So much, then, for the season of peace and goodwill to all men.
Goodwill there’s been a certain amount of round our way, even if this is not mirrored that much in the wider world.
Christmas is a pain in the neck most of the time but there are occasions where people’s genuine generosity and thoughtfulness brings you up short and makes you feel more kindly towards the human race as you know it – even if the greater family of man out there still leaves a lot to be desired on the care and compassion front.
Peace, however, there’s been less of, all round. The isle, to paraphrase Shakespeare’s Tempest, is full of noises.
Or at least our house is. It’s full of whistles, crackles, screeches, hoots, trills, moans and sounds not dissimilar to the mating call of some of the larger and less manageable mammals, if David Attenborough is to be believed.
These emanations are not, generally, coming from the radio or telly, although a surfeit of ancient Morecambe and Wise sketches or the more recent vocal pyrotechnics of Michael Ball and Alfie Boe might give you a taster of the kind of festive season soundworld that’s been occurring chez Broon in the last few days.
I’m not even talking about the permanent hum of the dishwasher or the lifesaving click of the coffee machine.
Nope, it’s the other machinery, the technology, the inanimate (allegedly) methods of communication that are full of sound and fury and signifying not very much except deep irritation to the unwilling listener.
I know it’s great to talk. I do a lot of it. You might have noticed. We even, with some trepidation, managed to get my 89-year-old mother and her 95-year-old cousin in New Zealand, both sparky ladies with all their marbles but more used to the carefully constructed notelet and the tightly-packed airmail letter than direct speech over a distance, together for a Boxing Day chat via Skype. There are times when the wonders of technology really are rather wonderful.
Pigging noisy
But the means are so pigging noisy.
The phone doesn’t just ring any more. The mobile emits a metallic scale like the wilder excesses of the Sugar Plum Fairy.
The tablet sounds like Dame Evelyn Glennie on the sauce attacking a discarded steel band.
The MacBook whoops and hollers like a hiccupping lush and emails arrive heralded by the kind of tinny notes you used to hear before the voice of Gladys Pugh intoned “hi-de-hi”.
My texts tweet. Ironically. As they arrive in my inbox they make a noise like a Chris Packham soundtrack, or the little bird so menacing stalked by Sylvester the Cat.
It’s like living in a supersonic Pixar bird sanctuary.
I’m delighted that people want to speak to me, stay in touch and otherwise maintain contact. But do you think if I turned all my ringtones etc into Bjork’s best-ever first line: “It’s oh so quiet…”, it might, somehow, catch on?
Odd strangenesses
I don’t think there are many people who will be sad to see the back of 2016. Personally, I’ve had worse years – be about your business, 2010! – but none where often overwhelming individual and public losses, coupled with ubiquitous and downright odd strangenesses, have dominated so thoroughly.
As the year end comes into sharp focus, I don’t think we’ve found ourselves anywhere near the eye of the storm yet and that looming certainty has to be fought through before we come out of the other side, definitely bloodied but hopefully, relatively unbowed.
Kansas
Like Dorothy, very few of us are going to see much of Kansas, as we knew it, again.
But with the same intensity and feeling that the late George Michael put into singing the words of Elton John, don’t let the sun go down on me – or you, or any of us – must be a better mantra than many others with which to approach what’s coming.
I’m not, in this last rant of 2016, going to mention the names of those who have shocked, saddened and disgusted us this year. They’ve had enough attention already. We know who they are and I reckon it’s up to us to defuse and diffuse their influence and force them to justify themselves in the coming months and years.
Counting our blessings is always good. Most of us still have much to be thankful for.
But finding comfort, joy and hope in small things should not distract us from questioning and spotlighting the actions of those who are taking major decisions in our name, the results of which will affect us and ours far beyond the lifespan of any individual politician currently enjoying his or her personal moment at the top of the power dunghill.
The year 2017 may not be the happiest new year any of us will ever have. But if we are going to enjoy any kind of jam tomorrow, it’s probably a very good time and place to start stirring it right now.
The very best to you all in the year to come.