Category: My life

Hello world – I’m back!

Yes, I’ve been lax about writing this year. Indeed, my last regular updates on here were to do with the execrable new adaptation of The Stand, and that finished in February.

So why the lack of writing? Well, as you may have seen from the one entry I have posted since then, my mental health has been patchy at best – and it’s not conducive to concentrating while you write.

But it’s also been down to work. After the first lockdown, I was bemoaning the fact that I’d lost my teaching job here in Barcelona; well, that didn’t last long thankfully, and now I have three. Between three employers, most days of the week my teaching begis at around 08:00 and finishes at 22:00. It’s been great having the work and I (mostly) enjoy it, but it doesn’t leave much time for anything else.

In fact, so busy have I been that I haven’t even found time to watch the new season of Doctor Who, let alone review it. That’s not ideal, as reviewing Doctor Who was the main reason I started writing this blog, way back in 2006.

But! Not only are classes winding down for Christmas, but I’ve also caught Covid. Thankfully the symptoms are mild (if persistent), presumably due to my having been vaccinated.

However, it means that I now have time on my hands while I self-isolate for the requisite ten days. Time which I’m going to use to kickstart my writing again. And where else to start than by finally watching the new season of Doctor Who?

Of pandemics, social media and mental health…

“Marvelous technology is at our disposal and instead of reaching up for new heights, we try to see how far down we can go…how deep into the muck we can immerse ourselves!”
– Eric Bogosian, Talk Radio

It’s been a while since I’ve posted on here. I’d thought, initially, that the pandemic would enable me to do some sort of ‘Journal of the Plague Years’ a la Daniel Defoe, but that soon faded when I realised that, when you’re locked down, there are no events to write about. Not for me, anyway. No baking banana bread or learning to crochet here. Just the endless, repetitive routine of being stuck in my tiny Barcelona apartment, with my windowless bedroom, trying as best I could to not interfere with my roommate having to work from home in our tiny living room. Continue reading “Of pandemics, social media and mental health…”

Maggie – remembering my mum

So ok – we’ve just had a version, at least, of a funeral for my mum. I couldn’t be there, and neither could many people, but my brother Tim and his wife Karen were there, along with her partner John and his daughter Jo, and mum’s old friend Gareth.

It was webcast, and I was able to read the eulogy I’d written by phone from my apartment here in Barcelona. I’m posting it here, for all those who knew her, all those who wanted to meet her, and all those who loved her, here and all over the world. Continue reading “Maggie – remembering my mum”

My life, season 49 – a review

Well, most of what I’ve written on here over the years has been TV reviews. Imagine if your life was a TV show…

“Where do we go from here?”

Season 49 has been a radical shakeup for this show, arguably one that was long overdue after sinking into something of a creative rut. I have the feeling that, behind the scenes, a new showrunner has been appointed who wants to shake up the show with all the vigour that Phil Redmond had when he took over Emmerdale and wiped out half the cast in a plane crash. Continue reading “My life, season 49 – a review”

It’s the end of the world as I know it… and I feel… fine?

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.

  • TS Eliot

Regular readers of this blog (assuming I have any left given how sporadically I’ve been writing it of late) may have noticed a scarcity of recent posts. This isn’t because of the sheer mediocrity of The Walking Dead currently. Well, all right, it is, but it’s not just that. There’s stuff going on in my life which, while I know I’m far from the first to experience it, is new and traumatic for me. So I’m going to break with tradition, and actually write about myself rather than TV shows, or politics, or cars. If that’s not what you signed on for, fair enough, you can stop reading and nobody will think the worse of you. Continue reading “It’s the end of the world as I know it… and I feel… fine?”