I think we can all agree that things have gone to shit. Patently, massively. There isn't an easy answer to when things started going that way, and I'm not going to try and provide one.
This is a personal journey through the news of this century. I've been logging in my head those events which felt like turning points. All turning downwards.
I know things weren't perfect on January 1st 2000. A lot of the disasters described below had already been set in motion. The 20th century was, in any case, a time of unimaginable horrors, of grave injustices and prejudices, of tragedies and disasters.
Of course. But I'm quite sure I'm not alone in having entered this century with more hope than I have now, more innocence, less fury.
If you'd have asked me in 1999, I'd have said I believed in progress, in a better world. I don't now. Which is very different from not thinking people need to try and make it better, and above all fairer, but still.
This is a log of the normalisation of awfulness. Of despair outstripping hope. Of arrogance, ignorance and stupidity outstripping progress. It didn't have to be that way.
Here is a list of when bad things first came to my attention. I was never the first or the last to know, this is just my experience.
Some of these news events are comparatively trivial and won't mean much to a lot of people, some of them are universal.
This isn't about natural disasters. It's not even necessarily about wars and deaths. It's about when I saw that the deck was stacked, that what I'd hoped wouldn't come true, it's about when I burned with an impotent sense of injustice.
Perhaps this will remind you of some things and you'll feel about them the same way I did. Maybe not.
I'm left-wing but I'm, broadly, done with having time with the polite accommodation that some of these are only bad things from a left-wing perspective.
And, look, I know good things have happened too. Leaps forward in medicine, in communication, in wealth equality, gender equality, racial equality in some areas. I know this is a narrow First world-centric view I've got here.
Right, all caveats out of the way. No further quibbling allowed.
2000
March
Putin becomes Russian president
A good enough place to start. I don't know how fully I, or anyone else, realised when Vladimir Putin took over on Boris Yeltsin's death how significant/ominous he would become. I think when one heard words like "strongman" and "ex-KGB" alarm bells did start to ring. Nevertheless, for much of the last 18 years, Putin has not been the obvious bogeyman. But his presence, his influence, has been everywhere. Gradually, the "end of the Cold War" we were gleefully sold on became an illusion.
July
Concorde crash in Paris
To watch the most famous aeroplane in the world in flames near Paris was shocking and horrible in itself. But, more so, nothing could signal more clearly so early in the century that progress, thrilling progress, was an illusion.
This elegant, supersonic craft, already 30 years old but neither replicated nor improved upon, was to be taken out of service. Progress isn't inevitable. It's often a risk not worth taking.
August
Paulsgrove Riots
I was very near Paulsgrove, working with children, when these riots happened. It was a scary example of the power of the mob, stirred up by the tabloid press. The story got repeated about a paediatrician being targeted. It was prime vigilante Englishness.
September
Ariel Sharon visits Temple Mount
I was living with a scholar of the Middle East then, so was never better informed, though have always kept my distance from strong opinion on Israel and Palestine.
But as soon as Sharon visited the Temple Mount, my flatmate knew this was a grave, historic moment of provocation, and any hopes of a lasting peace were gone for a long time.
November
George W Bush wins 2000 US Election
I have a theory (I have a theory? What does that even mean) that this is it. The starting point, the catalyst, the essence of all the shitness. This requires various leaps - who knows what would and wouldn't have happened if Al Gore had won Florida, if the Republicans hadn't done just enough of the tricky stuff to nick it?
Al Gore seems a smart, sensible, humane man. Doesn't mean he wouldn't have done lots of the same things as president that Bush and his axis of evil did. But it's not unreasonable to think it would all have gone down very differently.
I think this is when politics and the wider world came alive for me in a way it had never done before. How can this have happened? It's wrong, it's unbelievable, what damage this will do, what's wrong with these people etc. All the same feelings people now have about Trump were there 16 years earlier.
People say Trump now puts George W. Bush's adminstration in a better light. Does it fuck ...
