Happy New Year… 2023!
When I was a child in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the year 2023 seemed so far in the future–a year that might be the setting for a sci-fi show. And yet here we are. I don’t think any sci-fi in the 70s anticipated we’d still be driving on roads and living only on one planet. But I don’t think any of them anticipated the internet, especially not social media–Facebook, Twitter, TikTok. I mean, that would be pushing dystopia a little too far. ?
So how was your 2022? In these new year posts I like to take a brief look back at popular posts on this blog, and maybe reflect on what’s happened. If you’re looking for new year resolutions or big blog plans for the coming year, sorry. I probably planned to blog more last year and that didn’t happen. While I’d like to think I’ll be posting more here, I’m not making promises so you’ll have to subscribe to find out if I do. ?
Most Popular Posts in 2022
I always find it interesting to see which of the posts on this blog attract attention over the year. Some posts may languish in obscurity for years and for some reason, maybe some newsworthy event happens, and all of a sudden it takes off. Here are the top ten blog posts that caught the attention of readers in 2022:
Note that not all of these posts were written in 2022… in fact, I don’t think any of them were, which probably tells me something about the kind of content I should be posting here as opposed to the content I have been posting this past year. Hmmm…
What Else Happened in 2022?
The big social media news of 2022 was probably Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter. I’ve been amused to see people get so angry about this. The complaint from some seems to boil down to the fact that Musk has loosened a lot of Twitter’s moderation policies to allow more people to speak their minds, even if their opinions are controversial or, perhaps, factually incorrect. Isn’t that the definition of free speech, though? Twitter’s old management had clamped down on “misinformation” so much that accounts were being suspended or outright banned for sharing alternative facts about things like the efficacy of the mRNA vaccine for COVID, or the state of election integrity in this country. These are things we should be able to have healthy, informative debates about. Apparently, Musk’s goal for Twitter is for it to be a place that lets you talk about issues, read and consider other points of view, and form your own opinions, not a place that tells you what to think by silencing whatever it might consider “misinformation.”
The war in Ukraine, high inflation, and the huge spike in illegal immigration across the US southern border were other newsworthy items of the year. What other big events happened that were meaningful to you?
Celebrity Deaths
It should come as no surprise that people died this year. Sad to say, but it happens every year. And some of those people are people of note, either in terms of popularity or notoriety. It’s sobering to me to see so many of the celebrities I grew up with, who are time-locked in my mind looking and sounding as they did when I was young, suddenly looking old, frail, and passing away.
I want to take a moment here to highlight some of the celebrity deaths that are meaningful to me. Given I’m an ex-Brit Gen-Xer, some of these may be unfamiliar to my non-Brit, non-Gen-X readers, but I’ll give a brief explanation for each one. You can find lists of celebrity deaths in 2022 all over the internet (here’s the AP’s list, for example: https://apnews.com/article/2022-year-end-deaths-72a2b8dfeaf11dd8967ec90eb8598ee0):
Queen Elizabeth II: The longest reigning monarch in British history. She had been queen for nearly 20 years when I was born. I remember celebrating her Silver Jubilee in 1977, and her constant presence in the background of our lives. Every Christmas we had “The Queen’s Speech.” Her face was on all our currency. We sang “God Save the Queen.” A lot of her post-mortem eulogies talked about what a great, solid leader she was, and I never really thought much about it before, but she was. It was during her reign that the monarchy adapted to television, learning how to use that medium, and then the internet. She navigated her family through awkward controversies and changing social mores, moving with the times where necessary, but staying firm in her convictions. She will be missed.
June Brown: June was best known as one of the original cast members of the long-running British soap “EastEnders” which started in 1985. Her character, Dot Cotton, was one of the old folks back then, recognizable for always having a cigarette in her fingers and a Bible quote on her lips. I watched EastEnders with my Mum from the first episode, and even after moving to the States, I would catch episodes as they were available on PBS or BBC America. These days, my son and I use BritBox to keep up-to-date with the goings on in Albert Square. Just the other week, they announced the death of Dot Cotton and held an in-story funeral for her character. (For my fellow Whovians, June played Lady Eleanor in the 1974 story “The Time Warrior” which was also Sarah Jane Smith’s first story.)
Vangelis: Greek-born musician and composer, probably best known for writing and recording the original “Blade Runner” movie score and the music for “Chariots of Fire” with its distinctive title theme. My Dad was a fan of Vangelis’s music, and he passed that affection on to me and my brothers. His collaborations with former Yes lead singer Jon Anderson are worth checking out.
