New Year has always been a big party in one way or another but this year is different; we look back on the humanitarian catastrophe that was 2020 with great sorrow, but it has also been a generation-defining year for so many.

Here's my 2020 round up:

January started with us all being on fire, a fantastic metaphor for what was to come.

Oh and some people in Wuhan had a bit of a cough, but probably nothing to worry about.

February and March was a complete meme-fest of developed world clusterfuckery incompetence, and never before had the world stopped in such a way that it had before. And BLIMEY some of you are rubbish with having to deal with crises.

I had a disso to write, and me being me I left all my analysis to the last minute, hoping to get it all done in the two week window before Easter. Because of CAD licenses I had to get it done at Uni and not at home.

I got an email on Thursday night telling me Uni would be closed on Friday, and continue to be shut until further notice.

That was a long night.

And I did the entire thing looking like an emo Ash Ketchum.

I packed everything into the last Skoda Citigo out of Saigon and self isolated with Mum and Dad in Cheltenham. April was, for me, death by Microsoft Word as I typed up what was left of my degree.

Mother was having to deal with stopping actual death working at Chelt General on the front line, and God bless her for it. We owe the NHS a debt that will never be repaid as their response to the crisis has been outstanding (especially when clapping is cheaper than pay rises).

She is smiling in this one under her mask btw.

Probably.

The start of May brought about a common theme that runs through this year; existentialism and optimistic nihilism, and forms the basis for my chaotic energy in the late spring. I finished my degree with the world ending and had that dreaded "oh, what now" moment in my mind.

Obvious answer was to start doing 5k runs three days a week and dye my hair blonde in order to separate myself from the current affairs by an age old method of mine; shear distilled indignity.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

America once again managed to fuck off the entire world in quite a miraculous fashion, as the world watched painfully at the moral dilemma; protesting because the police are killing people based on their ethnicity,or staying at home and watching in horror

At the halfway point then things were looking pretty dire, but it's ok because the warbling shaggy piss-haired bonafide dog nonce Boris Johnson decided that Wetherspoons should reopen, hopefully to start killing off his Brexit-voting blue-passport licking core demographic.

July was relatively wholesome for some, I got first class honors, mass testing had finally started to ramp up, we were allowed to see people again as long as we kept our distance, the cases had hit a trough on the graph, and my neighbor got a cat.

The emotional holiday was unfortunately short lived, as in August someone in Lebanon decided to fill up the port with enough explosives to make Michael Bay blush.

The world reacted with all the sympathy and condolence as a corgi being told he cant have another block of cheddar.

I can't remember anything of interest about the month of September, but on the last day of the month I got a grad job offer. With a talent pool so diverse and so desperate it is still genuinely remarkable that they chose someone who barely knows what day it is half the time.

Oh and while all this was going on @Strepito learnt how to play the Ukulele.

My hair, like the leaves, were returning to a much darker colour by October. Dido Harding's excel spreadsheet ran out of rows just in time for a second wave. That was about it really. Thankfully there was a US election just around the corner which was always going to be a laugh.

Biden won.

Started at the new job in November, which brought about a second wave of mental health strain for me after the realisation that the carefree hedonism and time-abundance of student life had been extinguished by the onset of responsibilities, adulthood, and winter itself. Kettle on

Luckily December flew in which is traditionally a happy time for the western world (reasons unknown). Throughout the year I was so looking forward to enjoying spending a merry time with my friends and extended family after all the troubles we had faced together.

Fucks sake.

As I pop open a bottle of (for legal reasons I have to call) sparkling grape-based French-style carbonated alcoholic juice tonight, a huge thanks goes out to all those whose have kept the world turning this year; NHS, key workers, retail workers etc.

Let us pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and make 2021 at least vaguely better than whatever the shitshow of the past 12 months have been :)