Entangled - Genesis

A Year to Remember...

I wonder what we’ll think when we look back at 2020. It’ll certainly be a year that we’ll never forget - for obvious reasons. However, when we look back it will be only one of the many extraordinary times that will be etched deeply into our living memories. It’s all a bit dark right now isn’t it?

Yet when I think of sunnier days and happier times, my mind immediately takes me back to 1976. The year of the ‘Big Drought’. I had some great replies when I asked my social media platform yesterday if they remembered that year. There was a whole spectrum of replies. As a 14-year old boy myself, I remember it very well. It was an unprecedented time. A time post-WW2 where the country came together to face an unheard of national crisis – which we survived. Sounds familiar?

If you experienced 1976 for yourself you'll remember that Summer went on forever – well that’s how it felt anyway. As I clearly remember, it finally came to an end in a cataclysmic thunderstorm on the evening of Saturday 25^th September - when we all breathed a huge if somewhat soggy sigh of relief. Never have so many people in one nation prayed for rain!

The thing is, everything comes to its own natural end and runs out of steam. The Corona-crisis will too. It’s going to take time and strength to get through it – and a bit of nostalgia of better times. The current trend of listing and nominating albums that ‘meant-a-lot-at-the-time’ underlines just how much we love to hold onto the ‘good old days’ and in my case reliving that long hot, carefree summer with a dose of ‘More than a Feeling’ or ‘Entangled’ rather than the dreadful ‘Save your kisses for me’ or even more-dreadful (if that’s a term) ‘Mississippi’. Gave me a warm sense of belief as well as relief from yet another bad-news-broadcast on TV.

Time will heal…

Forty-four years’ on from 1976, (a matter of moments it feels to me), so much has happened. We’ve seen the rise and fall of the Space Shuttle, Concorde, Video, CD’s and the Floppy Disc. Will Apple, Facebook and good old Google be around in Forty-four more years’? Who knows but new life-challenges and inventions, will come and go – they always do. The terrible things that happened in 1976? Well, we tend try to forget the bad stuff don’t we and move on to rise out of the ashes. Rebuild. Stiffen our upper-lips and make the best of what we’ve got. 

Just like we did in 1976.

1,052 Marathons, 255 Ultras, 9 Guinness World Records & 15 Marathon des Sables

Mother - The Pink Floyd

‘Mother should I trust the government?’ 

My favourite line in ‘Mother’ from Pink Floyd’s 1979 double concept album ‘The Wall’. Since it’s release we’ve had a few governments, a few wars and a few health scares. With the latest Coronavirus providing an unprecedented heightened level of worry as maybe, like me – I don’t place any trust in the Government at all.

I mean their track record isn’t good…

Four years ago for instance there was another health scare in the UK – acknowledged by Public Health England in a letter sent out, nationwide, to every Doctors’ Surgery in the UK in January 2016 informing of a heightened level of Guillian-Barre Syndrome (GBS) cases in South Wales (10 for your information). By February 2016, the number of cases had reduced and sadly for me, no further action was taken. On March 21^st I was taken ill with GBS. No-one had a clue what it was in two visits to my GP’s surgery and a further two visits to the University of Wales Hospital. With that in mind for Covid-19 and as a person defined as being ‘at risk’ – ‘No’, I don’t trust the bloody Government!

I’d rather put my trust in common sense and listen to those around me who know exactly what to do and what course of action to take. In my opinion – it’s going to get a lot worse from here on in. The world is changing, and changing too fast – 1979 is merely a dot in the rear-view and long forgotten.

You see over the last forty years the world has changed - things kinda speeded up somewhere around the Millennium and went into overdrive mid 2000’s and since then it’s spiralled out of control. The latest news has Boris and Trump are telling us that everything is under control and that everyone within the government and it’s departments are working overtime to contain the spread of one the world’s most contagious viruses – you couldn’t write this stuff let alone imagined it back in ‘79. Boris and Trump – as much use as the Chuckle Bros.

Back then, we trusted more – I believe we had more faith. Back then as a 17 year-old young man I was still trying to find out who I was and spent a lot of energy experiencing life for the first time. My those times were exciting – carefree, innocent perhaps but not frightening as they are today and becoming bleaker every hour.

So if you’d like my thoughts - What happens during this next few weeks and months may become completely out of our control. I for one will be listening and making my own judgement on what to believe/not to believe and taking a course of action based on a) what I know to be true and b) what’s the best for me and all my loved ones.

Until then, trust only in yourself and have faith in what you believe.

1,052 Marathons - 255 Ultras - 9 Guinness World Records - 15 Marathon des Sables