So how was 2020 for you?

[Sheepy]

Usual shit different year, where at the top of the mountain they fight for who has control over who and what gets funneled their way and the rest of us squabble over how to make our vote count for something other than the usual political bullshit.

[johnofgwent]

Well.

Lost a mate of mine to the 'bug' aged 68. He was probably 30 stone, never ate a vegetable in his life, type II diabetic. Had the warning in the form of a double heart bypass and didn't change his ways so paid the price.

Travel down from my usual 100+ flights a years to maybe 20 odd.

Wife's cousin died a month ago age 51, fit as a butchers.....But apparently heart attacks don't care about that kind of thing.

And now my dad is in hospital (88) with a few chest pains, heart stops in the ambulance on the way but comes round. Scan shows his heart is fine but has some bladder and liver issues!! Apparently certain liver and even dental conditions can cause heart failure. Who'd of thought that?

I bet you're sorry you asked 😂. In reality I'm only concerned about my dad. 😉

Well as you know I'm 63 and tested positive in a health condition not too dissimilar to your 68 year old mate but in my case I emerged several stone lighter, no longer a type 2 diabetic as judged by my morning stabbings for the meter and no longer hypertensive as judged by my daily blood pressure test.


Which goes to prove what a f**king lousy f**kup (hey, your swear filter missed this one) this plague is and my sincere condolences on the loss of your friend.


My best mate of 40+ years lost his wife of over 15 to lung cancer on the 23rd December, now let us not muck about in her early life she smoked like a bloody chimney, but the sick fact is COVID restrictions meant she did not get to see ANYONE from the day she noticed breathing problems in January 2020 until November 2020 when she coughed up a load of blood, got blued and two'd into the brand spanking new A&E up the road and got told "go home make your peace with god and your family and put your affairs in order as there's f**k all we can do for you now"


Another mate of mine who I have also worked with on and off for forty years and drunk with pretty much weekly until they shut the pubs was also told the lump found in his thigh which caused a blood clot in March which they did nothing about because he coughed once in the waiting room to see the oncologist has also now through non treatment become a terminal lung cancer patient for whom in all likelihood Christmas 2020 will probably be his last.


So yes, a pretty shit year for several close friends. I am already an orphan, as my wife has been since 2001, and I can tell you the vicarage orphans tea party is not all its cracked up to be. Sorry, that's just my black humour. I sincerely hope your dad walks out of the hospital he's been taken to.


I'd say how the f**k could 2021 possibly be shittier than 2020, but I won't, because back in 2007 my work colleagues at Barclays got me a 50th birthday card and badge proclaiming I'm fifty and I've survived everything this bastard world has thrown at me and all I can say is f**k Me how wrong that assumption was.


I wish you and everyone else the best for 2021 and what you and they can make if it, but my natural scepticism and black outlook on things makes it hard for me to think things can get better.....

[cromwell]

Being a bit of a pessimist by nature and having come across a clip just last night of Clegg lying through his teeth I probably won't be convinced we've really left until at least a decade passes (if I last that long).

Reflecting on the taxman stories in this thread and Deppity the prophet of economic doom I expect a fair sized chunk of cash be extracted by said taxman from what I have as I have had throughout my working life as I bought my own home instead of peeing up what I earned at the pub wall.paying a private pension which turns out to be daylight robbery and then robbed of even more when some public sectors not ungenerous pensions were transferred to that company on the proviso that they got first dibs so I and others like me get even less.

I occasionally lob some cash the way of  what I think a worthy charity only to be hounded for more in an excercise I guess to have cost them more than I gave.

I pity the coppers of Manchester who are in the firing line for not doing their jobs when they are cut to the bone,their numbers even less effective by the addition of blunketts plastic coppers,further diluted by the crazy  accreditation scheme where some tosser with an armband and the training of a few days sees themselves as judge dredd.

Meanwhile much of this is overseen by a failed MP with a penchant in these times for bike lanes nobody uses and traffic schemes designed to bring said traffic to a halt and then blame us for the resultant pollution.
He is ably assisted in this by local politicians who puff themselves up to cabinet positions where they pontificate on national and occasionally international affairs instead of seeing the the road grids are cleaned regularly so that when it rains as it does a lot in Manchester the poor sods navigating the broken pavements run the gauntlet of regular baths because the roads resemble the ship canal.

