly (because when you've been in a relationship for 12 years…it helps to pass the time) which have always been a *tiny* bit elevated, but well within safe levels, if not pretty bang on.
Still, they insisted I HAD to have diabetus. There was literally just no other explanation (bearing in mind, I went in for a chronically bad sore throat) So…because they wouldnt budge. I took their blood test, waited another week or two, got the results back, my blood sugars were perfect. And the doctor I was assigned basically washed his hands of me. No further testing, no further explanation. He was literally just like; "Your not diabetic, you DEFINITELY have thrush, the medication isnt helping…I don't know what to do with you…if it gets any worse than it is now…call back in, otherwise you're just going to have to live with it." Which…y'know…great job there NHS…
I left things for about a fortnight after that before ending up back at the hospital again for more industrial strength anti biotics for the throat, when I told them the thrush incident they checked me out and told me that they thought it just looked like something called 'Geographic Tongue' and advised I go back to them again, they also wrote another note basically saying 'Dear mr. doctor…YOU'RE A DOCTOR…dont fucking abandon your patient just because the results you wanted didnt magically turn up'.
A week or two after that I went back AGAIN, I was given a different doctor, this one wanted to put me on antibiotics again, By this point i'd probably been dealing with this issue collectively for about 4-5 months it was coming into spring. I'd been on antibiotics or thrush medication of one kind of another for over 2 months at this point. And when this lot didnt work, I went back again and basically said bluntly 'I've now had over 6 different courses of antibiotics. Non of them have worked. Other than checking my throat with a torch, I havent properly been investigated by ANYONE. Could I maybe please be investigated a little more thoroughly, because im concerned about antibiotic resistance. And I don't believe this is the only treatment for a chronic sore throat.'
By this point, I was pretty solidly convinced I had chronic tonsilitis, or tonsil stones and that, basically I needed my tonsils out if I was going to see any kind of improvement. The doctors eventually relented. And booked me in for an appointment with the Ear, nose and throat specialists at the hospital…with a 2 month wait…and in that waiting period, they wouldnt prescribe me anything. They instead advised a throat numbing spray as a temporary workaround…which did kind of work…but that then created the problem that I could talk for longer, but my recovery time was STUPIDLY longer…if I talked for 15 minutes and felt fine on the spray, it'd be a week before I could talk again.
So…I waited, and I was finally seen by ENT. Who told me they were going to 'scope' me (basically a long thin camera was going up my nose and down the back of my throat) I later found out that in the states they anaesthetise you before they do that because of the discomfort it can cause…Not in the UK! Over here I was just told to breath very slowly and while they didnt advise closing your eyes, I found it kind of essential to keeping calm. Y'see, if you don't keep calm and breath slowly and deeply, your body suddenly realises theres a foot long camera LITERALLY half way down your oesophagus and decides it doesnt like that, in short…choking, contractions, and in some cases vomiting.
I will say this, it isnt painful, it does feel weird though…kind of like you've got phlegm at the back of your throat thats slowly dripping down, but you cant cough to clear it, unpleasant, but not painful. I luckily managed to get through my scoping with no major issues, right up until literally the point where the nurse pulled the scope out at the very very end. She was slowly retracting it, and it must have hit my uvula or something, because It triggered my gag reflex, and THEN my body realised 'oh shit! Theres something in his throat!' Which led to contractions and retching. But all that was over a 2 second window as the nurse basically yanked the camera out of my face to get it gone ASAP.
Anyway, she told me the results would be in in about a fortnight or so and to call the doctors to get the results…so I waited…2 weeks passed, I called up…No results…I waited to 4 weeks, called again, no results…I waited to 6 weeks. Called again, no results…at 7 weeks I booked in another appointment with my doctor because nothing had come back. He told me this definitely wasnt right and called the hospital to chase…10 weeks after the scope happened they FINALLY sent something through…and it said that 'because of my chronic migraine pain, an ear operation was the only answer'...these were not my results. These were someone elses…they'd messed up.My doctor called them back, they apologised and said they'd get my ACTUAL results to me asap.
