Goodbye 2024, Hello 2025
I spent the first two weeks of 2024 coding an “organiser” program that would help with my Substack work. Using it, I can keep track of the status of every essay, and organise notes and tasks for each one.
I felt the need for this software because by September last year I was becoming overwhelmed by the volumes of ideas, facts and tasks swimming around in my head. I was learning an awful lot at that time, and expected 2024 to be a year of writing about the Loony Left and subversive TV.
With the latter in mind, I bought a lot of second-hand DVDs in order to do the necessary research. I soon found that, in looking for subversive British comedy and drama, one is really spoilt for choice. Leaving aside trivial fluff entertainment (though even a lot of that is suspect), any “controversial” drama is almost certain to be subversive. In our age, “controversial” is a euphemism for “deconstructivist”. Therefore, anything that “made a splash” (ie. was widely promoted) will have been promoted for a reason, and the reason is always the same: the media have been relentlessly undermining traditional Britain for a hundred years. Almost every TV writer and almost every TV producer was involved, either passively or actively. Few were conservative and even fewer were able, in the climate of the media, to “be” conservative in their work. So the history of our subversion is very fertile ground, and I still intend to mine it.
However, as I predicted in last year’s round-up, once spring came, new ideas occurred and took me in directions I had not foreseen. Instead of the afore-mentioned projects, I wrote series about blasphemy and the decline of Doctor Who. I also began series about the poet Tony Harrison, AI media, the architectural history of my home town, and a second series about blasphemy. None of these were on my mind this time last year.
As a result, rather disappointingly, none of the projects I mentioned in last year’s round-up have been completed yet. However, most of them have been advanced. The subversive comedy coverage was begun with several essays about Chris Morris and more work on the Life of Brian series. As for the Loony Left project, it ballooned. In January, right after Millenniyule was over and I made the organiser program, I focussed on one of the Loony Left essays hoping to get at least one part of that project out of the way - but that essay on its own ended up being 16,000 words!
From there, I progressed to a series about an Edinburgh tradition, then one blasphemy series (about the 1977 trial of Gay News) and then a second one (about the history of blasphemy law and “hate speech”) which was the first of the ones mentioned to actually get published. Then I wrote the series about Doctor Who, which was also published and was surprisingly popular. I also created the Chronologies page to help people navigate my essays. It was an extremely busy year; I probably wrote twice as much text as I published, so the beginnings of a great number of works are there, waiting to be cultivated.
This year was characterised by an increased focus on historical research. Subscriptions to newspaper archives came in very useful. I also conducted a few research interviews, which was rather daunting at first. Digging up the past and trying to piece together what happened in this or that obscure situation is something that I find challenging and therefore rewarding, but as the year went on I began to be aware of the danger inherent in this activity: the danger of morbid incestuousness, of ruminating over things that are long over, long gone, and might not matter very much. Maybe 99.999% of things that happen should be forgotten, and, absent an eccentric investigator, naturally would be?
There is also the fear that I am fixating on the past only because the present is so awful, and the future likely even more so. I don’t know what to do about that. I am not a “man of action”, who can seize the reins and re-make the world, so it is not within my power to steer the future towards this or that. But I can illuminate bits from the past which might point us towards a better future. I can try to find and preserve wisdom that has been lost.
I was gearing up for a final gasp of frenzied writing before Millenniyule when, in September, everything was interrupted.
My mother died.
She’d had dementia for nearly a decade, and we were estranged by the doxing (I’m sure this would have been resolved in time, if not for the dementia) so in many ways she was “gone” a long time before she actually died. Fundamentally, I lost her in January 2017. I have always missed her dearly, and I’m sure that will simply continue now. There is no replacing such a woman. I can only hope we will be reunited some day. It feels unfinished - but maybe it always does. I am astonished to think it is truly, eternally over.
When it happened, I had enough essays ready that the publishing schedule was not immediately disturbed, which was a relief because I thought it wise to keep the situation secret. The final major thing I wrote this year was an essay about her, about our relationship, but it is already 10,000 words and not finished, and I’m not sure it should ever be published. I learned the hard way that baring one’s soul is feasible when you’re an “anon” but dangerous when you’re any kind of public figure, especially one with enemies on your own side.
Regretfully, there were two gaps in output this year - during the blasphemy series when I decided late on to do some extra research for the final entry, and in autumn for the obvious reason and then because of the need to work on Millenniyule. However, despite these gaps, I published 36 essays in 2024, which amounts to 0.7 per week. This is less consistent than I would like but, given the effort that goes into these, I don’t feel too guilty. Were I on the left, I would be well into six figures for this sort of work, instead of the $9,600 I will make this year. If you think that is unjust and you can afford to help, please take out a paid subscription to my Substack - it makes a difference. I love doing what I do, but it is literally not paying the bills and I am running out of savings.
The drafts folder now contains 220 essays. According to my organiser program, 18 of them are finished, but most of those can’t be published yet because they are part of unfinished series. So, whatever new ideas occur in 2025, it will certainly be a year of tying up loose ends, quite methodically getting one project finished after another - many standalone essays and many series. I expect it to be another very busy and productive year.
My enthusiasm for essay-writing has not waned, but the latent joy that I felt about it this time last year has diminished somewhat for the simple reason that I am not (yet) making a living from it, so it feels like a reckless indulgence rather than a sustainable thing. Hopefully that will resolve in 2025.
I am eager not to repeat the mistake I made in 2015: getting pigeon-holed into discussing one particular topic. I remember 2014 fondly because as my first year on YouTube it was a time of joyous creative freedom. 2023 on Substack was the same, and I don’t want to lose that. This is why in 2024 I have steered clear, most of the time, from “standard MW topics” - identity, nationhood, race, etc. - to prevent them taking over again. Barring exceptional real-world events like the England riots, I want to avoid getting drawn back into those topics. I have already said pretty much everything I have to say about them, and they are being examined by many more people nowadays than in 2017. For me, there are new places to explore.
Thank you for appreciating my work, and merry Christmas and a happy new year to all of you.
Highlights of 2024:
Sorry to hear about your mother. I miss your weekly shows on odysee. I love the milleniyule series, it's like being a child looking forward to your favourite movies coming on over the Christmas holidays.
So, so sorry for your loss Colin. Please be kind to yourself and take things a day at a time. For me, the high point of your writing this year was the series of essays on Tony Harrison, a poet whose work I’ve admired since I was at school. He’s an old school leftist, but there is much of worth to be found in his writings. Thank you.