2001
July
Super Furry Animals not getting a Number 1 album
Sometimes it's the little things. Why did this matter to me? Because this was the album where the Furries were meant to make it big, where they'd bitten the bullet and signed with a major label, sold their soul for success.
The moneymen didn't let them down - there was loads of publicity, positive reviews everywhere.
Generally, I'd got used to the things I loved not becoming all that successful, but I felt that, just this once, I could bask in the success of a bunch of brilliant Welsh loons being Number 1 and the world would be a better place.
But it stalled at 3, failed to unseat Destiny's Child and David Gray even though they'd been on the charts for weeks.
The idea that, if people were actually exposed to the good stuff, they'd lap it up, fell away. The Furries were there in plain view but people weren't that interested. Simple as that.
What profit a man if he gain the whole world but lose his soul? Well, more than if he doesn't gain the whole world and loses his soul, that's for sure ...
September
11th September
I was preparing for a job interview and Simon Mayo interrupted his radio show to say "News just coming in that a small plane has crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center". I went downstairs and turned on the TV to see the second plane crashing into the second tower. The space of that short journey downstairs was the difference between "Oh dear, that's terribly sad" and everything we knew, everything we saw, everything we thought, everything we heard changing forever.
October
Invasion of Afghanistan
This seemed an inevitable consequence of 9/11 pretty instantly. The mood was widely supportive. But that acceptance that we, the UK and the US, were countries who started wars in the Middle East, somehow that led to so much.
I was so anti-war then, so horrified by it, it's awful how that horror in me was numbed in the years to come.
2002
December
Death of Joe Strummer
Because Joe Strummer was the greatest rock star going and he had way more to come. He's the kind of person the world needs when it's in strife. That's all I can say about this really.
2003
February
Disintegration of space shuttle Columbia
Like Concorde, really, the Space Shuttles seemed eminently romantic and glorious when I was a child, but 17 years after Challenger broke up after lift-off, when Columbia disintegrated on re-entry, it was clear this was a risk not worth taking.
Dan Dare, colonization, all that, it was never going to happen. We were stuck here.
July
Death of David Kelly
Still shrouded in mystery, the death of David Kelly told us that there was dark shit going on, that there was collateral, that we should question everything.
September
Publication of 'Straw Dogs'
There's a point where we all realise we're a bunch of stupid clueless fucks and we're fucked. Some of us haven't even realised it yet.
Straw Dogs was a book a lot of people read and it helped a lot of us come nearer to that conclusion. It's a pretty simple book, which makes a very coherent case for how fucked we are and how there's nothing we can do about it.
There were a lot of books around at the same time saying roughly the same thing, but this is the one that really worked for me.
2004
September
Massacre of children at Beslan
That this could happen, that anyone could do this, there would be no limit to the ends of murder in a cause, there would be no humanity.
December
Boxing Day Tsunami
In some ways, this isn't quite what I'm talking about. Natural disaster. People have not connected the Tsunami to climate change, I don't think. It was not per se a disaster of the modern world.
But to see how quickly nature could wipe out so many people was so so awful and terrifying. It was a reminder, if one were needed, that we've never been in the slightest bit of control.
2005
July
London Tube bombing
Because this terrorised me, as was intended. It affected me that this happened in my space, in our space, and that it was done by ordinary guys with families and jobs.
I was never scared off the tube, but this affected how I looked at the world around me.
August
Hurricane Katrina
I suppose Katrina made the same point to me as the Tsunami but in a different location, and in a slightly different way. America was not powerless to protect itself here, but it did not care enough to protect itself and its poor black inhabitants in New Orleans enough. Cities, great cities, great cultures will be collateral.
2006
July
Trial of Tommy Sheridan
Fucking Sheridan. Right, this was trivial, and sordid, and silly. But Sheridan became a bit of a cult hero for some of us while we were students. Socialism plus Charisma. Marvellous. No, the worst possible combination. 'Imagine' was the title of his silly hypocritical book I naively read. Don't believe dreamers, they're probably dodgy liars. Imagine, eh, Tommy ...
