Almost inevitably at this time of year, one has got Christmas Day and Boxing Day out of the way and most of the population are enjoying a few days of rest but also reflection. The reflection part of consists of looking forward to the New Year which is now only a few days away and because of the sense of renewal and ‘turning over a new leaf’ one’s thoughts turn to New Year resolutions. It is interesting that many people make New Year resolutions and then these might be sustained for days or weeks and then one reverts to patterns of life and behaviour that the New Year resolutions were meant to avoid. In my own case, I resort to a little acronym where each letter of the word relates to an activity or behaviour pattern and, depressingly, this seems to be the same year after year. The middle aisle of the Aldi supermarket is often stuffed full of ‘keep fit aids’ such as weights and personal training aids and I remember with wry amusement seeing one piece of kit which was adorned with the slogan ‘This is not just for January’ or something similar. Many people start off the New Year with very similar goals and a brief search of the web reveals that the most common resolutions are to exercise more, lose weight, get organised and learn a new skill or hobby. Some of these are negative (things to avoid} and some are more positive (things to do) but I suspect that the secret is to have a series of essentially quite small steps which are eminently achievable. For those addicted to nicotine, for example, the resolution to ‘Stop Smoking’ is probably a huge change in their lifestyle and it is not surprising that many people fail in these endeavours. The advice available to the population on the internet is not only to make ones resolutions a series of quite small steps but also to have some kind of accountability such as a diary in which one can record and perhaps take satisfaction from some successes. It is also important not to let the occasional lapse throw one off track band and not to abandon the whole of the resolution but acknowledge than an occasional ‘wobble’ is quite understandable.
There is a huge dispute going on between USA and Europe which seems difficult to resolve. The row between Europe and Washington about what you can do online just ramped up. On Christmas Eve, the White House imposed visa bans on five public figures in Europe. It is all about what European officials describe as the regulation of online harm and what America’s officials consider censorship. ‘If you spend your career fomenting censorship of American speech, you are unwelcome on American soil,’ said Sarah Rogers, the US under secretary of state for public diplomacy, as the bans were announced. The highest profile figure facing travel restrictions is Thierry Breton, a former EU commissioner responsible for regulating social media and a key architect of the Digital Services Act (DSA) – a piece of legislation that is very unpopular in the White House. The Trump administration has accused the EU of placing ‘undue’ restrictions on freedom of expression in its efforts to combat hateful speech, misinformation and disinformation. It argues the DSA unfairly targets US companies and cities, who it is not elected to represent. Of course, this reflects the fact that huge organisations that dominate our commercial and online life are American corporations (the Amazons, Google, Twitter or ‘X’) and their power and influence are extremely difficult to regulate or even to curb. Naturally, my sympathies lie with the European side of this debate but even looking forward to a post-Trumpian world, it is hard to see how these differences in world view can be resolved. American power and hegemony are such that the USA refuses to recognise the World Court, will generally not allow the extradition of US citizens to face justice even when crimes have been committed abroad (one particular example being the young British motor cyclist who was killed by the wife an of American military officer who ‘forgot’ on which side of the road to drive when she drove out of an American military base in the UK and, being on the wrong side of the road, killed the young motor cyclist).
There is a great source of pleasure at this time of year and it comes in the form of a collection of cartoons by ‘The Times’ cartoonist, Peter Brookes. He often ties together two events happening at almost the same time into one cartoon but of course one has to be completely up-to-date with all of the current news stories. At the end of the year, some of the most noteworthy cartoons (66 this year) are brought together in a special supplement entitled ‘The Year in Cartoons’ In order to decode and fully understand each cartoon, Peter Brookes supplies a paragraph of information giving he context and other relevant information so that the cartoon can be appreciated to the full. Actually, the supplement takes some time to read as the cartoons have to be studied in some detail (for the interesting little touches and flourishes e.g. Donald Trump’s enormously long red tie which he often used to wear) and can be viewed several times over especially with the accompanying commentary.
Now that Christmas Day and Boxing day are over, normal life resumes as it were and in the evening I shall attend a church service which is part of my normal routine for. a Saturday. Instead of repeats of decades old comedy programmes (such as repeats of Morecombe and Wise) there is going to be a very interesting programme detailing the career of Judi Dench and tracing out some possibly real Shakespearean connections. But at this time of year, there are only a few jewels of programmes that stand out amidst the dross. It used to be the case that either an opera or a ballet is broadcast at this time of year but if that has been the case, I may have blinked and missed it. But I have just managed to secure a couple of tickets for our local Arts Centre where, in about two weeks time, there is going to a live transmission via video link of a production of ‘La Traviata’ from the Royal Opera House. I have been to one of these before and it is a way of enjoying a good operatic production on the cheap as it ere without having to journey to London.