Index 2023

INDEX 2023

So, good riddance 2023, you utter shitfest of a year. Whether or not life actually does begin at 40, as the cliché would suggest, it has certainly changed a lot for me in the last 12 months. RIP Dad, I miss you every day and I will always love you.

Nevertheless, it would be churlish not to admit that there have still been some highlights. My lovely niece Maya is growing up fast, always makes me smile and usually makes me laugh like a gargling drain with her antics.

I also loved my trip to Greece (except for the bit when my phone got stolen), my latest Glastonbury Festival renewal (where the Foo Fighters especially were truly epic), yet another visit to Prague (where me and my friends got to have a go at being Pilsner Urquell tapsters), a raucous weekend in Ibiza (except for the bit when my phone got stolen), and I also bimbled around a bit of Germany which I had never previously seen.

Of course, that trip to Germany derived from a serious prolonged upturn in form from my beloved Newcastle United who finished last season in the top four for the first time in 20 years.

But, to be quite honest, even Newcastle United let me down this year in the biggest games of the calendar year at Wembley in February in the Carabao Cup Final - even if the crowd in Trafalgar Square on the night before was epic - and then again against AC Milan at St James Park this month.

There have been various other weekends away in the UK which have captured the imagination: the snooker in Sheffield in April, Nottingham in May to see Team GB regain their place at the top table in international ice hockey, York for Hallowe'en, and another visit to Lindisfarne Festival in September.

Unfortunately, though, I finished the year still partly recovering from a hairline fracture to my ankle sustained at Lindisfarne after the injury suffered several setbacks, although some of them were admittedly self-inflicted.

Additionally, I have spent much of the run-up to Christmas battling an acute bout of the lurgy which has hung around for the last seven weeks and, at times, made me sound like a 40-a-day smoker.

It basically made an already exhausting year just that little bit more difficult to get through - and, despite numerous undoubted highlights, I am afraid this is a year which, for quite some time, I have been desperate to consign to the archives.

For what it's worth, this blog still gets updated with the occasional updates - and, hopefully, 2024 will provide opportunities for some write-ups on a brighter note.

An index of the posts made in 2023 can be found below:

CRICKET
Ashes 2023
16.06  Baz-ball faces its biggest Test of all in Ashes
11.07  Ashes alive after England win Headingley nail-biter
01.08  Broad signs off in style as Ashes series ends drawn
World Cup
05.10  Preview: Confident India hold all the cards
14.11  Not defending anything
19.11  Australia tear down India's cloak of invincibility

FOOTBALL
Season 2022/23
04.05  Haaland breaks goal record to send Man City back top
13.06  Manchester City complete incredible Treble
Season 2023/24
15.08  Manchester City go for four in a row
04.12  Another chance for England at Euro 2024

RUGBY UNION
World Cup
08.09  Preview: C'est le moment... peut-être
04.11  Back-to-back Boks outlast All Blacks

SNOOKER
World Championships
14.04  Snooker finds itself in a terrible fix
01.05  Belgian Bullet slays maximum man Selby

POLITICS
By elections
24.07  Another messy night

PERSONAL
Glastonbury 2023
30.06  There goes My Hero

So, take me disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind

Down the foggy ruins of time

Far past the frozen leaves

The haunted frightened trees

Out to the windy beach

Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow

Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky

With one hand waving free

Silhouetted by the sea

Circled by the circus sands

With all memory and fate

Driven deep beneath the waves

Let me forget about today until tomorrow

Bob Dylan - Mr. Tambourine Man (1965)