4 weeks on from THAT. My results were in! I didnt have cancer!..That was it. It turns out that that was the only thing they were checking for… they didnt bother to investigate anything else from the scoping, noone at ANY point told me they were ONLY running a cancer screening. I had been led to believe they were doing this to check for a range of things. But apparently not!
They basically just came back saying 'its not cancer' and then my doctor was like 'Well…its not cancer! So…we've done everything now!' I was bereft.
I took a month off the cycle and just lived with the pain for a bit, but it was too much, and in either case I couldnt really live, because by this point my communication had basically slowed to monosylabic quiet grunts and very little else. By this point we were coming into June/July time. And I booked back in at my local surgery and had arguably the worst experience of all the visits i'd done up to this point.
At this point I was about 99% certain I was going to need my tonsils out, they were riddled with tonsil stones, swollen, I did the the thing of asking Dr. Google my symptoms and all of them aligned near perfectly with chronic tonsillitis and having now at this point been on 7-8 lots of antibiotics across an at least 6 month window, I was starting to get to the stage where I felt that a tonsillectomy could be something reasonably discussed.
The doctor I spoke to, first of all told me tonsil stones don't exist (you can google the term 'tonsil stone' and you'll find plenty of articles about them…) this guy told me they were 'calcium build up's' and said it in such a way that made me feel like I was an idiot for even BEGINNING to suggest you could get stones in your throat (I…I don't really give a shit what they're called. We were both describing the same thing.)
He told me my tonsils literally had to be black and touching for it to be 'tonsilitis', so I couldnt be in THAT much pain. Mine were a little swollen, but not THAT bad. He told me that he didnt think I had ANYTHING wrong with my tonsils/throat, he said he thought it was 'Oral Thrush'. When I told him to check my notes because, we'd already danced this dance about a month or two ago and they'd confirmed not only was it NOT oral thrush, but I definitely didnt have diabetes either. He said that his diagnosis was Oral thrush fed by diabetes, and told me he'd only be willing to give me more oral thrush medication and another blood test for diabetes.
I held my ground, arguing that I really didnt think that was appropriate and that, realistically, I wanted one more bout of antibiotics (because you have to have had 7 documented interactions with a doctor about repeated throat infections in the last 12 months, before a tonsillectomy would be discussed, and I had 6 cases.
He eventually relented, issued me with oral thrush medication, antibiotics and a blood test.
Surprise surprise, a week later, I felt as shit as ever and my blood tests confirmed ONCE AGAIN that I wasnt diabetic. I went back and saw the same doctor, who this time told me that I was basically making the throat pain up. And that 'Thrush doesnt cause that much pain.'
…im ashamed to say I lost my temper a little bit at him after that, I *politely* told him that i'd now been on antibiotics for over 6 months, id had 2 doctors tell me I had thrush, and 4 doctors (INCLUDING this doctors BOSS) tell me I definitely DIDNT have thrush. I told them I believed I needed to have my tonsils out, that i'd now met the minimum threshold to have that conversation with a specialist and that i'd like to speak to that specialist now please.
He resisted. But when I told him that i'd rather the opportunity to be told im wrong, than to risk completely destroying my immune system with an 8th or 9th batch of antibiotics (this same doctor told me that taking 1 batch of antibiotics was theoretically enough to make me immunocompromised) he eventually relented and re-referred me back into the ENT team but only on the condition I did one more week of thrush treatment. Which…I'll tell you now, did fuck all.
