I feel a
little like Louis XVI who infamously wrote “rien” (nothing) in his diary on 14
July 1789 (because the poor man hadn’t been informed of the attack on the
Bastille yet – in this instance, at least, it was not a sign of lacking
political acumen). You hear a lot these days about 2016 being a disastrous year.
And it’s true, there were a couple of events in 2016 which I’d wished would
have had a different outcome. But I can’t help feeling that there’s little use
whining about it. It certainly makes no sense to say that “2016 can’t be over
soon enough”. It’s in 2017 that we will face the consequences of decisions made
in 2016, and then we will learn if we were right to moan about them in the
first place. It must be very irritating for those who think that by and large
people got it right in 2016 to hear all the “as we all know, 2016 was a ghastly
year” comments, as if there were an unshakeable consensus about this. Let’s
just see what happens. To quote Spamalot,
we’re not dead yet.
What
further complicates matters is that for me personally, 2016 was actually not
such a bad year. Things got less hectic and more enjoyable at work. I acquired
a new villain crush which, though a tad embarrassing considering said villain’s origin as a vicious fairy-tale gnome (at least he’s straight, which makes a
nice change – and not a gnome, though still pretty vicious), helped me face the
first Downton-free year since the
series ended with equanimity. There was room for moral-uplifting travelling
combined with binge book-buying. My gloomy thoughts about an end of the costume-drama boom seemed to be put to shame with the appearance of The Crown. Maybe the history in this
series is a bit too recent for it to really qualify as a costume drama, but it
feels like one and shows that there is still a market for TV series based on family
spats in a period setting. At the beginning of the year, I had a lovely time
with the marvellous though sadly Carker-free Dickensian. Book-wise, the year was a little more meagre: I didn’t
discover some new favourite in my preferred genre of middle-brow historical
fiction. Dictator, the final volume of Robert Harris’s Cicero trilogy, was great though.
On this
shallow, cultural consumption level, the auspices for 2017 look more or less
promising. This year at least, there’s bound to be a new Jasper Fforde novel –
plus there will be more Doctor Who
and Sherlock after an age of waiting.
Apparently, a drama set in a London luxury hotel during WWII which sounds
satisfyingly Downton-inspired is in
the offing (it also sounds a bit clichéd, but at least someone is trying).
There’ll be a new series of Victoria
– I’ve finally watched the first four episodes of series one, and thoroughly
enjoyed them, not least thanks to Rufus Sewell’s
far-too-atttractive-for-historical-accuracy Melbourne. Harris’s new thriller Conclave about the election of a pope
seems interesting: maybe there’ll be a worthwhile Cardinal villain in it. And
who knows, maybe Julian Fellowes will finally get underway with his new period
drama series The Gilded Age (I’ve all
but given up waiting for a Downton
movie).
With Louis
XVI-like obliviousness, I’m resolved to be optimistic. Everything may yet turn
out better than we feared in 2017. I may not have to fill out an ESTA form in
order to enter the UK in future. Perhaps that sanctimonious cow Belle will even
see sense in season 6 of Once Upon a Time
and give her loving (if villainous) husband another chance – though that seems
like the longest shot of all.
