In the same way that Teresa May and Hillary Clinton were described as ‘difficult’ women (Any woman who thinks she knows more than you do) so 2016 proved to be a difficult year, especially if you were even remotely famous because your chances of surviving to 2017 proved to be slightly less than zero.
I heard an interview with the man who runs the BBC Obituary department who complained that his shelves are as bare as a Comet store on Black Friday. Typical of a celebrity not to think of others.

Who can remember anything good about this year and don’t you dare say we had a good summer? I was there, people and we did not. We had a long hot scorcher in 1976 if you were looking for a comparison. In case you didn’t draw the curtains until June let me remind you that we had no Spring this year, going straight from a winter to a miserable autumn without collecting anything like £200. I have a friend who did winter in England, then went to New Zealand for winter and is now back here again for his third one of the year and you think you’re fed up.

I love the way that global warming has been renamed climate change because it became increasingly obvious that Bournemouth wasn’t suddenly enjoying tempreatures like the south of France and the general public were beginning to express doubts about the whole thing. For the record I am a non-believer in its man-made causes. I think it’s almost certainly a blip like the mini Ice Age that caused the Thames to freeze over and there is probably bugger all we can do about it. About 25,000 lawyers in London alone and nobody has checked the contract that says climate will undergo no more changes ever? I thought not. The worthy residents of Richmond dividing their rubbish into five different bins will not, in any way, shape or form, put right the belching smoke from a million Chinese factories and change, dear reader, will carry on happening whether we do it or not.

Why we’re playing the truth game I also don’t subscribe to the notion of evolution. If it existed why didn’t the first penguins just leave the Antarctic and breed somewhere else? How can it be a better bet to stay somewhere inhospitable and develop thick feet over the next 50,000 years than go somewhere warmer? It’s not the only sea with fish in it, is it? In a similar vein every time I see a programme about people having to walk 50 miles a day to fetch water I can’t help thinking that they should just move nearer a river. Explain that if you can, Darwin.

On the plus side, at least Christmas is behind us for another few weeks and I can start sneakily taking the decorations down tomorrow. It need hardly be said that the boys are sticklers for not moving a thing until January 5th, meaning themselves, especially if it involves giving me a hand to get the whole lot stuffed back in the shed.

So let’s embrace the host of new opportunities that is 2017 and hope that we are all unknown enough to survive the next six hours. Happy New Year.

AA Kingston has been unwell this week but not, I hope you will be relieved to hear, in a life threatening way. At least, not in my opinion but what do I know? (Although never forget my six months working on ‘General Hospital’ which must count as at least a foundation year in medicine.)
When the children were little and poorly there were only the two possible options, as every mother will recognise. If they are hot it is meningitis and if they’re not it’s leukaemia. Sorted. Plus side being the enormous relief when the disease in question turns out to be previously unsuspected measles or mumps.

My ailment arrived in the middle of the night – why, oh why can’t these things happen in daylight when you’re not so tired? – and you do not, gentle reader, need to know any details, certainly not if you’re reading this over breakfast. Or any meal, come to that. And incidentally don’t read at the table! How many times? Just don’t come whining to me when there’s marmalade in your laptop.

Next day I decided that it might be wise to check with NHS Direct for any advice on how to proceed, other than what I already knew: Do NOT leave the bathroom.
The phone was answered by a youth who was clearly in training for the World Speedreading finals and if you have money to spare he is definitely a contender. Still weak from my nocturnal adventures I hung up on him before my will to live, already in a fragile state, totally vanished.

Naturally they rang back. This time a women with a very unloveable bee in her bonnet.
‘Have you been abroad lately?’
‘No’
‘Have you been to West Africa?’
‘Isn’t that covered by abroad?’
‘Do you know anyone who has been to West Africa?
‘Almost certainly’
‘Are you spurting blood from anywhere?’
‘No. I think I would have mentioned that when you asked for my symptoms’
‘Could it be Ebola?’
Top thought! Let’s start with eliminating the most likely cause and come to think of it I did have a nice chat with a Professor of Infectious Diseases at my friend’s housewarming in September but, and thank God for this, I am pretty sure that there was no exchanging of bodily fluids over the canapés and champagne.

