It’s the end of 2022. So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu. Here’s your hat and what’s your hurry! Oh, and take your poster boy Vlad (the Invader) Putin with you.
It is said that when he concluded his first visit to Northern Ireland in 1970, then UK secretary of state Reginald Maudling boarded a helicopter and pleaded: “For god’s sake, bring me a large scotch. What a bloody awful country!”
As we enter the dreg hours of 2022, we survivors of this bloody awful year can sympathise.
It has been biblical, with wars and rumours of wars, nation rising against nation, heat like never before, plague, floods, famine, inflation, Liz Truss and those other fake prophets promising profit while deceiving the people.
Paul Mescal on Saturday Night Live review: Gladiator II star skewers America’s bizarre views about Ireland
Joan Baez: Do I ever hear from Bob Dylan? ‘Not a word’
The 50 best films of 2024 – the top 10 movies of the year
Late Late Toy Show review: Patrick Kielty is fuelled by enough raw adrenaline to power Santa’s reindeer
You couldn’t make it up.
But “they” did make up a word to describe it all – permacrisis. It is defined as that feeling of dread which accompanies living through war, inflation, a pandemic, an energy crisis, etc.
Permacrisis was chosen as the Collins Dictionary word of 2022. It is also a new word, specially minted for the year, as existing language was not up to describing it accurately at all.
At Collins they said permacrisis reflected “the state of the world right now – not much good news”.
There’s understatement for you.
Other words of the year included Carolean. “Wha?”, I hear you ask. It was selected “to indicate the dawn of a new Carolean age in the UK”. Bless my sweet soul, but I can be slow. It took me a while to realise it refers to the reign of King Charles III of Britain and Northern Ireland. Carolean it is.
The new king of the neighbours is not a bad sort. I reported on his first visit to Ireland in 1995 and he came across as a decent man. He has said he hopes to visit all 32 counties on this island, but has yet to visit Roscommon.
What a treat awaits him in that undiscovered county!
Other Collins words of the year included sportswashing (sponsoring sporting events to enhance a bad reputation). Did someone mention the World Cup?
My own word of the year has to be Kyiv, being utterly biased in favour of the most heroic and impressive people of 2022 – the people of Ukraine.
Ukraine, from Old Russian oukraina, for “border, frontier”.