SO! It's now early August, i've been in horrific pain for coming up to 9 months. I've been on antibiotics for *at least* 5 of those. My ENT appointment lands, and its a week from when I spoke to the doctor, August 10th. Which is MUCH better than the 2-3 month wait i'd had previously. I head over, the first thing I say to the specialist is 'I felt a bit duped honestly, because I came to you guys in April/May time and was told I was going to be thoroughly examined, but they basically just did a cancer screening and nothing else. We now know it isnt cancer, I'd like a bit more of an involved check, because I think im going to need my tonsils out based on what i've read online'
The specialist was honestly one of the nicest doctors i'd dealt with up to this point, he apologised that things hadnt quite gone to plan, and told me he'd do a full inspection of my tonsils, nasal cavity and throat right there and then…via scope. Which…was unexpected because they normally give you a bit of prep warning…but I wasnt complaining.
He scoped me, this time it was a bit more difficult to keep my composure. But within 30 seconds of the 'scoping' beginning, he pretty much immediately identified a problem…'You have Chronic Allergic Rhinitis…I don't know how this wasnt picked up sooner.'
Yes! Boys and girls, it turns out that due to several boobs on behalf of over 10 doctors across a doctors surgery, a hospital and a specialist facility. They'd all overlooked a particularly common issue that was causing a particularly problematic side effect.
Rhinitis is basically an inflammation of the nasal cavity and throat. Sometimes theres a trigger, other times it can just be your body mis-reacting to environmental stuff. Hay fever is apparently seen as a very acute form of rhinitis. And can usually be treated and resolved within 4 weeks of antihistamine treatment.
I was diagnosed with very chronic allergic Rhinitis. Basically an extreme form of the acute side of things. Where SOMETHING either externally is irritating my sinuses, or my body is fucking up and self inflaming my nasal cavity and throat REALLY badly and causing them to swell and feel discomfort. Theres no cure for this, the specialist basically told me to try and find out what may be triggering it, but that realistically; given how long i've been dealing with it for, it could be an internal issue with my body just badly reacting to the world around me. So he prescribed me a nasal spray, told me to try it for a couple of months and see how I got on.
Within 2 weeks I could talk again at room level. Within 2 months I could hold long conversations again, and as of the time of writing, While im not 100% better, im around 90% and feeling so much better for it. I had a follow up with the doctors around the end of september/october time where they basically told me, this is a permanent thing, if I stopped taking the meds, it'd go back to being as bad as it was before, and that, how it was by the end of the year, would pretty much be how it'd be for the rest of my life. I can live with this, its manageable. But I do wonder just how much time was wasted by the 8 months of being dicked around…This is the best outcome I could have hoped for. But I regret the lost time on multiple levels.
For me personally; that was the BIG issue of the year for me, i've never been in chronic pain before…it's not fun. Would not recommend. 1 out of 10 experience honestly. But this one issue ended up being compounded by other awful awful shit that this year seemingly decided to shoot me in the face with.
In early May, right around the time my throat was at its worst and I was fresh off being 'Scoped' My grandma fell over, broke her hip and passed away in hospital due to a complication arising from an infection. That whole event happened over the space of 2 weeks in May. It devastated the family who were totally blindsided. Shit was cruel honestly. It was bordering on the surreal at times because, not only could I not mentally articulate my feelings about it, but I couldn't PHYSICALLY do anything because of my throat.
My grandma was a much loved member of the community and a devout elder of the church, her funeral was a bit like a 'who's who' of the UK christian circuit. It was a grand celebration of her life, and because I have a degree in film and worked as an editor for over 5 years. It was decided to turn her funeral into a mixed media event showcasing her life. I was put onto editing some videos for the event and organising the running order of stuff. The funeral went about as well as it could have, but understandably my mum and her brothers, even now, are still very upset about it.
That was bad enough, but then the real slug in the gut happened. Since December of 2022, my dads quality of life had slowly begun to decline…seemingly without reason. My dads health had always been shite, he had chronic COPD, they were debating putting him on oxygen for the longest time because he could never quite catch his breath and struggled with even gentle walking. He lost an eye as a kid, and in his 20s (being a big blokey bloke that he was) he shattered his kneecap and broke his leg hopping a fence on a shortcut home…and DIDNT go to get it looked at…so it healed wrong, leaving him with chronic leg pain and making him use a walking stick whenever he stood up for the rest of his life.
