So how's it going, the bright, shiny 2026...?

Globally? Terrible... We're on our way back to the 19th century.

Locally? Well, it could be worse...

I wasn't impressed by New Year's Eve. No, that's an understatement. I was thoroughly depressed by it.

We'd planned to go down to Kuching Waterfront in the late evening, to watch the concert and the fireworks, and generally be part of the crowd. But it just would not stop raining... Hour after hour, and the water continued to fall. And at 2200, the latest feasible go/no-go time, it was as though someone had just opened a spigot, so that now it was not just raining, but POURING.

I hate seeing the New Year in at home. I explained why way back in 2010, and nothing has changed.

But what to do? It was POURING, I tell you...

So, as midnight came round, we stood on the balcony, toasted the New Year with tuak, and watched the fireworks blur into the impossibly low cloud.

Before the fireworks had even finished, there was a thunderstorm. Which was a little scary... It was like Nature saying: I see you, and I raise you. You crackle and fizzle a bit, but I BOOM. I ROAR. Take that, puny humans. I can RATTLE YOUR WINDOWS.

Seriously... Intimidating.

I went to bed a little low. Nothing about that evening seemed to augur well.

The next day a friend told me the Chinese think water means blessing. It washes away all the bad stuff, to make way for the good. Sure, she admitted, that was a LOT of water. But still, the principle remains. I hope she's right...

The first four days have gone reasonably well:






New Year's Day was also Day 1 of Simon Haisell's year-long group read of War and Peace. It's approximately 50 years since I last read this, so I'm looking forward to it.

And the first day of the year is always the time for Computer Reorganization. A job I quite like, actually. Finally, something I'm in control of... This year I also reorganized my Reading List, which had evolved into an infernal mess, with snippets of stuff everywhere. So it was a mammoth task, stretching over four days, but it's all now much more streamlined and searchable. I'll need to live to be at least 389 to have any hope of getting through it all, but still...

It's always nice to inject the first few days of the year with things that set the tone for the rest of it, and that's worked reasonably well. Greetings; walks; coffee; nice food; books...

Onwards and upwards. I seem to say that a lot at the moment...