View from the Boundary

Happy New Year.
I remember running in a race of several laps of the track at school once, it might only have been a 1500 metres, but the teacher said afterwards that he noticed my body language going into the last lap saying, 'oh, no, not again'. And that's very much how it felt going back into the office this morning. The midwinter break is often the longest break of the year for me these days and so the most accustomed I get to not having to deal with the dreary routine of it all, the same people still behaving in the same old ways, the same grinding processes to be gone through. But, there again, by some miracle, one is still employed. One never asked to be born but one has to be a bit philosophical and can't help but see the point of Larkin's almost grateful resignation to it in Toads Revisited.
There are still small joys to be had and even the often grim edifice of professional sport can yet provide them. The New Year racing recovered my Christmas losses before I made a clattering error that only went to prove that a fool and his money will eventually be parted but the gloriousness of Kauto Star makes such things very bearable. And the tedious complaints of Arsene Wenger only served to somehow augment a tremendous fight back by Fulham last night.
I don't know how long Geoffrey Hill has been under consideration for a knighthood but it's encouraging to note that as soon as this website features him, he gets it. I'm really not convinced about the honours list - what it means or how it matters- and it is those awards that contain the words 'British Empire' that need the most looking at. But if anybody can wear a knighthood with the necessary gravitas, it must be Sir Geoffrey.
However, it doesn't make the poems any better or the poet any greater. If anybody was thinking of nominating me, I wouldn't want to discourage them as I'd appreciate the opportunity to quietly turn it down. I wouldn't go through all the rigmarole that The Beatles went through, do the photo opportunity and then hand it back. I'd save Her Majesty's time and trouble and let someone else have it who might appreciate it. Jeremy Clarkson perhaps.
Okay, then. Let's go round again. There'll be the Swindon Literature Festival, the Portsmouth Festivities, the Proms, the Cheltenham Festivals of both Literature and horse racing and books and concerts that I'm sure will make 2012 memorable. But 2011 was tremendous. If 2012 is half as good, it will be fine.