November
Death of Alexander Litvinenko
I think Russia by and large kept its head down for a few years - this awful case, almost comical in its blatant disregard for another country's laws, was just a reminder that the big game was still on.
December (and October 2010)
Deaths of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi
Just, you know, the spectacle of it, and the desire to rejoice in that.
2007
April
The joining of facebook
Life before facebook. Remember that. The internet used to be a place where we were cautious, where we didn't give everything way, which he checked into here and there. Then came facebook. I joined near the start of 2007. I still try to keep a certain amount of distance, and though in some ways twitter has superseded it for sheer blatantness, it's facebook that changed everything, that started the whole diarrhoea of it all.
July
In New York at the start of July 2007, my friend, with the help of the Financial Times, explained to me the word "subprime", that "subprime" was going to change everything, in such a way that the collapse of the financial system that would start to unfold in a few months' time seemed clear and inevitable.
We are getting different messages about different ways things are about to go wrong all the time. Often, the messages are wrong. Many times, we don't heed the message.
I remember this because it was so clear at that point that a massive global collapse was not a case of "if" but "when".
October
George Osborne announces inheritance tax threshold change
George Osborne's announcement that the Tories would raise the threshold for paying inheritance tax to £1m was the turning point in British politics.
I remember waking up that morning, hearing it on the radio, and my heart sinking. "That's a good policy, I thought. That will sway a lot of people." Gordon Brown had been relentlessly stubborn on this, to his detriment. It's all very well dimwits in 2016 saying "£2 million's not rich". In 2007, a £300,000 house did not mean you were rich, either outside or inside London.
Right then, as Brown was dithering about whether to call an election, this strong, simple persuasive policy but the Tories on the front foot in a way they hadn't been for two decades. Literally two decades. They'd been a harmless joke for the first decade of Labour power. No one envisaged a non-Labour government. But that all changed in 2007.
Of course the financial crisis played a big part, but this policy was the first time I realised Cameron and Osborne were a serious political force. And look what an absolute shitshow they ended up making of it.
December
Assassination of Benazir Bhutto
This was a horrible tragedy to watch in slow motion - the "triumph" of her return to Pakistan which was always, inevitably, going to end in her death. She must have known that. Bravery, dignity, boldness, leadership gets you nowhere when there's always a bunch of scumbags with guns.
2008
January
Tribal violence after Kenyan election
The horrible violence, the 100s dead, following the 2007 Kenyan General election, was a reminder that tribalism is inescapable. The Luo and Kikuyo are the most powerful, richest people in Kenya. They'll have worked together, played together, socialised. There was something so shocking to me about this. If it could happen in Kenya, it could happen anywhere.
May
Boris Johnson elected Mayor of London
This was the first important election the Tories had won for 16 years. That's one reason why it mattered.
The other reason is, well, it's this cunt. The worst of us. Our Trump.
Now, I've got to show some reserve here. I was a big Livingstone fan, and I'm not now. Friends and family of mine who loathed him saw more of the truth about him than I did. I understand why people who weren't Conservatives voted Livingstone out in 2008, despite the fact that, whatever you think of him, he did a lot of remarkable things as London mayor.
So, London, lovely left-wing London, got Chucky the evil doll for 8 years, validating him as a serious politician. He got the London Olympics to be a clown at, which I admit he was good at.
Johnson is one of the three worst people in our recent history and this was when he really hit the big time.
2009
January
Shane Mosley vs Antonio Margarito (whose handwraps are found to have been doctored)
Quite a lot of sport in this year! Sport is a big thing for me, of course not for everyone. I've often seen the discrete realities of sport as refuge from the overlapping illusions of other worlds. So when sport is exposed, it can really feel like there's not much left.
For a lot of people, boxing is bad enough in and of itself. But I like boxing. I used to defend it. Not so much now.
A few months before plaster wraps were found in notorious tough guy Antonio Margarito's gloves before his fight with Sugar Shane Mosley, he'd systematically broken down my favourite fighter Miguel Cotto.