In the last 10-15 years, he ruptured a nerve in his back (picking up a cushion off the floor of all things) which left him in severe pain 24/7, he had 2 operations on it which were unsuccessful and resulted in permanent nerve damage and was on a cocktail of pain killers throughout that time. Add to that chronic arthritis, severe depression, PTSD and I firmly believe he was autistic and in burnout (he refused to get checked)... He wasnt a well man.
For a couple of years leading up to December, my dad had developed 2 new issues, he'd started falling over a lot, and he'd started slurring his words. My mum thought he might have had a mini stroke. By December 2022 however, the falling over had become much more commonplace, the slurring had gotten pretty bad and he'd started having random bouts of personality changes. One of the most memorable I can recall happened at christmas of last year when he was adamant there were some decorations we'd not bought down from the attic…and…SOMEHOW, he managed to climb into the attic by himself, trash the place and then got confused and couldnt get back down without help.
Anyway; we took him to the doctors on and off across early 2023, but he didnt like going and quite often just point blank refused because he thought it was a waste of time. In either case, they advised that it could be oxygen starvation effects on the brain (which reopened the 'putting him on oxygen tanks' discussion) they argued it could be early onset dementia or it could be something as simple as a urine infection.
There was a lot of words exchanged…but not a lot of action. In april 2023, my dad was really REALLY unwell, and ended up in the hospital for a few days, where they told us that it was an enflamed pancreas. they gave him some antibiotics and sent him home.
In early June, pretty much immediately after my grandmas funeral, my dads speech had more or less ground down to nothing. We'd find him on the floor more than we'd find him stood up or sat down. He looked white as a sheet and clearly wasnt all there After a particularly bad weekend, my mum made the decision to call an ambulance for him…he passed away 2 weeks later. As of the time of writing, we're still waiting to find out EXACTLY what it was that killed him, all we know at this point is he had a high level of toxins in his body and his liver was particularly damaged. The best answer we have at this time was that the painkillers he was on wernt *supposed* to be long term permanent medications as they could cause liver damage. But the doctors never checked in with him, and my dad wouldnt willingly go to the doctors for medication reviews, he also wasn't supposed to take them with alcohol, which he did irregularly.
This was both absolutely devastating and totally unexpected. I mean, his health wasnt great, but…and I say this with sincerity…he was driving 2 weeks before he ended up in hospital. He was able to have complex conversations a week before that. To see him essentially crash out over the course of a fortnight was heartbreaking. Im still lost for words on how I feel about the situation because of how unexpected it really was. Its now been over 5 months since he passed and there isnt a day that goes by where I don't think about him, where I don't miss him and wonder what he'd make of the world even so soon after he left.
Somewhat hilariously (and morbidly) 3 things happened in the space of 3 months of my dad passing that held significance for me:
*The 'Caramac' bar got discontinued (literally his favourite chocolate bar)
*Top Gear and the grand tour got cancelled (literally his favourite TV shows of all time)
*The Israel/Palestine war kicked off big time (My dad was a lifelong supporter of Palestine…I know for a fact he'd have had extra TV's wheeled in to the living room to see as much of the news as possible had he lived to see it)
I've quipped that my dad didnt want to live in a world without Jeremy Clarkson and Caramac…its dark, but you've got to find light where you can honestly.
My biggest regret through all of this was that I wasnt really able to have those final conversations with either my Dad or my Grandma, apart from the fact that both of them passed in states where conversation would have been impossible realistically. But the throat pain made even light conversation impossible. I hadnt properly spoken to my dad in months because of my throat. And while I had no baggage with either of them, things ended with no unresolved issues, I had healthy and happy relationships with both of them. I do just wish that I'd been able to not have had one more conversation with them where I didnt have to keep stopping or think very carefully about what I was saying because of how much I could talk.
