THANKS FOR TAKING THE GLOOM AWAY
On a recent podcast, the host and I were discussing the challenges we’re all facing at the tail end of 2020, and I said something about being hopeful for the future. Paul Blanchard, the man interviewing me for Media Masters, wasn’t having it. “Well, I’m British,” he said, “so I’ve no interest in staying around. I’m actually miserable, and quietly looking forward to death’s sweet kiss.” Now, compared with a polished presenter like Paul, I might be a bit of a colonial hayseed, but I’m pretty sure he was working some of that dry-in this case, six-feet-of-dirt dry- British humor, and being a little sarcastic. After all, the Brits have stiff-upper-lipped it through two world wars in little more than a century; they endure. And yet he was definitely reflecting a certain anomie…