Suzanne Harrington: The hard goodbyes in the last year - the saddest of all, Terry Hall of the Specials
Terry Hall of The Specials on the Main Stage, at the Isle of Wight Festival in Seaclose Park, Newport, Isle of Wight.
As we tiptoe tentatively towards 2023, barely daring to look up and being extra careful not to touch anything, let us look at the past year and all the goodbyes we have witnessed.
The saddest one first – Terry Hall of the Specials. Still processing that one.
Goodbye to any doubt that Vladimir Putin is anything but a paranoid war-mongering Bond villain; all he’s short is a fluffy white pussycat in his arms, except he’d be afraid it might make him look gay. Better to stride around blowing up hospitals and power stations belonging to his next door neighbours. Goodbye too to Mikhail Gorbachev, who definitely didn’t intend for the Soviet Union to end like this.
Goodbye to the Queen, who can finally put her celestial slippers on and watch The Crown in peace, without having to cut any more ribbons or bail out any close friends of Jeffrey Epstein. Also goodbye to William and Kate’s Netflix subscription. Goodbye too, hopefully, to the career of Jeremy Clarkson after his recent poisonous tirade in The Sun about Meghan Markle, misogynistic to the point of hate-crime – and to the editor who approved it.
Goodbye to the actual career of Kanye West, who spectacularly self-destructed via befuddled yet virulent antisemitism on social media, and his infantile trolling of the Black Lives Matter movement. Brands dropped him faster than you could say 'Balenciaga'.
Goodbye also to Twitter, taken over by a Space Karen determined to dismantle what was once a genuinely innovative and lively forum, but is now full of mad people spewing hate at each other. Not sure how it will pan out after all the moderate tweeters have migrated to Mastodon and only the hatey shriekers are left - who will they bait, in the absence of snowflakes and libtards? Own goal, Elon, own goal.
Goodbye to Messi – and DiMaria - from future World Cups, having given us all adrenal fatigue after the most thrilling final in years. Goodbye to Ronaldo, who went out with a whimper rather than any of the banging goals scored by his old rival. And goodbye to Piers Morgan’s already questionable dignity as persists in his unseemly Ronaldo fanboying. Ick.
Goodbye to Tanya from The White Lotus, the greatest series to hit our screens in 2022, if not the entire 21st century. Jennifer Coolidge channelling the monstrous lovechild of Monica Vitti and Peppa Pig in a bravura performance of needy entitlement and self-absorption was quite something. A gloriously awful creation. Hurry up with Season 3, scriptwriters.
Goodbye to Bitcoin and the rest of that made-up digital pyramid scheme that had us temporarily believing we could get rich from imaginary money hidden down imaginary mines, and buy art that didn’t exist via something that sounded like a toenail infection. Non-fungible tokens are worthless now. Idiots.
On a happier note, goodbye to Donald Trump as a political force. Now when he makes a ‘major announcement’ it’s to tell us about digital trading cards he’s launched, featuring him dressed as a superhero. This is not even parody, or even satire. Goodbye, you mad orange loser. Shut the door on the way out.
