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I was prepared for vaccine side effects, but so far there don’t seem to be any. But 15 days after my op I am still sore and so spent most of the day in bed, polishing off the first season of Loudermilk. I enjoyed it, though preferred the early episodes that concentrated on the group and kept things sort of small, but there was still much to enjoy from the road trip nature of the last couple of episodes. I will carry on watching and recommend it. There’s loads of interesting and funny stuff in there and it’s terrific to see Mat Fraser get the success he deserves and gets to show off his phenomenal drumming skills. I had never even heard of this show before yesterday and had no idea that Matt was in it - I guess there’s just too much TV out there to consume, but glad I found it, thanks to Brian Regan (who is also excellent in it, especially given this is his first acting job - and lovely to hear him swearing!)
I filled in the 2021 census today. It must be the third one that I’ve done myself, though I don’t remember too much about the other ones. For the first time I considered the possibility this might be the last one I appear on (though hopefully not), whilst also enjoying the fact that it was the first appearance for both my kids, but I also thought about the future Herring genealogists looking me up and wanted to give a couple of little vague hellos to my descendants. I wondered if the job of podcaster would looks as weird and archaic to them as candlestick maker or cooper would seem to us - I think there’s a good chance that this is the only census where podcaster is a job. I also gave a nod to our times by saying my family identified as European. I know a few people are doing that and it will be a little significant blip for historians from the future to consider. They will have the advantage of knowing the fall out from Brexit (which hopefully won’t be nuclear) and allow themselves a wry smile whichever way it went.
I also felt it important to register myself as “No Religion†rather than larking around and calling myself a Jedi or whatever (I don’t think I did that before, but you never know). If all the non-religious people do the same then we can put to bed the idea that religion is a driving force for the majority of the people in the UK.
These ten year snap shots of life and love and procreation and shifting employment status are fascinating. Thirty years ago I lived in Acton in a shared house, twenty years ago I was living alone in Balham. Ten years ago I was living in Shepherd’s Bush with my girlfriend and now I am in Hertfordshire, I am Catie’s husband and two new lives have sprung up from nowhere. In another ten my daughter will be 16, my son a new teenager and podcasting will have a new name or be consigned to history, but nothing else is really certain. It’s a sort of brutal way to look at a lifetime - you’re not going to get to be on more than a dozen of these things, probably only seven or eight. But enough happens in a decade for circumstances to change in this very short flick book of existence.
I suppose if future Herring genealogists want to go any deeper into my life then this blog may be a little too far in the other direction. If only I’d said I’d do this once every ten years too.
Hopefully it’s not my last one. If I live as long as my parents current age then I’ve three more in me and if I live as long as my Grandma then I’ll get perilously close to five. I envy the people of the future who can do up to five searches and discover how my life pans out, who I live and die with and where I go next, without the tedium of have to hang around for up to fifty years. It’s going to be a long fucking wait for the rest of you to find out where I am and who I am with in 2031. Plod onwards into the future with me, one second at a time.
