Surviving Christmas and New Year

Life Matters News Digest No.068 December 2023

Don’t know about you, but I find this a strange time of year. To be honest, I am not a great Christmas fan, although I “play the game”, put up the decorations and go along with it all.

Unless you are religious, I am not quite sure what it all means. An excuse to get together with friends and relatives and exchange gifts and maybe have some fun. That’s all good. Would we make the effort without the official holiday? Probably not, so that in itself is reason enough to celebrate.

I was meant to be in France for Christmas, but for unplanned reasons, ended up staying in the UK, where kind friends invited us around for an excellent Christmas dinner and lots of fun. So no complaints there.

I know some people absolutely love Christmas: the buying and wrapping of presents, putting up the tree and the decorations, catering for a dozen and electrifying the garden and the front of the house. I am sure a lot of our attitude to it all is conditioned by childhood experiences. “Jolly Christmas people” begat “Jolly Little Christmas people” and so on. Or alternatively begat a complete horror of the whole event - you can never tell.

I must admit, driving around the locality and seeing people’s light displays, some of them way over the top, is quite amusing. You would not think there is a cost of living crisis, as some people’s electricity bills must be going through the roof. If you visit the same roads every year you get a definite sense of neighbourly competition going on to see who can create the largest and most garish display.

In the little town where I live in France (described as a “mountainous wilderness” by the BBC in a recent article - though it feels quite civilised to me!), the municipality makes a pretty good effort to light up the streets. In fact, in the seven years I have been there, this year’s was the most sophisticated yet.

Leading up to Christmas it says “Joyeux Noël” in lights on top of the old chateau and after Christmas Day, this rapidly changes to “Bonne Année.” Christmas lights are still a minor feature on private houses in rural France, but some people put out a downsized, but quite large, Father Christmas clinging to a rope attached to a first or second-floor window, or even clinging precariously by his fingernails to the window ledge.

The trouble with this is that a very soggy/sweaty Father Christmas is often to be seen clinging to the same ledge or rope the following hot July or August or even the next Christmas or the one after until he finally disintegrates and plunges to his “death” or becomes nesting material for the local bird population.

And then there is New Year, a much more important holiday in France, a secular state, than Christmas itself. In my home town, they used to celebrate with a pop/rock band in the main square and fireworks leading up to midnight, followed by hugs and kisses to welcome in the new year.

I suspect that with a tightening budget, the band and the fireworks will be sadly missing again this year, but I will still get the hugs and kisses on each cheek for several days after January 1st when I eventually return.

As I have mentioned before, what I hate most about this time of year, especially the week between Christmas and New Year, is all those “ news reviews of the year” articles, forced on us as though we have developed incremental Alzheimer’s over the last 12 months and can’t remember anything that has happened!

What I do like is “predictions” about the next 12 months, most of which will probably turn out to be wrong, but I like the speculation. I will even read my Chinese Horoscope for the next year - and then completely forget it all, the moment I stop reading it!

I suppose it has to do with hope. These last three years have been very tough for everybody and Covid still hasn’t gone away. Watching the cowering politicians speaking at the Covid Inquiry in the UK just brings all the memories of the misery. incompetence and greedy exploitation by some, back.

Add to that all the pain and violence in the world: Ukraine, Gaza/Israel, earthquakes, fires and floods, plus climate change. It is all beginning to feel rather apocalyptic. If the human race plans to decamp to other planets, the moon, Mars and beyond, and become “intergalactic”, it had better get on with it. Our current “spaceship” is falling apart.

Under the circumstances, the best we can do is make sure that our own personal world is as satisfying as we can get it and resolve to change things for the better that we are not happy with, whether that be job, relationship or living space.
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We often think that our lives are not under our control, but in adulthood at least, they largely are. We just have to overcome that childhood conditioning I mentioned earlier, that tells us otherwise.

So, with that power in mind to change your life to whatever you want, I wish you a very Happy, Prosperous, Healthy and Fulfilling New Year.

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More Regression - Taliban Closes Women’s Shelters

The rights of women, particularly the vulnerable, in Afghanistan just got worse - if that’s possible. Before the Taliban regained power in 2021, there were 23 state-sponsored shelters where women could go if they were abused or felt threatened.

The Taliban has now done away with these as they “see no need for them.” Violence by men against women was already high in Afghanistan before the Taliban took over, but now it is even worse. Confined to their homes virtually all the time, women are at even greater risk.

The Taliban says there is no need for rescue centres as this is a “Western concept,” and anyway, “women need to be with their husbands or a male family member.”

The Taliban’s latest move is that where there is no male relative to “take care” of a woman, or there are safety worries, the victim of violence or abuse is placed in prison “for their own protection” and effectively denied their liberty.