The likelihood is he'd ruined a great fighter by cheating - he'd caused significant harm in a way not allowed by the rules. Assault. Along with the emerging story about quite how many boxers take PEDs, you realise that the one thing this most savage game purports to have, its honour, is a lie. The hug at the end is a lie. Respect. Both great guys. Family men. Plaster in the gloves.
March
Sri Lanka cricket team bus attacked by terrorists
Another blow to the idea that sport was a sheltered world, the terrorist attack on the cricketers of Sri Lanka in Pakistan made it clear that attacks on "events" would become the norm and not all would be foiled.
May
Chris Gayle, West Indies, captain expresses antipathy to test cricket
I put a lot of blame on Chris Gayle. Perhaps unfairly. I let others off the hook for devaluing test cricket but not him. In May 2009, while an international captain, he said didn't really want to be playing test cricket. Inspiring stuff. It was such a cynical and mean thing to say, from a guy who had his cake and ate, who was always going to make a fortune from the game but also had plenty of opportunity to make a proper impact in test cricket and (clearly, from some of his very best innings) the talent and reserves of application when called upon.
If anyone sounded the death knell for the greatest contest in sport (though it just about soldiers on) it was Gayle.
October
Nick Griffin on 'Question Time'
On to another of Britain's worst. No, not Nick Griffin. Just an ineffectual loser. A comically uninspiring footnote to history.
But Griffin's "controversial" appearance on Question Time is important because it made the greater evil seem like the lesser evil. Everyone got their knickers in such a twist about Griffin's inept representation of the far-right that the way was left open for Farage, the harbinger of the apocalypse in the cuddly guise of an Aristophanic grotesque, to dominate the BBC's flagship politics discussion show, honing his phony populist shtick, timing his distasteful sloganeering to get a just big enough round of applause from those gammon-faced goons ready to fall for it. Farage won. He'll have won for ever now. There are a lot of people to blame for this. Mainly him. But Question Time gave him the stage over and over again to make far-right vitriol seem acceptable.
December
Failed Copenhagen Climate Change accord
We can blame Trump, and we should. But the Paris Climate Accord is one thing. People needed to get their shit into gear so, so long ago. The pathetic excuses of the Copenhagen Conference were just another failed attempt to save things. Who knows when the horse bolted. Maybe it was years before, but the failure at Copenhagen gave me a rare sense of dread.
2010
April
Dust from volcano in Iceland
I think this was just a reminder that something so local could cause everyone so much havoc - for a few days everyone was stuck and unable to travel just because one volcano erupted fairly harmlessly.
Imagine if lots of volcanoes erupt ...
April
First Brown-Cameron-Clegg TV debate
The 2010 election is a strange one. It was hardly a shock the Tories won. You could hesitantly say they "deserved" to win. They were the party with momentum who ran the more coherent campaign. Of course, everything that's happened since then has been a total fucking disaster because modern conservatism is, at its best, silly bullshit for clueless morons, but, you know, Cameron and Clegg had a right to form that government. That's the way it fell.
But Gordon Brown, man, I know he made mistakes, but a lot of them are pygmies next to him. It was the TV debate when I knew Labour were doomed, because, for all Clegg's mild charm offensive, my take as I watched it was watching one man and two boys, someone with such an overwhelmingly larger grasp on and clearer answer to the challenges of the day, it was a little embarrassing.
But my view was not widely shared. Brown came 3rd, apparently. The press. The public.
September
Gliese 581 c being considered most habitable planet
So there was significant excitement that this planet was the most habitable ever discovered.
And I was, like, Jesus, that's a long way away. What are the chances of getting a few people there and saving the species? None? Yup, none, so, really and truly, moving planets is not much of an option is it? So let's stop getting excited...
November
American 2010 Mid-Term elections
There was a lot about Obama's presidency that was baffling - not least the determination of many on the left to label him a disappointment after he'd only been in the job a few months.
Perhaps that was a contributing factor to how the Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in 2010, thus stymieing, delaying and overturning so many of the things he did want to get round and do.
