Annual Reviews
The state of the UK 2024
Thus far,one week into the new year, every thing has been all repeats, just as it was for most of last year. Compiling a review of 2023 is a hopeless enterprise. Every thing reported for that year has been left on the News page, now defunct.
06/01/24
Every day news on TV and Radio is all repeats. The BBC, the national voice, has been relying on social media phone photography for its news bullitins. The beeb's output has been the same every day for about three weeks now. They keep showing the same interviews with experts over and over again. The transport expert is still standing at Bristol Parkway from Chrismas Eve. A weather lunatic has been standing in the same puddle every evening to tell us about floods that also happened over Chrismas. Radio output is no better, LBC have been repeating all the output for weeks. The up to date info you'll get is the time checks. A BBC presenter today said he was back from his Chrismas break but in fact for several days now I have listened to him interviewing his life coach and having the same conversation.
A year of failed pledges...
The Tories took us back to the 19th century.
Fantasists created a virtual world of financial instruments that were bought and sold with reckless ignorance, akin to the Tulip mania of the 18th Century.
"We are not going to give anyone a big cheque but we will give everyone a big chance in our Big Society. " Mr Cameron
George Osbourne told us:"The time for banker bashing is over. We need to move on.”
Dog wins Britain's Got Talent. Francis Maude told us "a bit of extra fuel in a jerry can in the garage is a sensible precaution to take"
Nothing symbolised the lack of change more than the site of the world's media camped for a week in the street outside St Mary's Hospital, waiting for Kate Middleton to give birth.
Back in February we saw Putin's Cossacks beating up Pussy Riot, the punk group, with whips, pepper spray and not a few kicks and punches because they dared to protest at the Sochi Winter Olympics, we may wonder how much longer we will have to wait for a civilized world to arrive.
The year ended with George Osborne's Northern Powerhouse under water. His leader Dave, speaking from a northern puddle, said that his government had already done a lot to protect the Powerhouse from flooding and he was considering if more needed to be done. Ungrateful people, recently flooded out of their homes, heckled Dave.
Designating post-truth as word of the year sums up the silliness we are struggling to live with in the 21st century.
Post-truth: an adjective defined as ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’. (Oxford Dictionary)
It was a year in which we discovered that American voters are quite happy with a nut job for president. How on Earth, assuming Trump knows that he is on Earth, is a mad person, unable to grasp a can of Stella unassisted, going to make "America great again". And when will someone tell us when America was great in the first place?
In April, Bashar al-Assad's aircraft dropped bombs filled with toxic chemicals on Douma , near Damascus. The UN said, oh, dear, what a nasty man. Mr Mad, Don Trump, called Assad a "gas killing animal".
Around the world Extinction Rebellion protested over the lack of political action on the climate crisis. Throughout Africa and Latin America the poor protested against corruption. In Hong Kong, students turned protest into an art form, as they demanded some real democracy.
The year a virus changed the world.
The United Nations declared 2021 as the International Year of Peace and Trust, the International Year of Creative Economy for Sustainable Development, the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables, and the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour.
There were no declarations concerning genicide in China, Burma, and East Africa. And no declarations regarding the mental illness of several national leaders.
UP