At this time of year, nothing fills one with dread like the arrival of a round-robin family newsletter. (If this statement doesn't apply to you, look away now.)
The various evils of these cheese-laden reviews of the family year are well documented and I don't intend to dwell on them all. But, just so we're on the same page, as they like to say here, I suggest that the two leading evils of round-robins are that they are (i) pointless; & (ii) designed to leave the reader feeling inferior.
They are pointless because the information they offer is either (a) important (births, deaths, new jobs, etc), in which case family and friends already know it, or (b) inconsequential (eg Veronica's grade 3 nose-flute exam), in which case they don't want to know it. Authors of round robins who are still with us please note - your family and friends love you very much, but this does not necessarily mean that they feel the need to know all the details of little Derek's post-modern reinterpretation of Bottom in St Kevin's end-of-term A Midsummer Night's Dream. Sorry.
But perhaps the greater evil of these upbeat summaries of blissful family life and "quality time" is their ability to leave the average reader feeling that his or her disfunctional and/or frustrated existence is somehow inadequate, rather than simply normal. And so, in an effort to redress this balance as we start a new year, The Referee would like to offer you an honest but heavily-edited review of his key failings and ongoing inadequacies during 2005:
1. For the second consecutive year (as far as I can remember), 2005 saw at least one day in which I bought the same newspaper twice on the same day, having forgotten I had bought it the first time.
2. My son's football team (see my message of 21 November) lost every game last season, with the exception of a 1-1 draw, thus ending the season with a solitary point.
3. For the ninth consecutive year, 2005 saw very few days on which I didn't lose patience with my children, and thus get into trouble with my wife, who is a much more patient and composed parent than I am.
4. Last year was also the third, or possibly fourth, year in which I have failed to meet one of my nieces for the first time. This is probably unforgivable. I used to live 300 miles from her and now live 3,000 miles away, so the situation is hardly improving.
5. Last year was yet another in a long line in which the large majority of birthday cards sent by me included the word "belated" and sent wishes in the past tense.
6. In the autumn/fall of 2005, on the way home from a work weekend away, I got lost trying to navigate to my own house, thus delaying a bus full of colleagues, most of whom consequently arrived at their own homes after 1am. This is true. As are all the others. And these are just the edited lowlights.
I hope you feel better now. I know I do.
Happy New Year's. (New Year's what?)
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