Yorkshire pudding followed by xmas pudding.
Oops! Forgot to buy Yorkshires and had to make my own (for the first time).
Looks all right!
Today’s offerings.
Santa wasn’t in his Grotto today (elf and safety reasons), so me and little kid had to improvise.
As I mentioned last year, I regularly bookmark people’s posts who I might otherwise have “liked” or “boosted” elsewhere.
And I have a few people on my blogroll who I especially like to read (and a few I need to add to that list, too).
And a few regulars I enjoy a little back and forth with occasionally.
So, I’m very happy using micro.blog. It’s very actively developed by @manton and community members, and suits my needs almost perfectly.
A xmas miracle!
Both kids are asleep before 9 pm!
MY YEAR ON MICRO.BLOG
I had a lot fun writing and publishing on micro.blog this year, and also looking back and picking out these (for me) highlights.
I started the year with the final (so far) part of my curriculum vitae series. The one where I found my dream job:
There was no welcome… it stank of piss. The only redeeming factor was that none of the inmates seemed able to move.
The beauty of the whole endeavour was that people needing care were no longer seen as tasks to be performed and checked off on a list, but as people who had lives, stories, senses of humour, wants and needs like everyone else.
Such a great thing could obviously have no future.
On the power of writing:
Having an hour or so in relatively undisturbed peace and quiet just to write whatever comes into my head has felt very therapeutic. I feel like something significant has changed within me, for the better.
On journaling:
Journaling is like legacy microblogging minus the passive aggressive bullshit and wit.
On the power of memory:
Nothing was where Jim remembered it. Like his hat, they were very much alive in Jim’s memory, but in the world we walked in the goalposts had literally moved, the final whistle had blown, and everyone had gone home except Jim.
On travelling abroad for the first time:
It all felt utterly surreal to me then, like being stranded on another planet, adrift in my bunk bed, alone in the halls of a spacecraft listening to the crickets and the ghostly sounds of train hours.
On local democracy:
The event itself was a repeat of several resident surveys and failed plans over the past twenty years or so. The problems are always the same. The responses from the council are always the same.
On my four year old’s analysis of the state of British politics after the results of the May General Election:
You can clearly see the Labour supermajority in red, and the Tory wipeout in blue. That they are two cheeks of the same backside is encapsulated in the red triangle atop the blue square in the centre.
On the state of our national game:
Nowadays managers - or coaches - are often restricted to, well, coaching players in training and on match days, and speaking to the media before and after games. They are seen as specialists rather than all-rounders, and more specialists from the world of finance are brought in to fire the tea ladies…
A clear and obvious error, if ever there was one, and yet we are forced to watch repeat after repeat, week after week of him getting it wrong. A bald man somehow getting balder…
Working from home has given me the time and space to transform how I work for the better. I’m better organised, more thoughtful, less rushed and distracted. I can honestly say that I’m now the most productive I’ve ever been thanks to a more comfortable, relaxed and focussed personal workspace.
On cheese:
Double Gloucester. Trump-like appearance, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a vote-winner. Biden-like quality: good all-rounder, mild, creamy, child-friendly, goes with most things, melts easily. Oily.
On the death-grip of neoliberalism:
Neoliberalism doesn’t change, and the more that the people are subjected to its bad decisions, its lust for war, for death, for oil, for money, for making the rich richer and the poor poorer, the harder it gets for people to change, and the fewer good decisions are made.
If you like guns, shooting people, torture, (mock) executions, (child) kidnapping, (attempted) murder, blackmail, gambling, Russian Roulette, cyber-stalking, identity theft, mob rule and police corruption, you’ll probably like Person of Interest.
On Lincolnshire sausages:
A special treat then was boiled sausages for breakfast. The skins would fall off, and we ate them with white bread soaked in the soup or broth they created in the pan along with a dash of English mustard.
On living and breathing music:
It’s hard not to love such amazing musicianship, singing and songs, all performed with unconfined joy in the moment.
And:
I do wonder if sometimes songs speak to me even when I’m not actively listening? When I do pay attention to the words they do carry meaning for me. They just needed to be heard.
