A Brief, Vague and None Too Coherent Review of 2006

Basically it has been a good one, better than 2005 on account of that all important score

Death 0 - Life 2

All those I love stayed alive this year, and I gained a new loved-one in the form of Alexander, whose arrival made the year for our family. Life is awarded an extra point because Death had a pretty good go at my friend, but my friend got the better of the bastard. That and the other friends I have gained who were, of course, alive previous to our acquaintance.

Other highlights included still yet unbloggable events of November, Lady Bracknell's Editor getting an MBE and Blogging Against Disablism Day. And many other things. Am very tired today, I didn't realise it was New Year's Eve until just now.

I do know that my health is in a far superior position than it was twelve months ago and I am looking forward to finishing my bloody fucking book in 2007 (if I don't finish it next year, I never will). As for the cultural highlights...

Best Single of 2006: Precious by Depeche Mode.
Best Album of 2006: The Life Pursuit by Belle and Sebastian, thanks to Marmiteboy.

But I am afraid that's not such great praise in either case. Both are good, but I am, alas, no longer down wiv da kids. Who are these Antartic Gibbons again? Of course, I remember when the words were unintelligible, and you didn't have a hope of dancing to the tune - that was real music.

Best Movie of 2006 (working off the UK DVD release date): probably the new The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, essential viewing for anyone who read the Narnia books as a child. V for Vendetta was also respectable and I'd happily watch Pirates of the Caribean: Dead Man's Chest several times over with the sound off. I have watched a lot of movies this year, but the real gems had lain undiscovered from earlier years, often earlier decades.

Anyway, Happy New Year Everybody! Hope that it is a good one for every one of you.

A nice little housewife, who'd give me a steady life and not keep going off the rails

Shouldn't be writing today so this might not make sense, but this is rather irksome:

BBC News: Housework cuts breast cancer risk

Women who exercise by doing the housework can reduce their risk of breast cancer, a study suggests.

The research on more than 200,000 women from nine European countries found doing household chores was far more cancer protective than playing sport.

Dusting, mopping and vacuuming was also better than having a physical job.

This is so lazy. Correlation is not the same as causation. All alcoholics started off on milk.

So maybe there is something in the nature of the exercises people do when carrying out household chores as opposed to other activities.

Then again, maybe there are other things which go hand in hand with doing a lot of housework.

For example, I would speculate that any person who spends significant amounts of time cooking is getting a more balanced and varied diet that someone who takes five minutes to heat something up or order a takeaway. Women continue to do the majority of cooking for couples and families throughout Europe, so I would speculate that a woman who does not cook herself, is more likely to have a poor diet.

We already know that diet is a risk factor in breast cancer.

One reason a woman might not do housework is that someone has already done it for her or she simply chooses not to. However, I reckon many women who do less than average amounts of housework are very short of time and someone who is short of time is also less likely to get good exercise, plenty of sleep, rest and recuperation.

We already know that lack of exercise is a risk factor in breast cancer. There is some evidence that stress is a risk factor in breast cancer.

Women who do a great deal of housework may be able to do so because they don't work or only work part time. Circumstances in which a person is able to be a housewife will generally (though not always) coincide with higher socio-economic status.

Socio-economic status plays a complex role in breast cancer. Women of lower socio-economic status are more likely to eat less healthily, smoke and drink alcohol - all established risk factors. But women of higher socio-economic status are more likely to delay having children or not have children at all, both of which are also established risk factors.

However, it is very rare these days to have a housewife who does not have children. Therefore, it might be reasonable to speculate that women in the research who did the most housework were relatively wealthy mothers, and therefore at reduced risk of breast cancer.

Of course all this is speculation. I am not a scientist. I don't get paid to come up with controversial headlines - I mean, useful information about disease. So when given such an opportunity, when conducting such a massive study, I didn't have the chance to look at these factors along side the issue of exercise. So what would I know?

