Once again I find myself writing this far too late for comfort. There’s really just too much fun to be had in the world without the hassle of letter writing just to keep my adoring public amused. I seriously considered just sending cards this year, but couldn’t bring myself to disappoint all of you out there in reader-land.

I know you’ve all being waiting for the news I promised you about the American election last year. Well, in case you missed it, Bush won. At any rate he assumed office. Shortly afterwards some little local difficulties in Afghanistan distracted everyone’s attention and we don’t seem to have heard so much about dimpled chads and the like since. Curiously enough ‘chad’ isn’t in my Microsoft spell checker, gotta move with the times Bill…

In the UK ‘Blaster’ Blair won. Having conclusively demonstrated, during the foot and mouth crisis (‘Blaster’ took ‘personal charge’ of this ‘eye catching initiative’…)., that no politician could even come close to managing a piss up in a brewery (at least in Britain), it seems that the great Joe public still felt that the other lot would be even worse. A questionable judgement but one with which I can sympathise to some extent. The fat guy, oh what’s his name? you know, the one who looks like a bulldog chewing a wasp; a ship’s steward, or shop steward or something. You know, the guy who thumps people during general elections. Anyway I note he got relieved of his transport duties. If I recall he said something along the lines of ‘if we do not get more people out of their cars and into public transport in this parliament then we will have failed’. Well you failed fatso. Might be something to do with telling people to use their cars to avoid rail delays. Mind you, he’s not as stupid as he looks. (Couldn’t be really, I guess.) He was the guy who told ‘Blaster’s’ chauffeur to use bus lanes to save time. Same guy who told Jack Sprat’s chauffeur to drive at 100 mph (“don’t worry mate, we’ll see yer right”) Note to ‘Blaster’: - There are big signs up all over Heathrow saying ‘takes 15 minutes every 15 minutes’ referring to that endangered species, the train. Anyway ‘Thumper’s’ successor renationalised the rail network so everyone’s happy now. Except the train travelling public who in a matter of weeks had delays back up to post Hatfield levels.

Talking of Hatfield we now have someone to blame. Anyone who has ever been somewhere in middle management knows how important that is. Before we had someone to blame we had the unedifying sight of the people responsible for roads, and the people responsible for railways arguing about who’s job it was to put a fence between a road and a railway. Not any more. Now we can blame Gary Hart. Poor sod. He’s apparently guilty of causing death by dangerous driving. ‘Cause’ is an interesting word here. Almost any event has several causes; often one of them dominates. In the case of Hatfield the dominant cause was the timing of the whole thing, a couple of minutes either way and you’d have had a bent car and not much else. Unless you assume that Mr. Hart was driving faster than the speed limit with the sole purpose of getting to his rendezvous with fate at precisely the right time it’s hard to see how he ‘caused’ those tragic deaths. But at least we have someone to blame. And Thumper, who was indirectly responsible for both rail fences and road fences, is off the hook. Or perhaps I’m being a little cynical. Doesn’t make me wrong though…

So now Blaster has sacked 3 inspectors in 6 months. Inspectors of prisons and schools, and a commissioner for parliamentary ethics. There’s a lesson here I suspect. If someone pays you a lot of money to tell them how they’re doing, you might be advised to tell them they’re doing well. Of course a lot of grief (i.e. money) could have been saved by not employing them in the first place, but then no-one would tell you how well you’re doing and that could lead to damaged ego syndrome. Staff selection is SO important..

Some smart newspaper hack claimed the UK has the worst transport system in Europe. Obviously the guy couldn’t work out how to get to Ireland using said system. Ireland is worse. No question. That august journal, ‘The Examiner’, claimed during the year, that over here we have a worse road system than Zimbabwe. I haven’t been there (before you ask, no plans either) but it’s clearly true. Every other country in the EU has its number one, and number two cities linked by motorway (except Luxembourg which doesn’t have a number two city). Over here we have a goat track. That much maligned German leader, Madolf Heatlump I think Lennon called him, built a ring road round his capital before the war (the second big one, Germany 0 England 2). 35 years on we started the same thing in Ireland and we STILL haven’t finished. OK you say, well take the train (as Thumper Prescott might have said). I have. I can’t recommend it. Having said that I spoke to a French tourist who thought it ‘quaint’. As in “Eh bien, nous n’avons pas ces choses maintenant en France.” I once heard another French tourist describe Ireland as ‘a third world country with white people’. So take your pick. My car radio is a smart little thing. It updates its’ time automatically from the broadcaster. As a result it kept on summer time three weeks longer than the rest of the clocks in the house. It’s a lovely place to live, but I sometimes think number 2 French tourist might have had a point.

What to say about Afghanistan? Like everyone else, the moment I heard about 9/11 happening I switched on CNN and didn’t turn it off till I was too tired to see any more. So I heard Blaster say how sorry he was. I did not hear him offer support, help, or troops to the US. I just heard his princess Di voice and how sorry he was. Then of course he realised that here was a god sent opportunity to be ‘personally associated’ with an ‘eye-catching initiative’. The budget for the UK effort is £120,000,000. You don’t buy many B1’s with that. I’m sorry, but this is cant and hypocrisy of the highest order. Just recall that last year the UK ministry of defence spent £3,000,000 in compensation to people who’d tripped over waste paper baskets and the like, and you begin to see where the priorities lie.

Normally about this time I share with you details of recent advertisements which have caught my attention, but there’s not much going on in this field. I did complain to the Advertisement standards authority or some such body, about adverts on TV which said that Gigahertz computers give you a faster internet experience. Weeks later they sent a reply saying they were still investigating. The letter carried a post office stamp saying ‘insufficient postage, transferred to surface mail’. I don’t hold out much hope for a satisfactory resolution of this case…

Kids are getting older. An 18 year old Stephanie is now a fresher at Trinity College Dublin, reading pharmacy, at least that’s what it says on the label. I suspect she’s going for a degree in having a good time; certainly she’s studying hard for it. Sophie, 16 in January is into the final two year stretch for leaving cert (A levels) and Sebastian (13 in March) has started at secondary school. Takes after his old dad, a keen rugby player and sportsman.

The sad news this year is the death of my father. He visited over Christmas, and died here on the 15^th January. He lasted about 8 months after my mother. There’s a long story here but this is supposed to be a Christmas letter. Suffice it to say it hit me much harder than I could possibly have expected. He was a great dad, and I hope we gave him a reasonable send off. 

It is now the time to add my contribution. 2001 had been quite tough on us one way or another. Closing Peter’s family home was very hard. Life thrown in skips. The highlight of my year was a short trip to Hong Kong, it was just wonderful, just going back home really. We had a short trip to France in the summer, just the two of us! Long trips in cars are much more pleasant when you do not have to listen to an array of CDs of pop artists you have never heard of. We stayed with my elderly mum and went to scatter grandpas’s ashes in Spain. I am still translating and interpreting, though this is getting more tedious. Well I am determined that 2002 will be more fun. Who knows, I might even win the lotto! Happy Christmas to you all. Annie    

     Peter and Annie Barwich