Add in to this the types who moan that they don't want to pay for my pension especially since I voted in a way they disapproved of, they having suffered their rite of passage and pissed up doing a uni degree often worthless and the obligatory gap year/ years meaning no gainful employment till mid to late twenties or often a couple of kids and no employment at all.

You may read this and think what a miserable old bastard.......And you'd be right,I am.

Anyway happy new year,when it happens 

[Nick]

Well.

Lost a mate of mine to the 'bug' aged 68. He was probably 30 stone, never ate a vegetable in his life, type II diabetic. Had the warning in the form of a double heart bypass and didn't change his ways so paid the price.

Travel down from my usual 100+ flights a years to maybe 20 odd.

Wife's cousin died a month ago age 51, fit as a butchers.....But apparently heart attacks don't care about that kind of thing.

And now my dad is in hospital (88) with a few chest pains, heart stops in the ambulance on the way but comes round. Scan shows his heart is fine but has some bladder and liver issues!! Apparently certain liver and even dental conditions can cause heart failure. Who'd of thought that?

I bet you're sorry you asked 😂. In reality I'm only concerned about my dad. 😉

[johnofgwent]

I was asked this question in quite a serious tone just a few days ago and it is something that I have reflected on.

I have gone though the whole range of emotions and I find that looking back it has made me quite introspective. The jury is out as to whether that is for good or not. It's been a bit of a rollercoaster but right at this minute I would say that over 40 years of disillusion with the EU project has finally been laid to rest and I am content. I was so battered by you lot that I hardly dared defend BJ but he has come true while the EU stuck rigidly to their MO as expected I never expected to enjoy a fat lady singing so much although she took her time with the arpeggio warmup. I just need the whingers to take a breather for a few decades.

It could have been a lonely year but on the whole it wasn't too bad, and now I've had the practice, the next few months should be a doddle. My car battery has survived being largely abandoned on the driveway. An  MOT next week will tell me if the rest of the car has. The sun shone this morning and the storm the other night left my house still in the same garden. So fingers crossed all could be right with the world - but I still have my fingers crossed as I think that. I shall stay up for New Year just to check that 2020 leaves and will wave goodbye quite merrily.

I have few words that won't get me banned.


I'm not remotely convinced that 2021 will be any better.

[T00ts]

I was asked this question in quite a serious tone just a few days ago and it is something that I have reflected on.

I have gone though the whole range of emotions and I find that looking back it has made me quite introspective. The jury is out as to whether that is for good or not. It's been a bit of a rollercoaster but right at this minute I would say that over 40 years of disillusion with the EU project has finally been laid to rest and I am content. I was so battered by you lot that I hardly dared defend BJ but he has come true while the EU stuck rigidly to their MO as expected I never expected to enjoy a fat lady singing so much although she took her time with the arpeggio warmup. I just need the whingers to take a breather for a few decades.

It could have been a lonely year but on the whole it wasn't too bad, and now I've had the practice, the next few months should be a doddle. My car battery has survived being largely abandoned on the driveway. An  MOT next week will tell me if the rest of the car has. The sun shone this morning and the storm the other night left my house still in the same garden. So fingers crossed all could be right with the world - but I still have my fingers crossed as I think that. I shall stay up for New Year just to check that 2020 leaves and will wave goodbye quite merrily.

[Borchester]

Have you ever seen the Australian Farmers Letter to Tax man?