Of course, the bigger factor was the rise of the Tea Party Movement - just as UKIP have ended up working in the favour of the Tories here, so the mobilisation of the American far-right, though it initially split the Republicans, ended up working in their favour.
This was the start of the great white fightback.
December
Qatar (and Russia) win 2022 and 2018 World Cups
It is still gobsmacking that this happened. It would be gobsmacking even if the inevitable relevations of the details of the corruption weren't tumbling out.
I mean, Jesus, FIFA, you give that little of a fuck about the welfare of your players, the fans, the leagues, the workers of Qatar, that you'd be so blatant for a few million quid.
This, I think, was the stupidest moment of corruption I've ever come across.
2011
March-July
Awareness of Syrian Assad government killing protesters
We don't know what's really going on in other countries, even if we try to follow the news pretty closely. A global good guy one year can be a bad guy the next.
The news (or lack of it) can give the impression that one country/dictator is relatively benign.
The points are that when the Arab Spring happened, it was reported broadly as a good thing, and also that there had not been that much bad publicity about Assad of Syria since he took over until 2011, silly as it is to say now.
And as the reports began to come through of the brutality of the suppression, the methods used and the numbers being killed, there was something hard to deal with. There still is.
May
Ryan Giggs superinjunctiongate
To a lot of people this was hilarious, and rightly so. It was desperately seedy too.
But Ryan Giggs was my favourite footballer, and for two decades I'd invested far too much of my time and brain cells in him. I didn't really care if he was a good guy and a role model, but it bothered me that he was exposed as such an utter rat.
I mean, what's the point of hating John Terry after all?
It was just a reminder that most people are getting away with what they can and that it is worth investing precisely nothing in anyone famous. A good lesson, in a way, but still a burn to my worldview.
July
Anders Breivik mass killing
A rank weekend of sadness and horror. I cannot pretend this was anything other than a feeling of the awful ways youth can be destroyed - the same weekend Amy Winehouse died - either by evil or by itself.
August
Riots
There was something a little bit scary and fascinating about the 2011 riots. Made you realise how quickly people can mobilise and how much damage they can do.
It made you realise how angry and disenfranchised a lot of young people are.
It also made you realise (via facebook) how quickly people become reactionaries who would happily dismiss a whole generation and race to protect their favourite coffee shop from a smashed window.
October
Death of Steve Jobs
What bothered me about the death of Steve Jobs? Well, I appreciate he was a world-changer and a clever man, I do.
But I just remember when he died, my facebook was fuller of tributes and sadness than it had ever been for anyone else dying, be it poet or prophet or priest.
And I just thought, you know "one bit of one shitty song on my ipod is worth more to me than the device itself". It's technology, it's fine, but, dudes, it's the art that matters, don't forget that.
October
World Population reaches 7 billion
Kind of obvious. Jesus, it was only 5 billion a few years ago. Too many people! How does one process the thought "there are too many people". But in a few years, there really will be too many people.
2012
March
Jeremy Hunt at the Leveson Enquiry
There's a lot of talk at the moment about the disappearance of political accountability, and, sure, people have always got away with things, but Jeremy Hunt's shambling, lying, embarrassing, confused, blatant, shameful, shameless appearance at the Leveson Enquiry was a real marker for me.
This is amazing, i thought. Everyone can see this, he's exposed, he'll lose his job, what a blatant stitch-up for the Murdochs it was.
But no, nothing of the sort. He sneaked through. Or maybe not, maybe he breezed through. Maybe he was obviously lying and everyone knew it and could do nothing about it, or maybe he was obviously lying and no one cared enough.
September
Savile scandal breaks
The shadow of Saville hangs heavy. As the full, grotesque, horrific details gradually unfurled, it bothered me no end that the BBC website would have his leering face on it every day, like there wasn't an other image they could use for the story. Anything. No one wants to see his triumphantly evil face.
Such was the scale and what else it uncovered, I've now become someone who basically believes all conspiracies. Yes, I think there's one big ongoing establishment cover-up of all manner of evils, top to bottom. How can one not? They'll keep telling us there's not, people will get found not guilty, people will get apologies, but what's to believe now? All of it, all along, was darker than we possibly imagined, and it still is.