Bernard Cribbins: Talk about a voice from my childhood–whether it was The Wombles or Jackanory, or one of the many acting or voice-over roles he took in films and on television, you knew Bernard Cribbins as soon as you heard him. And what a fine actor he was, pouring himself into every role. He’s probably most known in the US as Wilfred Mott, Donna Noble’s grandfather in Doctor Who. But that was one of the last roles he played in a long and celebrated career. As with the Queen, a piece of me died when Mr. Cribbins passed.
Raymond Briggs: British children’s author and illustrator whose “Fungus the Bogeyman” was one of my and my older brother’s favorite books. Raymond’s books were written in comic book style, and illustrated in colored pencil. The two he’s best known for, “Fungus” and “The Snowman” were interesting for different reasons. “Fungus” told a story of a race of people, “Bogeymen,” who live underground, preferring the dirt and damp to the clean dryness of the overworld. The main occupation of Bogey men is to creep out at night while the “dry cleaners” (regular people) sleep, sneak into their homes, and give them boils on the back of their necks. The hero, “Fungus,” however, is going through an existential crisis: Is this all there is to life? It’s very entertaining. “The Snowman” on the other hand is a story about a boy’s friendship with a snowman told without words. I never owned that book (in fact, I didn’t own “Fungus”–my brother owned it and I would borrow it to read), so I can’t say much about it, but it was very popular.
Robbie Coltrane: Robbie was of the same generation of comedians (often referred to as “alternative”) that gave us Rowan Atkinson, Rik Mayall, Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, Mel Smith, and many others. Throughout most of the 80s I remember him as a frequent guest in comedy shows, so you can imagine my surprise when he landed a serious role as a Scottish detective in the TV series “Cracker”… then he was in two James Bond movies as a Russian! His casting as the half-giant Hagrid in the Harry Potter series was inspired; he was perfect for the role, giving the character the comedic and tragic elements he needed. Of all the celebrity deaths this year, his was the one that surprised me most. I wasn’t aware he was ill, though he was 74–not young, but, not especially old either.
Leslie Phillips: On the other hand, Leslie Phillips was a British actor I was surprised to learn was still alive! At least until he did eventually die in 2022 at the age of 98. I mostly remember him from the classic “Carry On” films, and the numerous other movies he was in that would often show on TV during my childhood and later. His face and voice were instantly recognizable, and he would often make guest appearances on shows.
Gwyneth Powell: I only really knew Gwyneth as the headmistress of “Grange Hill,” the fictional comprehensive school of the British children’s TV series of the same name. Her character, Mrs. McCluskey, had the difficult job of maintaining order amongst a bunch of 11 to 16-year-old kids who were constantly getting up to the kind of mischief that was TV-appropriate for the early 1980s. (Perhaps the most controversial storyline of my time watching the show was when some of the kids were caught doing drugs, a storyline that tied in with the national “Just Say No!” campaign.) To be fair, it was quite hard-hitting for its time (though the constant butt of jokes over the fact that the kids never swore–not really true to life for most British schools), but it would be considered quite tame by today’s standards. Mrs. McClusky served as headmistress for most of the 1980s. The show ran far longer than I ever watched: it was eventually canceled in 2008.
Monty Norman: Most known–at least to me–as the creator of the James Bond theme. While the Bond movies have all had different title tunes (“Goldfinger,” “Live and Let Die,” “A View to a Kill” to name but a few), the main Bond theme, played on a guitar, appears at the beginning of every movie (I think) along with the characteristic Bond “turn-and-shoot” silhouette at the end of a gun barrel. Few composers have been able to capture a mood and a character so well that just the first couple of bars of their music elicit instant recognition from an audience. While I’m sure Monty Norman did many other notable things, this theme was his gift to posterity. One that hopefully pays his family in royalties for many years.
Andy Fletcher: Founding member and keyboardist for the British synth band Depeche Mode. I wasn’t a huge Depeche Mode fan, but they were among those early synth bands my older brother and I were into in the early 1980s (along with Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (before they were just OMD), Buggles, New Musik, Gary Numan and Tubeway Army, to name a few). As with many of those early synth bands, their songs often had catchy keyboard lines–probably because most keyboards were only 4 or 5-note polyphonic at best, so they had to come up with tunes for them to play (that’s my theory, anyway)! And Depeche Mode had a fair few catchy keyboard parts, which no doubt Andy Fletcher had a hand in composing (for example: “New Life” and “Just Can’t Get Enough“–btw, I love the line: “We slip and slide as we fall in love” ?).
Which celebrity deaths affected you most in 2022? Share in the comments!
I’ve rambled and reminisced enough, so I’ll sign off for now. I hope you all have a wonderful 2023!
