My first social media post of 2020 was a photo of a pair of socks. To be more accurate, said socks were a Millennium pair that Lady Blagg had given me on New Years Eve 1999. Emblazoned with the legend 01-01-00 they had sat in my sock drawer for 20 years, only occasionally being acquainted with a pair of shoes. However, I'd worn them over the festive period 19/20 and in the first week of January I noticed they had a hole in them.
'2020 will be better' they said. Well, we're not even 10 days and this: a hole in my Millennium socks. I don't repair socks, of course, so this is it. No longer can I square up to surly oiks and say "I've got socks older than you, Sonny". Gone. The last vestiges of 2000. Farewell old friends! Remember the good times we had. #RestartTheYear #Cancel2020
Restart the year and cancel 2020! Oh! How we laughed.
Seven days later my mum died and 2020 had started for real.
Anyone coming to this will have their own story of 2020, there's little point in summarising events here; whether we've been merely inconvenienced, severely hampered or had our lives - or the lives of loved ones - changed irrevocably, the beginning of the second decade of the 21st Century has given us twelve months that will be a focus of discussion for many years to come.
2020 has also given us a surfeit of words to add to the lexicon that we couldn't possibly have imagined using this time last year; furlough, COVID-19, pandemic, masks, Houseparty and Zoom Meeting to name just a few. The greatest of them all though must be 'lockdown' the word that 'encapsulates the shared experience of billions of people who have had to restrict their daily lives in order to contain the virus'.
Here at the Calendar it we be easy to say we look up not down and there's no reason that outside events need to impact on our annual trawl through the detritus of Christmas songs, the truth is though is that, as last year when I lost my father and the year before when I lost Lady Blagg, when some of the song choices were inspired by personal events, so 2020 has impacted on lives in such a way that I feel it would be disingenuous not to reflect it here.
For the first time ever I've found I've been looking for songs that fit the zeitgeist rather than letting the whole thing flow uncontrollably as it used to do in happier times. Will it last through December? Who can say? I'm capricious enough to know that I may well change tack in a few days.
Still, I'll try and jolly the whole thing through with the usual mix of things to bring you joy, tears - either of sorrow or laughter - and pain (ditto) and see where we end up by the 25th December.
So masks on, social distancing in place, lockdown tier rules observed. Here we go for the Billy Blagg 14th Annual Advent Calendar of Christmas Songs. Let's hope we all see it through till New Year.