2013
January
Cameron promises a referendum on the EU
Yup, this was when douchebag Number 1 didn't care enough about anything not to give in to the nasty nutters who everyone else had successfully ignored for so long.
My instinct had always been that if there was a referendum to get out of the UK, then Britain would vote to get out, because, you know, that's British people, always has been. I allowed the narrative of the campaign to persuade me otherwise, but, really, why take the risk? Cameron, who blithely and wilfully fucked everything up, like a cool guy like him can if he's in the mood.
February
A large meteor strikes Russia
Armageddon isn't going to happen. Or rather 'Armageddon' isn't going to happen. We won't be able to stop a big meteor if it should happen to change direction and head towards us. Here was a pretty big one, just a reminder that the enemies can come for everywhere, anytime.
April
Death of Margaret Thatcher
Some people were overjoyed that Thatcher died, some were devastated and I was just a bit depressed - depressed at how many people thought she was great and couldn't understand how so many people didn't, but also depressed at how childish the vitriol was - it wasn't a righteous anger, it was a pathetic splurge. We'll be forever divided, we'll forever bring out the worst in each other.
May
Edward Snowden whistleblowing
Mass surveillance, our every movement being monitored - I mean I guess it was probably always on the cards, but it was still chilling.
July
Acquittal of George Zimmerman for killing Trayvon Martin
White people have never stopped getting away with killing black people in America. George Zimmerman getting away with killing Trayvon Martin was so straight out of a Robert Zimmerman song it was unbearable. And Robert Zimmerman's doing Sinatra covers ...
December
Kim Jong-Un apparently "feeds his uncle to dogs"
When Kim Jong-Il died, there will have been a few folk hoping that North Korea might become a little bit less mental. Sadly not. That was probably pretty obvious fairly quickly - I think it was the story (true or not) of Kim Jong-Un feeding his uncle to dogs that tipped me the nod that we weren't entering sanesville any time soon.
2014
March
Ebola outbreak
Whenever there's a hint of a pandemic, even if it's brought under control very quickly, we're told that a larger pandemic is inevitable at some point.
The Ebola crisis was so horrendous in itself, and affected so many people, it just made you realise something may come along which acts even faster and is even more evasive.
June
Declaration of Caliphate
ISIS crept up on those not concentrating pretty quickly. Suddenly, in the absurd way we measure things, Al-Qaeda was the lesser evil. The totality of their aims was not encouraging to rosy thinking.
July
Shooting down of plane over Ukraine
The shooting down of a passenger plane. In Europe. And no real repercussions. We're safe nowhere.
October
Virgin Galactic Trial Accident
I seem to be putting a lot about the vain hope of getting to space.
I suppose going to space has been one of the big dreams of the last century, and it must have felt pretty good in 1969, and Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future must have seemed a pretty good shot.
But gradually we've realised it just ain't going to happen, not for any but a tiny few, and an unacceptable percentage of those will die. We're stuck here. We're not galactic, we're terrestrial.
2015
March
Germanwings crash into Alps
I don't want to be glib about this. This seemed like what the end of the world might feel like. Calm, steady, oblivious, controlled, then sudden.
May-August
Destruction of Palmyra
Like the Library of Alexandria 2000 years ago, everything can be destroyed and then forgotten. Some people just want to destroy art and culture - the physical and the nebulous.
July
The Rise of the Robots
Look, they've been telling us the robots are going to destroy us for ages, and they've made some fine films out of it, but that doesn't mean it's not going to happen.
The time it really got to me was an exhibition of all these robots which we were meant to be impressed by, and they all looked really tacky and shit, and I thought there's no way the egos of these geniuses will stop at this level, they'll be determined to outdo each other and they will go too far, and someone will create something so amazing that it will just destroy us just like that.