Obviously; the side of this that you dear reader are likely to be aware of is the news that came out of my youtube channel around the time. That i'd lost a couple of family members and that I was struggling with throat pain, so I had to pause the channel. Initially that wasnt going to be the case. Initially the plan was to do a 'long play' on production. Write up all the scripts, record a script a week starting WAY earlier than I normally do, and the plan was that hopefully i'd have a diagnosis on the throat stuff in by May/June time. I was hoping to be be on the mend by August (bearing in mind I started planning for the September season in January) meaning I could have SOME episodes ready for September and October, AND be ready to batch record again in September/October for November/December episodes.
Then, when my grandma passed in May, I figured…'Okay. Im going to have to stop channel work for about a month. Not the end of the world, but I may have to drop a couple weeks in september ASSUMING I get a diagnosis on my throat soon'. Then when the results came back messed up, I was like 'Fuck…right…Okay, no, I can still make this work, I'll drop September completely, we'll come back in October and go straight into Halloween episodes and I'll pool the september scripts over into Feb 2024 for season 15.
Then my dad went into hospital, and a week after that the prognosis was NOT good. My throat was still like razor blades and i'd basically been told I was a lost cause by the doctors and put back on antibiotics… It began to become glaringly apparent that I absolutely wasnt going to be good for a September launch and October was looking about as unlikely too. I really wanted to make it work, but…I was at a very low point by late July. the last straw on things surprisingly was something totally unrelated.
I craved summer this year, I desperately wanted that time to sit in the garden, enjoy the heat and maybe even do some daytrips to make the most of the weather…Then we had one of the wettest, dankest, darkest summers on record. We had approximately 1 week of sunshine in a 12 week window, with the other 11 weeks were mild, grey, overcast, and around the time of my dads passing we were going through the bizarre circumstance of it being mid july with 3 'weather warning' level storms battering the UK for the better part of a month. It was tropical floods, thunder and lightning for almost the entirety of summer, you couldnt go anywhere, you couldnt do anything. It was miserable.
That was the last straw, i'd lost a lot of good people this year, my voice was fucked so I couldnt record even if I wanted to, and with the weather being SO god awful, it meant I didnt really get to do anything I wanted over the summer vacation other than sit in doors with a lot of mourning people, while I myself was mourning too. It was at that point I realised i'd basically be busting a gut, bottling up my own feelings and possibly doing myself some physical damage to try and force the show out to meet what was becoming and increasingly improbable deadline. So…I made the decision to pause the show till the new year. Both because, at the time I made the announcement I still wasnt entirely sure how long it was going to be before I got a diagnosis for the throat stuff, but also I didnt know how long recovery would take, AND I was feeling very low.
I took 3 months out from mid july, I watched some movies, tried to make the best of an awful situation…I may have done a livestream or two around this time. But that was the top end of my channel stuff. By mid to late september, my voice had started to recover thanks to the medications, and I was able to go from recording 1 script a week broken down to a page a day with several days recovery after the fact, To doing a script a day. Through september and October, I began to pick things back up again. I slowly started to record all the scripts I'd written in Feb/March that SHOULD have been for September. By the end of October, i'd recorded 12 scripts. And had started writing the last few scripts that I'd not gotten around to.
It was in late October/Early November that, after speaking with some of my fellow content creators, I decided things needed to change. The amount of content i'd been making for the channel was widely considered to be a LOT more than I needed to make. I've been running weekly uploads since 2017 and as time had gone on, more and more time was being required to make these videos, alongside all the live stream appearances, podcasts…all that good stuff. It was putting a strain on my partner who would go days without seeing me, it was putting a strain on my personal life, and it was straining my health.
So I made the decision to roll back the number of episodes I made in a year. Starting with the next season. Season 13, including the September special totalled 23 episodes, its commonplace on the channel that the Feb-July schedule is usually between 21 and 23 videos depending on how the days fall. With Sept-Dec generally being between 16 and 19 videos. Add in the (now annual) audio only CD releases which are another 7-8 audio reviews a year, and your looking at the max end of 50 reviews a year…not to mention letterboxd or having to run social media accounts like twitter, discord, insta…Its a LOT of time.
