2016 And The Kindness Of Strangers

So ends (well almost - there is another day to come) 2016. It has been a year of celebrity deaths, an unattended Olympics (this fact overlooked in the mood of British triumphalism), electoral schisms and general pessimism. I started the year unattached to any medication and finish it back on everything. In this latter regard I have learned my lesson - some things are meant to be. To those, particularly the Groupie, who were alarmed by my tumble from the well wagon, I apologise and thank them, particularly the Groupie. I'll try not to do it again.

Those electoral schisms - Trump first. The dust begins to settle but still I cannot see this as anything other than a scar on the face of America. The man is vile. What does become yet more obvious as Democrats sift through the electoral rubble, is that Hillary Clinton was a catastrophically poor candidate. Yet the closest they came to an alternative was a barmpot like Bernie Sanders with his half-baked student politico socialism.

As for Brexit, well you know which side of the fence I fell. What has been by turns most amusing and most horrifying is the wounded self-righteous gibberish of the bien-pensant. Usually sober and sane commentators have lost all perspective. And yes I'm talking about you Matthew Parris - you have branded millions of us as racist (which I am not) and you should be ashamed of yourself. I expect Polly Toynbeee to write bilge but I thought you better than that.

Help!

All of which can leave a nasty taste in the mouth. So it is good to finish on a note of reassurance. On Tuesday afternoon La Famille Roberts set out on a walk over Cannock Chase. DN1's GPS reading was our guiding star. Well here's the news - sometimes the technology goes wrong. We ultimately exited the Chase three miles from our starting point and enveloped in swift-falling darkness. We resolved to call a taxi and were on the point of knocking on the first door we came upon to get an exact postal location. Our interlocutor would have none of it. He would drive us round the Chase (we had conspired to traverse it) back to our car. I do not know your name Sir and we will never meet again but for that kindness you win the OG Man of the Year Award for 2016.

Happy New Year.