July
Nick Cave tragedy
This was a private tragedy, I don't really want to make anything of it. I just thought "not Nick Cave, not that guy with that life and those songs and that redemption and that appearance of a late discovered peace. No, let him be, let him free of it"
November
Increased resistance to antibiotics
A post-antibiotic world. Of all the things to creep out, few were more frightening than this. Gradually, people are realising we're not the ones one step ahead, all the monsters, like the drug cheats, are just ahead of us.
November
Bataclan (and Charlie Hebdo months earlier)
To use the parlance of the times, this terrible event was about the invasion of safe space. This was a nightmare scenario - I have had nightmares since this event, I'm sure I'm not the only one.
2016
May
Mossack Fonseca scandal
Just because, after the initial scandal, nothing, inevitably, has come of this. Hmm, how embarrassing, now let's just get on with exactly what we're doing.
August
Hottest month ever, month after month
You know, when every month in turn is the hottest month ever recorded, it doesn't take a maths genius to figure out where that's heading fast ...
August
Rio Olympics
When the London Olympics came together, I couldn't help feeling a sense of both national and sporting pride. As in, I was proud of sport. Look how great sport is, ye doubters, look, it's good for London, it's good for everyone. But by the time of the Rio Olympics, my national pride was gone, and my sporting naivety was further chipped my scandal on scandal.
And these Olympics, they weren't good for Brazil. They pretty much brought down a government. Bad feeling and indifference were everywhere.
And now no one wants the Olympics any more.
September
Fancy Bears hack
I think this hack, this demonstration of how TUEs are used, did exactly what it intended, it showed that huge grey area, it explained how so many people could be taking advantage but also convincingly acting innocent, because they were telling themselves they were doing nothing wrong. It was the cynicism of it all, really ...
November
Ed Balls dancing
Our opinions are nothing. They're as changeable as the wind. Received opinions for over a decade was that Ed Balls was a jumped-up prick. His loss at the 2015 Election was everyone's favourite moment. Then he did a crappy dance to a crappy song and suddenly he was a beloved national hero.
Both opinions were nonsense. I'm not immune to this groundless changeability. For years, for no solid reason, I loathed Ricky Ponting. Then I heard him do a bit of punditry, then immediately he seemed to be the smartest, most likeable and grounded man in sport. There you go. None of us know a thing, and more importantly most of our opinions are grounded in nothing.
November
Trump wins
So this is the nub of it. Or at least up to this point. How did that country end up electing its very worst person at its most critical time? How did that end up happening? How much damage will it do? How quickly?
I cannot say I saw this happening, even with hindsight, unlike with Brexit. Even on the night, I was entirely confident Clinton would win and win well, like Obama won and won well, despite all the lies and the bullshit told against her.
But the fucking worst guy, the worst nightmare, is president. He's doing it every day. Jumping up and down like a mad bully on a seesaw.
The thing is, he tried a few times before and got nowhere. Even Republicans, even the dumbest of all them, they seemed a little bit above it, above the guy who barely constructed a coherent thought, barely seemed human, on his own TV hot freakshow of cuntery. But they weren't. You can say it now. They're all irredeemably awful, all those millions. They're the poison. It can now be said without equivocation.
2017
May
Ransomware cyberattack
Just that these will get bigger and bigger and of course at some point they'll disable everything and goodness knows what happens then.
June
Trump withdraws from Paris Climate Change accord
Yeah, you know, probably too late anyway, but just, in 2017, to put a nail in the idea that there'll ever be any kind of coherent attempt to save the world.
July
Detachment of Larsen C
Jeez, I'm starting to get my phlegmatic self down now. Yeah, big ice shelf breaks off, you get the picture ...
August
Mayweather-McGregor Pay Per View figures breaking records
Because, really, people are that stupid. The worst sporting event in history which the most people paid the most money for.
Such a trivial way to end, eh? In the last month, there've been about five more awful things I could add, five more events which might ordinarily be considered the worst, most frightening news story of any given year. You'll notice there's been more and more as it's gone on anyway. That's just the way it is. Nowadays, every day which is the day before today seems a more trivial time.
I saw Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds on Saturday.
He sang
They said our gods would outlive us. But they lied.
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