You can’t open a newspaper without someone saying how wonderful the NHS is but I suspect it’s main virtue is really that it’s free. Given the calibre of the people manning their phones, it’s no wonder it’s in a state. Are the people higher up the chain any better? I hope you can’t work you way up from Call Centre to surgeon. It’s a worry that I’m going to pop on a back burner for the festive season and I urge you to follow suit. Just a quick Shakespearean quote to finish – A plague on all their houses, and preferably the same one I had.

If you are wondering why there was an eerie silence yesterday it was because Cinderella did go to the ball, or at least to a very wonderful dinner at the extraordinary Strawberry Hill House and it took me most of Saturday to fight free of my whale bone and hair pins. And get the tiara back to the bank. It is quite hard work being grand,
We are hearing today of the death of the writer AA Gill, only three weeks after he announced in his restaurant review column that he was unwell, and not in the Geoffrey Barnard way, but with what he described as ‘the full English’ of cancer. Sadly he was, as my Mother was wont to say of anyone unde ninety, ‘No age’.
One of the few things I remain passionate about is the English language which was AA Gills medium, his art form, although with a deep irony he was dyslexic and had to dictate his copy, almost certainly the last journalist afforded that luxury. I also thank my lucky stars, not having a God to turn to, that I have it as my first language. I can’t remember exactly how many words it has – 60,000? you can Google it – but it’s way more than any other language, possibly of all the other languages put together. Imagine being a foreigner(A shudder ripples round the room) and having to learn it.
And it also makes learning a lot of other languages much easier because we’ve probably already requisitioned about half of their meagre quantity of words. A useful book called ‘Plain Tales of the Raj’ has a list of all the Indian words that we now assume were always our own – like bungalow and khaki. There are even five Inuit (Eskimo, in old money) words in regular use in this country – where did you think anorak and kayak came from? – and that could well be about a third of their total. What else did they need on a regular basis? Snow, ice, polar bear, run.
I don’t imagine that young folk have the remotest idea of who Enoch Powell was, and older readers won’t have much good to say about him, his politics being deeply unfashionable at the time, but having actually met him let me tell you that among his better qualities were his personal shyness, his integrity, his poetry – bet you didn’t know about that! – and his mastery of he English language. He was to oratory what AA Gill was to the written word; a masterclass in how to do it. It’s a shame that he will only be remembered for one ill advised speech. Those over 21 will also have heard of Bob Dylan, another wordsmith very properly recognised by the Nobel committee. Language does matter.
As I said before about Derek Jarman, AA Gill and I differ in that he was male, talented and now dead. Let’s just hope our wonderful language still has a long life in front of it.

AA Kingston (No relation)

What is a museum? I’m guessing this isn’t something that keeps you awake in the wee, small hours although, as always, I’m prepared to admit the somewhat unlikely possibility that I could be wrong. I think it may have happened once. A museum, certainly in this country, is actually a legal thing which means that people can lend or give or bequeath you stuff and get tax breaks. Obviously not the tat you’ve got stashed in your attic, unless Her Majesty is still avidly reading my weekly musings.

The lovely Strawberry Hill House is technically a museum although visitors have frequently noticed that the rooms are, by and large, empty. Legal jargon, not for the faint hearted. Your average visitor still harbours what we now know are entirely misplaced expectations. Small print is not for everyone. Anyway, well up to speed on this legal nicety and with my usual level of open-mindedness I went to a new museum this week, the Design Museum. Previously sited somewhere called Thames Shad, which I need hardly add is south of the river, it has relocated to the far more accessible Kensington. What could go wrong?

At the risk of offending readers, and although I can genuinely claim that some of my best friends are architects, I have to blame the man in charge of designing it. Doubtless he got the brief, read it at speed and thought it said ‘Design a Museum’ rather than Design Museum. Usual novice mistake and at the risk of appearing sexist (Some of my best friends are men etc) that is a very masculine shortcoming. ‘Instructions da da da’ they think, snatching up a pencil and then wondering why there are still bits left over at the end.

The building itself is indeed very striking with some lovely designery touches, like light-up handrails and seats in the stairs but unfortunately there isn’t much to see and what there is on display is still stuffed in the attic. I suspect a lot of people abandon the attempt to reach it. Award winning use of a large space being turned into a poky little room with not much in it.

So today’s invaluable advice is don’t bother to do more than take a quick peep in the door, even the shop is rubbish, and then hot foot it to a very good tapas restaurant just down the road. It being December I have now left the arid zone that was Dry November and taken to festive drinking. Let’s hope I don’t make an exhibit of myself this year.