So, because my voice isnt as strong as it was, Im still really working through the deaths and for the benefit of my relationship with my partner AND helping her deal with her chronic health problems. Season 14 is currently going to run for 16 episodes. With a 17th being debated depending on how quick I work. Im not going to lie…its a big drop. But I feel like doing this is going to help keep my voice in check and give me some time back to work through things and help better support my partner. Season 15 (Sept-Dec 2024) is currently looking to run for 14 or 15 episodes, and we have an audio release planned for the summer of 7 more reviews there…bringing the total down from 50 to 38 or 39 videos for 2024. A reduction of around 11 or 12 videos…which I estimate *should* in theory give me back almost 2 months worth of afternoons and evenings across the year.
I am also hoping to bring back game streams next year. How regular they'll be I cant say for certain at this point, but im looking At Feb as being a starting point. AND im equally hoping to get back into collaborations, podcasts and appearing on other peoples streams…so if you want a weird cult film guy on your stuff. Reach out, I AM very much interested. I'll be scaling back on some of my other social media presences too, insta is probably going to be scaled down because…well, meta have screwed the pooch on this one and you now see more adverts than you do ACTUAL content on the site. so…I don't see much point there, Letterboxd has been going quite well in recent months, so im going to be continuing to write reviews on there. (seriously; if somehow you havent had enough of me, head over there. I usually manage to write 2-3 additional reviews a week at minimum on there)
Theres an official TYTD facebook page, thats been automated for years and wil continue to be so. Im basically waiting now on Bluesky adding DM's so that I can leave the hellscape of Twitter (Or, at the very least, im hoping Twitter gets bought out next year by someone who ISNT a total dickhead so I can be on there without having to see so much awfulness)
I'd like to try and continue to grow the TYTD discord server, which has been arguably one of the best things to happen to me over the last 18 months. Theres some wonderful people on there who quite honestly have been BEYOND supportive.
What else has been going on in my really fucked up bad year? Well…when we last parted ways, work was on a downward turn, I'd been part of a rather successful (but slightly imperfect) team that had just been dissolved and I was now with a first time manager, in a part of the business I didnt like, and I was being told (not asked) that my role was going to be changing and to expect a bigger workload.
12 months on, i've changed managers AGAIN, my previous manager (the first timer) is now a coworker with me in this bigger team, and things are about as shit as they've possibly been in my entire 6 years with the company. This is because, while I was on bereavement leave. The company decided that EVERYONE needs to be standardised. That means everyone needs to do the same training, everyone needs to be able to do everyone elses job (no matter how far removed it is from the ACTUAL job I do)...its a mess, my boss, my bosses boss and my bosses bosses boss are all ladder climbers, who have no interest in the staff they manage, they just want to do big changes that look good on paper, but don't work in the real world. I currently have a weeks worth of time every month wasted on stuff thats been deemed 'mandatory' even though it has ZERO relevance to my job.
I've moved from an environment where we were encouraged to speak up about 'low/no value' time killers and to have open and frank discussions with managers about ways we could improve efficiency, to a model where theres no room for discussion, no option to push back. Everything is dropped on us WAY after the fact, when its all been pre agreed and theres no way to challenge it. And if you do raise a query about how useful it is to your day to day job, you'll either be met with 'Its not fair for everyone else to do it, and not you…so do it.' (casually overlooking there that 90% of 'everyone' ALSO don't need to do it really…Or you'll get greeted with a 'Its mandatory, not doing it will get you a disciplinary or worse'...again with no context or reasoning
I've also been told in the new year that they're going to start loading me up with work Im really not keen to do because one of my co-workers is the bosses friend and he wants to ladder climb too…so they're basically going to take all his shit work, give it to me so that he can do something grandstanding. But non of that matters because theres also the VERY real possibility that I wont even HAVE a job by March/April time next year because of various ongoing company issues…Put it this way, if I go in March/April/May time…I wont be surprised…if I manage to hang on till October/November, I'll actually be kind of glad because the payout will be a bit larger.