All this goes on top of preventing women and girls from an education (other than primary school), denial of work outside the home, prevention of entry into parks, gyms and pools and the closure of beauty salons. Nor can women travel more than 45 miles (72 kilometres) without being accompanied by a male relative.

Such a dark, Middle Age mentality from men is frightening.

​You can read the full article from the BBC, HERE: ​

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Birth of a Whale

I thought you might enjoy watching this, a rarely witnessed birth of a baby Sperm Whale, much vilified in history as “Moby Dick” and cruelly hunted, killed and exploited. A wonderful moment to watch, full of care, wonder and sensitivity.

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GOTCHA!

All too frequently, there is someone, somewhere trying to scam us on the Internet or by phone. Many years ago, when scamming was less well known, this Indian guy phoned me claiming to be a BT engineer.

As my Internet service was BT, I had no reason to disbelieve him. He spun me this wonderful tale that my computer needed some software to update the Internet service and persuaded me to download it, which I did. Then he said he needed to take control of the computer for a moment to set this up.

I am not naive and he was persuasive and sounded very genuine. It was at this moment that I had the realisation that something was not right here and shut down the computer and broke the phone connection. I then removed the implanted software. He nearly had me though!

Consumer losses to this type of fraud amounted to $8.8 billion in 2022, 30% more than in 2021. Clearly, it is a “profitable” activity.

I therefore liked this story of Jean, a 73-year-old grandmother living in Long Island in the US, who received a call from her “grandson” saying he was in jail on a drunk driving charge and needed $8,000 to get bail.

Slight problem here: neither of her grandsons was old enough to drive, nor legally consume alcohol! Jean was determined not to be scammed and decided to play along.

There were several phone calls, including one from someone who claimed to be her “grandson's lawyer”. Eventually, Jean told them that she had the money in the house, but they would have to come and collect it.

In the meantime, Jean texted her daughter and her best friend, both of whom worked in a 911 call centre and they passed the information to the police.

When the “bondsman” arrived, Jean passed him an envelope stuffed with paper towels and 2 waiting police officers quickly arrested him.

Jean had her “gotcha” moment and said proudly, “Normally you only hear this tale when someone loses $8,000.”

So keep your wits about you and slow down or stop any transaction that seems the slightest bit suspicious. Scammers don’t care how old or poor you are, they will take every last cent if they can and I know of at least one person who has lost £8,000 this way.

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Cutting Edge Art?

This is an Acheulean Handaxe, found at West Tofts in Norfolk, England in 1911, and dating from around 250,000 years BC.

The tool was likely used by our human ancestor, Homo Erectus, for cutting meat, plants, wood and other materials. What is interesting about this particular one is that it has been carefully knapped around the fossilised mollusc already lodged into the flint.

Archaeologists speculate about this, but it does suggest this axe maker had an aesthetic sense - or perhaps he merely realised it would be easier to recognise which tool was his!

Either way, it is interesting to stop a moment and think about how far the human race has come, from flint axes to hand-held computers/mobile phones in almost everyone’s pocket or handbag and rockets and spacecraft exploring our solar system and beyond. Right at the end of the year, one cannot but wonder - What’s next?

Credits: My thanks to Karen for her input. Photo Credits: Andrew Te on Unsplash, James Wheeler on Unsplash, Sale Link, Canva, Parwiz/Reuters/New York Times, WCBS/My Modern Met, Dig Ventures.

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END PIECE

Like most people I shall be glad to see the end of this year, rather like the way we felt about the previous two, but for different reasons.

Before it was Covid and lockdowns, but this last year for me it was the sheer waste of life, death and destruction from all the points of conflict in the world, from Ukraine to Gaza/Israel and Yemen to all the other places of “warfare less advertised.” None of which look as though they are going to dissipate anytime soon.

What pains me most is seeing the lives of children taken away of whatever nationality, whatever race. Everything we as humans put into creating and raising a child wasted. Future talent, future creativity, future joy and smiles - all lost in an instant of insane mass destruction.

Frankly, there is little better in life than to see a small child’s pure and unselfconscious smile. If that child is then lost to you it must be absolutely heartbreaking.

Humans may have made all the advances I talked about earlier, but finding ways to resolve conflict without blasting each other to bits has not been one of its great accomplishments.

Time perhaps for the human race to grow up and start truly working together to resolve differences in a mature, peaceful way before nature, reacting to human stupidity and exploitation, wipes all of us out through Climate Change.

I also often think about those young women in Afghanistan whose lives and futures have been blighted by male narrow-mindedness, cruelty and fear, and pray that enlightenment will somehow break through. All thoughts for the coming year.

Until next time, take good care of yourself, march into New Year and 2024 with optimism - and be kind, caring, generous and patient with those less fortunate than we are.

All good wishes,