Anyway, I'm off to do some close embroidery in an attempt to prevent arthritis in my hands. Oh yes, how many people do you know with arthritis in the hands can do close embroidery? Exactly.

My nephew's first Christmas

Naturally, the highlight of Christmas was seeing young Alexander.

Alex has changed a great deal since we last saw him, just six or seven weeks ago. He is much stronger, and is rapidly progressing to a stage where he can sit up by himself. Perhaps most usefully of all, he has developed the ability to take hold of objects (most of which he desires to put in his mouth to see what they feel like; his fingers aren’t nearly so sensitive as ours just yet).

This meant that I only needed one hand to open my birthday cards, as if I got hold of the card and pulled, Alex would take hold of the envelope and begin to eat it while I slid the card free. He was very helpful, and I shall be sure to consider employing him for future tasks which I may need to perform one-handed, where it doesn't matter what gets wet.

Alexander has also progressed with those all-important social skills. He is much better at focussing on objects of interest and most especially on faces. Whenever his gaze meets a face – whatever the face or the expression on it – he responds with a broad smile, a giggle and sometimes a scream of delight. This A stranger is a friend I am yet to get to know attitude is a very fine one and should endear him to all but the iciest of souls, people who he probably wouldn’t like to know anyway.

Apart from the occasional wimper when afflicted by wind, hunger or a wet nappy (and of course, a good cry when very much taken with fatigue), Alex takes joy in pretty much everything he does. His favourite hobbies are dancing, particularly The Hokey Cokey, riding a galloping leg to the tune of The William Tell Overture, bathing, looking at sparkly objects and the oral investigation of texture.

However, all this makes him very tiring to be around and slightly scary. He has so much energy and interest in everything that as soon as he can propel himself by some means, he will be all over the place. If this is the child at four months old, he will be completely out of control by this time next year.

Notice his eyes are getting darker. They started off deep blue, but I think they may be turning brown.

So that was Sniffmas

We're back home now. Phew! A somewhat stressful, but basically good Christmas.

Part of that stress was that I had a cold, and my immune system responded with spectacular gusto. It started last thing on Christmas Eve, that night was pretty rough. Christmas Day was rough and the following night was extremely rough; no air getting through nose and pain in throat bringing tears to my eyes when I breathed through my mouth. Some sleep, a great deal of delirium. Boxing Day, nose bleeding - not just speckles, but a distinct flow of blood every time I gave it a decent blow - uh, blow as in when I blew my nose, nothing to do with cocaine.

Despite this, I did have a nice Christmas, thank you. I didn't have to do anything and I wasn't particularly ill apart from not being able to breath.

Last night, pretty solid sleep. Today we travelled back up North and I managed that fine, apart from getting rather giddy and musical on some special coffee from the motorway services. This resulted in my performing my one woman impersonation of Linkin Park (not that song in particular, more a somewhat Anglicised summary of all their music), improvising a vegetable-related reworking of Depeche Mode's In Your Room, proceeding down various musical avenues until I finally launched into Jerusalem. Nothing to do with cocaine either, so far as I know.

Never had a cold like that before. Dreadful, but seventy-two hours through and it's pretty much gone. And frankly, I am elated about the fact. Intend to take things easy over the next few days in any case. And lay off the caffeine.

Now I am listening to the Patti Smith my Granny bought me for my birthday. Granny either has impeccable taste, or very good sources.

Merry Christmas everybody!

Occurs to me that this may be - just may be - my last opportunity to access the Internet before Christmas Day, so I wanted to wish you all a great one, whatever you are up to.

We went to Cambridge today in a shopping trip that turned out to be far more fun than you might imagine it would be.

I opted to be pushed rather than attempt navigation myself today because I knew it would be very busy and I don't know Cambridge at all.

Everywhere was busy, but people were friendly and everyone whose ankles had the wheelchair pushed into issued profuse apologies to me, as is the English custom. Naturally we apologise to, but it is our fault. Even the chap sat in the coffee shop with plenty of space behind him and who might have easily poured coffee on himself when we collided with his seat, turned and said "Oh, I am sorry!" and shuffled his seat closer to the table.