Dear Sirs,
Your heated letter arrived this morning in an open envelope without a stamp. My son and I have gained much pleasure from reflecting on the past.
You say you thought the account could have been settled long ago and could not understand why not. Well here is the reason.
In 1970, I bought a sawmill on credit. In 1971, I bought a team of horses, two ponies, a timber wagon, a double-barrelled shotgun and two razor backed pigs, all on credit. In 1972, the bloody mill burned down to the ground, leaving not a damned thing. One of my ponies died and I loaned the other to a stupid b*stard who starved the poor bugger to death.
Then I joined the church.
In 1973, my father died and my brother was hanged for raping a pensioner.
A tramp seduced my daughter and I had to pay the b*stard £500 to prevent him from coming a relative.
In 1974, my son got mumps, which spread, to his balls and the poor lad had to be castrated to save his life. I went fishing and the rotten boat overturned, drowning two of my lads, neither being the one who was castrated.
In 1975, my wife ran away with a shepherd and left me the twins as a souvenir.
I employed a housekeeper and married her to keep the expense down.
I had a hell of a job trying to make her pregnant so I saw the doctor who advised me to create some excitement at the crucial moment. That night I took a shotgun to bed with me, at the time I thought was right, I leaned out the bed and fired the shotgun through the window, Result: the wife sh*t the bed, I ruptured myself and shot the best cow I ever owned.
In 1976, some joker cut the nuts off my prize bull. I was buggered completely so I took to drink. I carried on drinking until all I had left was a pocket watch and a weak bladder.
Winding the watch and running for a p*ss kept me busy for quite a time. After a year, I took on heart and bought on credit a manure spreader, reaper, binder and a car. The floods came and washed the bloody lot away. I was not insured.
My wife got VD from a salesman and another son (still not the one that was castrated) wiped his arse on a poisoned rabbit skin and died from an infection.
You can imagine my surprise upon reading that you will cause me trouble if I do not pay up. If you can think of any trouble I have missed out on, please let me know. Trying to get any money out of me is like trying to poke a pound of butter up a porcupines arse with a red-hot needle. I am praying for a shower of skunk sh*t to pass your way and I hope the centre is over the bunch of b*stards in your office who sent me this final demand.
Yours Faithfully
One seriously peed off Australian Farmer.

There is an HMRC story that for all I know might be true.

A collector called on one of the Chosen People and threatened him with blood and snot unless he paid up. And the defaulter heard him out before rolling up his sleeve and showing the collector with the numbers on it before asking,"And you think you can scare me?"

Probably a load of balls but it deserves to be true. 

[papasmurf]

How about you guys?

Have you ever seen the Australian Farmers Letter to Tax man?

Dear Sirs,
Your heated letter arrived this morning in an open envelope without a stamp. My son and I have gained much pleasure from reflecting on the past.
You say you thought the account could have been settled long ago and could not understand why not. Well here is the reason.
In 1970, I bought a sawmill on credit. In 1971, I bought a team of horses, two ponies, a timber wagon, a double-barrelled shotgun and two razor backed pigs, all on credit. In 1972, the bloody mill burned down to the ground, leaving not a damned thing. One of my ponies died and I loaned the other to a stupid b*stard who starved the poor bugger to death.
Then I joined the church.
In 1973, my father died and my brother was hanged for raping a pensioner.
A tramp seduced my daughter and I had to pay the b*stard £500 to prevent him from coming a relative.
In 1974, my son got mumps, which spread, to his balls and the poor lad had to be castrated to save his life. I went fishing and the rotten boat overturned, drowning two of my lads, neither being the one who was castrated.
In 1975, my wife ran away with a shepherd and left me the twins as a souvenir.
I employed a housekeeper and married her to keep the expense down.
I had a hell of a job trying to make her pregnant so I saw the doctor who advised me to create some excitement at the crucial moment. That night I took a shotgun to bed with me, at the time I thought was right, I leaned out the bed and fired the shotgun through the window, Result: the wife sh*t the bed, I ruptured myself and shot the best cow I ever owned.
In 1976, some joker cut the nuts off my prize bull. I was buggered completely so I took to drink. I carried on drinking until all I had left was a pocket watch and a weak bladder.
Winding the watch and running for a p*ss kept me busy for quite a time. After a year, I took on heart and bought on credit a manure spreader, reaper, binder and a car. The floods came and washed the bloody lot away. I was not insured.
My wife got VD from a salesman and another son (still not the one that was castrated) wiped his arse on a poisoned rabbit skin and died from an infection.
You can imagine my surprise upon reading that you will cause me trouble if I do not pay up. If you can think of any trouble I have missed out on, please let me know. Trying to get any money out of me is like trying to poke a pound of butter up a porcupines arse with a red-hot needle. I am praying for a shower of skunk sh*t to pass your way and I hope the centre is over the bunch of b*stards in your office who sent me this final demand.
Yours Faithfully
One seriously peed off Australian Farmer.

[Borchester]

The weather wasn't too bad although my figs didn't ripen, but then they never do. My daughter got tenure and extra funding for her Ph.d, my son got a job paying mega bucks to screw his old and much loathed employer and, a small thing but something that tickled the hell out of me, I went to the joint wedding and christening of my niece and grand nephew respectively.

Plus, there was an outbreak of the flu which meant that London buses were always half empty, so there was no trouble getting a seat. Tough on Streetwalker who caught a nasty dose but he is on the mend so that is good news. And hopefully things will work out for Nick.

Not a bad year really

How about you guys?