I am pretty sure that I have become Winscombe’s biggest Taylor Swift fan. I was in her top 0.5% of listeners worldwide this year. Judging by my annual review from Spotify anyway. Could anyone have spent more time listening to Pensylvania’s finest in this locality in 2021? I doubt it.
It’s all the rage. Annual reviews from your apps. Strava of course. Garmin, well yes naturally. Then there’s the annual Nectar summary, and all the commercial sites flooding my inbox with reminders, Christmas offers and such. It’s funny because I’m always pretty scathing about annual reviews, round-robin circulars, essentially saying “my life is “better than yours” or “my humblebrag is more downbeat than anything you could construct”. Which of course are the same thing.
I’m also all about how arbitrary all these artificial gateways are. Birthdays, New Year, football seasons. Just markers on the journey from B to D. True progress and change comes from constant review, reflection and action. Jeez, sounds like a Training course.
But 2021. Wow. Just glad my resilience was at an all-time high last January, that’s all I can say. Even the boys in claret blue seem to have got to the end of their resources. Stumbling towards the transfer window, hoping it doesn’t end up like the defenestration of Prague, where they landed in a heap of trouble. So to speak.
All the individual members of the Mendip Rouleur household have had significant health issues, thankfully going in the right direction, albeit slowly in fits and starts. Friends have had tough times too, all of the cycling group in this part of Somerset deeply miss our friend and colossus of the peloton, who unexpectedly died at the beginning of November. Other friends continue to struggle and I feel powerless to help, beyond kind wishes and occasional coffees. It just doesn’t seem enough.
As for the wider world, I have never seen anything quite like it. Quite how the reason and pragmatism has disappeared from the thinking of so many supposedly intelligent people, I will never know. When I was a child I imagined that the world would become more liberal, less idiotic and kinder as time passed. It’s almost as if the Internet and continuing culture wars seem to be feeding narcissism and conspiracy, rather than exposing them for the fools they are.
The age-old cry - what’s to be done? Right now, for me, it’s to find an echo chamber where people agree with me, do their shouting in unison, and celebrate what is still joyful in the world. It’s just easier. This Sunday we get a chance to ride out in the cool of a December day, Solstice-style. A chance for us to come together and forget about the rubbish that’s been going on and just ride, laugh and enjoy ourselves. Let’s hope for more of that in 2022. Because as I keep saying, it’s people that keep us all going, and to those who’ve supported me and my family for the past year, this is for you.
Which brings us back to Taylor again.
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