On journaling (again):
Doing this work has made sense of a lot of daily, weekly and monthly events, habits, routines, scenarios, relationships, that otherwise would have remained loosely connected, strung together like the Christmas tree lights every year when you take them out of the box you left them in in January. In a mess, tangled up, half-working.
On the bales:
My fingertips took several days to regrow. I had fifty pence deducted from my wages for the cost of replenishing the first aid kit, and received a straight knockout for bleeding on the ropes.
On writing (again):
I write for me. It helps me breathe and to feel alive.
On local democracy (again):
If you’re lucky, you might see something done after a year or two of complaining.
On driving (and living):
Always look ahead as far as possible.
On Al:
We think Al is dumb. But we elect dumber, and Al will only get less dumb.
All set!
Leftover slice of pizza and blackberry and apple crumble for brunch.
Tomorrow’s veggies almost all done.
✅ Roasted carrots and parsnips.
✅ Mashed potatoes.
✅ Roasted potatoes.
Plan for tomorrow:
🥕 Prepare and cook veggies for xmas lunch
🍿 Watch Sonic 3 with kids at cinema
🛏️ Get kids off to bed and sleep early (haha)
🎅 Get my Santa outfit on and deliver presents (which this year are already wrapped)
Quite the confession.
Gabriel said the agency duped Hezbollah into buying the pagers, making advertising films and brochures, and sharing them on the internet.
“When they are buying from us, they have zero clue that they are buying from the Mossad,” he said. “We make like [movie] Truman Show, everything is controlled by us behind the scene.”
Little kid sleeps in his own bed for about three or four hours before waking up crying and climbing into ours.
At least he now just goes straight back to sleep instead of wanting to be awake and playing for two hours.
The last three nights I’ve gone to bed very late and missed all the drama. I’ve slept so much better as a result.
Unfortunately, getting up at 8:30 in the morning isn’t sustainable when the kids go back to school.
Big kid has been enjoying CrossFit exercises at school and at home.
Big kid: “Hey Google! What’s an air squat?”
Google: “An escort is a call girl or a prostitute….”
Me: “Hey Google! STOP!!!”
After numerous attempts at therapising my toaster (“WTF is wrong with you, you stupid machine!") I realised that it was too depressed to talk.
I put myself in the toaster’s shoes and realised it was burnt out. It was full of crumbs (golden memories of bagels, crumpets, muffins and waffles past). Attempted arson was simply its way of communicating that it couldn’t take any more.
I unreservedly apologise to my toaster for this gross defamation.
Toast in the Machine davidmarsden.info
United losing 3-0 at home to Bournemouth with an hour gone.
Bring back baldie!
Anyone know why some of my blog posts have a “thumbnail” screenshot image of the post attached to them? Seems to be a micro.blog thing (a plug-in?). @help
Ten months on and bath night is getting easier.
Now all I have to do is say, “Who’s going to get in Eli’s bath first? Will it be Eli? Or will it be Dad?”
Quick as a flash he’s stripped and running to the bathroom to beat me.
Xmas pizza.
…what’s important (as everyone who writes always says), is simply to write (and publish). Nothing’s ever finished or perfect, and it doesn’t need to be.
That’s from my first year on micro.blog post.
I missed my two year micro.blog anniversary because I was too busy breathing.
At the heart of neoliberalism is the fantasy of escape: escape from taxation and regulation, escape from the European Union and international law, escape from social obligation, escape from democracy. Escape, eventually, to a starlit wonderland beyond politics and beyond people.
Currently reading: The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism (& How It Came to Control Your Life) by George Monbiot 📚
Xmas Past.
I listen to Jamendo so you don’t have to
Nice tree, but it makes walking on the pavement almost impossible if you’re over five feet tall.
Xmas in Little India.
…streets were relatively clean, traffic lights and lamp-posts worked, and officers were present in the busiest areas. Simple things absent in other parts of Syria, and a source of pride here.
Traffic lights and lamp-posts usually work in Southall. Seems like Idlib is cleaner and safer?
All we need now is an authoritarian ethno-nationalist leader….