It’s an irony that on this, the final day of massed sobriety, I need a drink like never before. Today, Friday 31st January 2020 is not the saddest day of my life, but it’s certainly up there with the best of them. I genuinely apologise for my lack of optimism and for my obvious inability to move forward from the (IMHO) disastrous decision 52% of our population made. Sorry, it’s just the way it is and no amount of bell-bonging or coin forging is going to change this.

Now that everyone’s out of the ditch and Brexit is getting done what are the implications for the continuation of English as an official language of the EU? Back in the day Dutch, French, German and Italian were all identified as official EU working languages and with us no longer being in the club they don’t need to pander to our lack of multi-linguistic ability. Or do they?

The eagle-eyed amongst you will have noted that exactly one year ago I posted an article entitled ‘2019: The Year of Bitcoin. Again’ and several of you have asked how I fared with that particular prediction. Well, taking into account the price was then about £2,600 and, having peaked at a smidgen under £10,000 in July, it’s now at £6,800, I guess I was pretty much on the money.

I reckon there’s a fair-to-middlin’ chance that you’re worried about what the future holds for you and yours. I’d be prepared to go a little further and say that many of us are always worried about what the future holds even if, to quote Joe Walsh of The Eagles, ‘life’s been good to me so far’. Which it has.

Cards on the table, this is a rehash of last year’s mistletoe missive, so many of you will already know I have strong feelings of what constitutes a suitably moral festive flick. It’s either Frank Capra’s ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ where James Stewart’s George Bailey is saved by trainee angel, Clarence, or ‘Scrooge’, the 1951 adaptation of Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’, in which we see the superbly frozen-hearted Alastair Sim thawed by the passing of several Christmas ghosts.

Having spent the weekend in the Tory heartland of er, central Lancashire I’ve been able to reflect upon the facts and the fallout from Thursday’s monumental general election and, needless to say, I’m not a happy man. Sadly, both my predictions and worst fears have been realised and, furthermore, the scale of the victory indicates the likely modus operandi for the next decade, if not longer.

Yes, we are. With a week to go before the general election, the de-facto second Brexit referendum, we are indeed almost there. And this is the last post, literally and metaphorically. As such, it’s opportune to take a brief look back at the situation that brought us to where we are today.

I don’t actually recall ever having ‘the’ conversation with my own son but I do remember, with sweat-inducing fear, my own father’s somewhat ham-fisted but nonetheless enlightened attempt to increase my teenage knowledge of such delicate matters. So it was not without a little trepidation that wee Tom and I embarked on such a conversation t’other day concerning the ways of today’s wide and wacky world. Mind, it’s a sign of the times perhaps that wisdom in our relationship is now flowing predominantly in only one direction: towards me.

I recently came across a footnote informing me that no less than the pope himself wanted to alter a line of the Lord’s Prayer, from ‘lead us not into temptation’ to ‘do not let us fall into temptation’. Apparently, he thought it necessary to point out to us that any succumbing to potential temptation was entirely of our own doing, and not the ‘special one’s’ fault.

Following last week’s raft of pre-election promises from ‘hey-big-spenders’ Sajid Javid and John McDonnell, and the publishing of the worst performance figures since records began, it’s widely agreed that the NHS is on the critical list. And it isn’t even officially winter yet.