The horrors in Syria. Credit: Getty
Do you remember last New Year's Eve? Everyone throwing V-sign goodbyes to 2015, which had brought us - among many other things - the Charlie Hebdo and Bataclan attacks? We thought that was bad. But how bad is it to realise it would never come close to the absolute fucking hand pump of a year we live in now?
In comparison to the bloodletting 2016, last year was a mere scuffle. 2015 was a distant pub fight in which you almost got shoved. Narrowly escaping two blokes sparring their way along the bar and spilling your pints. This year, those pints would've have been stolen and smashed against your face. 2015 was a Coronation Street pub fight. 2016 was the one in Trainspotting. And it's fucking awful. 2015 could go and fuck itself. 2016 can do it with a fucking cactus.
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Did we even get given a chance to be optimistic about it the year of the monkey? Nope. Ten days in, Bowie passes away..
Why was 2016 throwing us fucking curveballs like that so soon into the year?
And that was just the start. Alan Rickman, Terry Wogan, Ronnie Corbett, David Gest, Victoria Wood, Caroline Aherne, Prince, and Muhammed Ali all sadly passed on to the other side this year.
The Greatest fighting Sonny Liston. Credit: PA
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Then there's the motivated deaths - like a knifeman attacking a centre for disabled people in Japan last night. The monstrous compilation of terror attacks, of cold-blooded police brutality and political unrest. It's been a shitshow.
If 2016 was a cereal, it'd be Bran Flakes. If it was a meal, it'd be vegan. If it was a dessert, it'd be a particularly bad carrot cake.
I don't believe in any of that conspiracy crap, nor am I superstitious. I don't think anything is overwhelmingly disproportionate about 2016, but that doesn't mean I, and you reading, can't go about putting a face to the year and wanting to fucking batter it.
You don't have to be Mystic Meg to work out I'm no global activist. I don't have concrete answers. But for fuck's sake, let's try and do whatever we can to shun the gangrene that has smothered 2016 from ever reaching this peak again.
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Let's not make everyday horror a norm. Let's refrain from both pigeonholing shit and putting our fingers in our ears, 'cause the current social climate isn't gonna to change one iota if we carry on as we are.
I wanna wake up and have my biggest concern be the colour of a dress on the Internet, not the rate at which human beings are being mercilessly killed in public. That makes me wanna pole-vault into a black hole.
So, just to reiterate: go and fuck yourself 2016!
Words Josh Teal
Featured Image Credit:Topics: 2016