Theres also some rumblings about me returning to the office…which is literally the worst thing I can think of right now on multiple levels that I wont go into here, mainly because it hasnt happened yet, but also because we're already 10 pages in to this blog...So yeh…works about as bad as it can be right now…not as bad as the last place I worked where my boss literally called me 'Slime' for having a union rep…but yeh…this year has not been my finest hour…its not great right now…
What else, what else…OH! My very elderly cat passed away in August after developing a neurological condition…he was 19. Very old boy…that kind of got lost in the whole 'death of my father/grandmother'/'work is literally a bag of dicks'/'I cant talk anymore' part of things…but yeh…
Politically? Not much has changed. Last year I lamented that I felt politically homeless with a tory party creeping ever closer towards outright fascism, and a labour party that was essentially promising to just 'be the tories, but one click back on the evil scale' This year? Its still much of the same, the tories are now literally just ramming through as much shit as they think they can get away with without causing an outright civil war (basically scoffing down the cookies before they're pulled away for a spanking) and Labour have somehow become more cuntish and are actually out-torying the tories on some issues.
Theres rumour swirling of a May general election next year. And at this point (as has been the case now for the last couple of years) im basically staring down the barrel of spoiling my ballot on the day unless theres a green candidate…and even then, it would depend on the green candidate…. I cant in good faith vote for any of them. The UK kind of have it easy in some regards with this upcoming election…choosing between a right wing government thats going to fuck us over or a REALLY right wing government thats REALLY going to fuck us over isnt really a complex issue.
The US by contrast is looking at Trump/Biden round 2…thats…thats a hornets nest I don't wanna play with. Realistically Biden is the lesser of two evils. But we're at the stage now in american politics (and UK politics really) where constantly picking the least shit option isnt acceptable anymore. Both the US democrats and UK Labour have rigged their internal systems now to the point that NOONE with a shred of integrity or a slight leftward lean can get anywhere near frontline politics.
We're currently in a system where people are voting for politicians who are aware of the public interests. But have ZERO interest in voting in favour of them. We have representatives who now actively not only don't represent their constituents. But actively work AGAINST them, largely in negative ways for lobbying money. And I don't know how you fix that because they arnt going to regulate themselves and you better believe they're going to be co-dependent on the other political parties using fear tactics to keep them in power…so I can only really offer the unconstructive approach of 'spoil your ballots' and try to dismantle the system with every opportunity you get.
We're now over 11 pages into this 'end of year' blog and its been a bit bleak…so I am going to end on the LITERAL SHREDS of light that landed on me this year, Stopping me from going to the nearest bridge and tossing myself off (careful). I hit 1k subscribers at the start of the year! That was a hell of a milestone and I want to thank each and every single person who joined me on the journey so far and supported the channel, you guys have been utterly amazing to me over the years and 'thank you' is honestly too small a word. I only hope I continue to improve as time goes by.
My relationship with my partner has become more sturdy this year than it has been for a good while, after 12 years routines tend to set in, but given all the awfulness thats happened this year, and all the downtime i've had, i've really had chance to spend a lot more quality time with the missus, and I think we're in a place thats the best its been in a couple of years at least. I should stress we wernt in a BAD place before hand…but its like we've gone from an 8 out of 10 to a 9 out of 10 recently…which has been lovely.
I had a wonderful day with her at an Aquarium for her birthday, which is a much treasured memory of this year, and one thats really got me through a lot of the harder times. I also achieved the goal I most wanted to do this year, I WENT TO THE BEACH! After 3 years of longing to go back to the seaside, in august, I packed the car up and took the missus and my mum on a daytrip. YES it rained and blew gale force winds for almost the entire time we were there…BUT I DID IT!