It was also more than ordinarily disorientating to be pushed about today. For example, in Boots, not only was there general chaos, my folks weaving me through the crowds at high speed, but there are all sorts of lights and mirrors at my eye-level and at one point I did actually enter another dimension in time and space. Which was nice.

Anyway, we all misbehaved and had a giggle, there wasn't much to get and it was all got. I managed to find a copy of It's a Wonderful Life on DVD for my folks - bizarrely difficult to get hold of, especially at this time of year.

Rosie, Adrian and Alexander are due very shortly and I'm not sure what's happening all weekend but likely to be very busy.

The obligatory "Bah Humbug" edition

Charles Dawson wrote about this year’s annual fuss about this time of year, its meaning and its potential to cause offence. Many bloggers have had a little moan about the season so I thought I would join in.

Before I do though, as you can see, I saw my robin in the garden again today, this time with his mate. Aren’t they sweet? They are extraordinarily tame. Anyway…

There is only one thing which bothers me about Christmas, and that is anyone who tries to tell me what it is, how I should celebrate it and what it should mean to me. Christmas belongs to everybody. So there.

So okay yes, the most commonly used word would indicate we are celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ who some folks understand to have been the Saviour of the Universe (or was that Flash Gordon?). But much of what Christmas looks like, including what time of the year it falls, owes itself to our much older pagan traditions. And then there is the Victorian influence; all our idealised images of Christmas festivities borrow heavily from A Christmas Carol, and centre around an open fire and Prince Albert’s Christmas Tree.

And then of course, there is the massive commercial influence (influence more in the sense of applied pressure) of our more affluent times. Lady Bracknell has commented on the bizarre concept that a family might feel compelled a new sofa or carpet for Christmas. As for the suggestions for Christmas presents from various shops that have arrived in my e-mail inbox during the last three months - I have been shocked! And only some of them appeared to be the correct size and shape to fit into a Christmas stocking…

All of which is not to say that the Christians are kidding themselves at all. Personally, most of the things I love about Christmas can be found in Church, adopted from more ancient cultures or not; the peace, the candlelight, the holly and the ivy, the choral music and then those concepts of Victorian philanthropy, updated to the idea that one way or another, Christmas is a time for reaching out to others, for kindness and warmth of spirit. Tidings of comfort and joy.

I don’t know many conscientious Christians who would say that things are of no value without faith in their Instigator. At least I am honest about this. And this is my culture, as I have written about before.

But Christmas as it appears today is a wonderful – if rather long in coming - compromise between the old religion, Christianity and other influences to our culture. So it is entirely in the spirit of the thing to take from it whatever you will. And that’s the most crucial point; whatever you will. Which includes taking a step back, having a peaceful time on one's tod if one so chooses. There shouldn't be any obligations, and there certainly shouldn't be any obligations to spend vast quantities of money, fix a grin in the company of people whose blood is their only commonality and to make merry. The only obligation is that of respect.

Walking in a winter wonderland.

Arrived in Suffolk safe and sound. A very good journey actually, a really bright cold light and the whole world looking splendid. We saw a hot air balloon and a parglider in the sky on the way down, and it did strike me as the sort of day I would like to have spent airborn.

Last month, my Granny gave us some money which we weren't allowed to spend on anything useful, so we have finally replaced our ten-year-old digital camera. I took it out into my folks' garden to test it out, so here is a picture of one of my Green Men, which needs to age a bit in order to blend in properly, but still. Looked like he was enjoying the sunshine.

I didn't take very many photos as I was on my feet and frankly, haven't worked out exactly what all the levers and pulleys do on this thing yet.

But then, just as I was about to go inside, fancy my luck! A cheeky little red-breasted robin alighted on a branch beside me and sang a little ditty.

How seasonal! I thought, and I quickly snapped this picture before it flew away.

So now I am feeling very Christmassy.