Mnemosyne, Mother of the Muses, Washes Her Hands of This Mess

Introduction - we rant, unproductively

 It is, a reliable source informs us, that time of year again. The fourth dimension of the universe is currently getting its customary seasonal media attention, which causes us to feel our habitual ennui, though it is fascinatingly intermingled, this year, by an energising strand of panic related to certain duties we need to perform as a consequence of having been elected, by a party of lunatics, treasurer of a committee. Never mind that, however. As we stated, last year, we're averse to joining in the general jollification of recollections and memories of the year gone by:

Being bored to the point of taking actual car sickness tablets - in the hope of being knocked out for twelve to fifteen hours - by the retrospectives and accounts of "highlights" that plague media as the calendar year approaches its end, we're not going to indulge in anything resembling either a) nostalgia or b) hand-wringing over the horrors of [the past year].

 We haven't changed our mind on this - indeed, belligerently sticking to unpopular views seems to have become our forte - and continue being eager for escapism. The one thing that has changed, perhaps, is that rather than attempting to knock ourselves out with car sickness tablets, as we did in 2020, we've spent most of 2021 either being sedated by morphine, or wishing we were sedated by morphine. The fact that we still managed four bog blog posts before our traditional New Year's Eve post (which we somehow continue to churn out despite our much-publicised ennui) speaks, we like to think, to the strength of our character and remarkable fortitude under unreasonable circumstances. 

We present some old photos we happened to find, using much irrelevant guff and too many sub-clauses

 If we could blame our lack of organisation and failure to intelligently catalogue the various photos that kind people send us of exciting toilets from the world over on our aforementioned dependency on analgesics, we would. Unfortunately, however, our addle-brainedness in this area is well documented. Thus, on this subject, we have nothing more to say, and no other apology to offer. However, when stumbling, the other night, barefoot, bedraggled and benumbed by [the modern equivalent of] laudanum, wearing a linen nightshirt with lace cuffs, through one of the dark, dreary crypts peopled by randy monks, dead nuns and nervous pheasants that constitute our archive, we found some rather festive photos! They are of a sink in a pub in Goodramgate in York - possibly, according to some notes we apparently made, at some point in the past, which had been hidden in an intricately carved wooden chest, and which we just managed to get a glimpse of before a gust of wind dramatically blew out our candle, the King's Arms! However, research indicates that the pictures are most likely from the Royal Oak pub, which we reviewed, without much enthusiasm (indeed, we went so far as to claim to have been "bludgeoned by the baseball bat of disappointment"), in 2011. This, we don't need to tell you, is a neat decade ago, and displaying these images now seems rather apt, n'est ce pas?

To be fair to this atrocious arrangement, there is a helpful sign informing one that one, if one attempts to wash one's hands in hot water, is about to be scalded.

To add one tiny grain of fairness to the desert of disappointment and despair that is the world as we know it, hand moisturiser is always welcome, and a friendly sign even more so.

Here is a screenshot of our dank-dreary-crypt-slash-archive. Are you rather impressed with this attempt to catalogue pictures of a pub sink in Goodramgate? We are.

The insistence by Brits to continue being scalded when attempting to wash their hands baffles the civilised world. We have written extensively on this subject and won't go into further detail at this moment.

Now we really do have nothing more to say and no other apology to offer. We are, as we are prone to exclaim, in an affected, Fry-esque manner, mongrel-bitch tired and our fist cannot form letters any more. Thus we request that you fuck off, darlings, and leave us alone. But not before we indulge in a festive retrospective of the posts of 2021! Yes! Here we go!

A festive retrospective of the posts of 2021

In February, we reached new - indeed, perhaps unprecedented - heights of pretentious academese bollocks, lamenting the increasing lack of literacy and arguing that we are all hurtling, in a little cart, towards a pre-modern state of not having a standardised written language (much as we abhor post-modernism, not to mention post-post-modernism, we would appreciate being allowed to stay in a sane and predictable state of not modernism (the horror!) but perhaps, if we were allowed a portion of presumptuousness, modernity):

Has Newtonian Physics Been Unfairly Maligned?, or, We Are Arguably Hurtling Down an Incline towards the Seventeenth Century, or, In Defence of Boffins

The next time we drew breath to rant was in July, when we railed against the proposed energetic predisposition of the proto-Indo-Europeans, which we argued was related to the horrifying tendency of Indo-European verbs to indicate motion, when everyone knows that what one really wants is to be still, with a gin and tonic:

Moving Heaven and Earth: Polarisation and Proto-Indo-Europeans

We then piped up again in August, when we ranted, arguably cleverly foreshadowing this post, about ennui, the properties of time, and the correct orientation of toilet rolls:

Ennui; or, A New Ease from Now On

 Finally, in December, we felt briefly enthusiastic about life, the universe, and everything, largely thanks to a photo of Jonny, wearing a beige trenchcoat, in a gold frame:

Frame of Mind

There are more links to other festive posts from your favourite intellectual bog blog at the bottom, under the Festive Video, but for now we think we really will fuck off - after having linked to last year's new year's post (a masterpiece of pessimism and misanthropy), and also all posts with the label New Year's Eve, which for some reason continue to litter the universe.

If memory serves, we started this bog blog post by describing our refusal to indulge in reminiscences and retrospectives. Well, we have never claimed to be lucid. Please bear this in mind if you have the misfortune of being affected, next year, by our book-keeping.

Festive Video - Jakob Hellman, Tusen dagar härifrån. 

(There is also a rather festive, if somewhat blurry, video version of this song. We would also like to suggest, as an alternative Festive Video to this post, watching the Going Up to Merthyr! song from our post Wales Cannot Wait.)

Related Reading

One of many occasions when we stuck, belligerently, to our opinion on hand-dryers, while breathlesslly showcasing Shewee Fiend Friend's photos from Vancouver Airport:

Springing a Leak

Since apparently this post is, despite our initial protestations and insistence on the contrary, about reminiscences, let us enjoy the memory of that time, in 2016, when an anonymous Friend made an honest effort to expand her mind by reading Jane Eyre (and hated every minute):

Kicking the Ass of Ignorance

We remain rather pleased with our Toilet Tale version of Jane Eyre:

Jane Eyre - Plunging into Passion

The original review from the Royal Oak:

Royal Oak: We Revisit a Dear Old Pub with New Toilets

There are some rather festive posts, bordering on the mind-boggling, hiding under the TOTAL TAP INSANITY label:

TOTAL TAP INSANITY

Finally, a couple of our classic posts on British plumbing:

Are You British? Does Tap Sanity Elude You?

A Note on Desperate Measures

If you're still managing to maintain the will to live: congratulations, and happy sodding new year.