Me and the missus have also started the VERY early work of looking to buy a house together. Nothing will be happening till the summer at the absolute earliest…but its a start! We also started work on a project to turn my Dads old tool shed (which…in the nicest possible way…was a rat infested, hoarders shit tip) into a fulyl functional workshop. So far plans have stalled a bit as we keep having electricians bail on the project (we've been ghosted now 3 times) but hopefully next year that'll finally get its grand opening!
And obviously the continued outpouring of everyone around all the awfulness this year has been honestly more helpful to me than words could ever say…SO many people have reached out to check in on me, Trivial Theater in particular needs special thanks, not only for checking in on me almost every day, but for sending me goodies in the mail which honestly made my year. All of you have been so supportive and caring, and it really helped restore some of my faith in humanity…so from the bottom of my heart..thank you. Even small acts of kindness have been immeasurable. You really don't know the good you guys have done here.
OH! and because I usually write a little bit about christmas here too...Im writing this now on the 29th of December, having had my christmas vacation split in half (I had from the 15th to the 26th of December off, I was back at work for 3 days, and today was my last day in...im now off again from the 30th till the 10th of January) thanks to another 'improvement' from my new boss and management...Christmas 2023 was, i'd say, above average. Given everything thats gone on, my mum and my sister were adamant that this christmas was going to be rather 'bleak house' but I went and stopped with them (along with my partner) from the 22nd till the 27th and whenever the mood took a turn, we made a point to try and pull it back. Which we did rather successfully.
In a break from tradition, we decided this year to have Christmas Dinner on Christmas Eve instead of the day itself. Which I actually think worked rather well all things considered. It meant that Christmas Day wasnt quite the mammoth marathon it has been in previous years...everything felt a lot more chilled out, spread out and we could actually enjoy the days more fully...
After last years mini disaster of winding up 3 days before christmas missing MOST of the christmas food, this year me and my partner got onto my mum in late September to start planning now to avoid a repeat of previous years...Which god bless her she did! we had it budgeted and a list made by early November, we started buying bits and pieces in from the first week of December and, barring literally 1 item (a big pork pie) we managed to get ALL our christmas shopping done with 3 days to spare! No fuss, No muss, it was lovely.
So yeh...on the whole, while It was a bit of a brief one (normally I take a full 2 weeks of at christmas and get the full benefit of that weird 23rd December - 31st December 'No mans land') This christmas was actually one of the better ones i've had, AND it turned out a LOT better than it could have.
And…I think thats about it for 2023. A shit fucking year thats EASILY the worst one i've experienced in 15 years (and im including 2009, the year I genuinely considered killing myself in that ranking) It cannot fuck off harder or fast enough, I want nothing more to do with it, and im glad its in the bin.
But what does 2024 bring??? well…At this point my expectations are through the floor quite frankly. I feel like my jobs going to get worse before it gets better. Two HUGE elections with awful outcomes no matter how you square it (varying degrees of pain)...But I do have some positive stuff to look forward to. With a bit of luck, we'll open the workshop in time for summer. Theres obviously the start of house hunting, which will (hopefully) be fun and not a nightmare. The channel will be back up and running from January which im PROPERLY looking forward to getting back into that…
The summer of 2024 frankly cant be any worse, short of some kind of mass extinction event and more tropical storms…So…theres that…I'd like to try and hit the beach again…but in better weather…and im hoping this year that the channel will continue its upward momentum as we hit 1.2k subs as of a few days ago..so getting to 1.4 or even 1.5 by this time next year would be astounding honestly…
I suppose thats really the mantra im carrying going into 2024…'Lifes what you make it' im really hoping for smooth sailing (or at least…a calmer year than 2023) but who can honestly say? Personally i've craved stability now for the last 2 years…if I can manage that as a base note for 2024…I'll be happy.
To 2024, a year of the unknown. I wish you all the best, the safest and the brightest of futures.
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