The Excuses And Half Truths Annual Yearly Report 2024
I take my responsibility to the stakeholders of Excuses And Half Truths very seriously. Whether a long time member of The Readership, a recipient of the email newsletter or one of the pleasing influx of new folk wandering in for a snoop and a sniff around, you are always welcome. But you also, I understand, have a certain level of expectation. I would fail in my duties as owner/operator if I were not as open and transparent about the goods and services we offer as possible.
Therefore, I am delighted to open proceedings on the 2024 Excuses And Half Truths Annual Yearly Report—a review of the last 365 days in Rob And Clare, and a long-standing tradition since (check notes) 2023. We hope you will find, on close study of the following extensive overview, that Excuses And Half Truths continues to offer the most comprehensive insight into the life and world of Rob Wickings on the entire interwub. Other alternatives are available, but I am confident in judging them poorly. They just don’t have the inside sources and exclusive information that I do.
We should start with the two major events of 2024 as far and TLC and I are concerned. April marked both our twentieth year in The Town They Call Ding and the conclusion of a fairly hefty financial obligation. Yes, we paid off the mortgage. The giddy sense of relief at our added monetary headroom was, however rapidly quashed as house-related issues which had been politely waiting in the wings for just such a moment rolled on stage to deliver their opening monologue. Re-lining a hundred-year-old drain outlet ain’t cheap, kiddies. When the scratching in the walls turned out to be evidence of unwanted visitors, well—the bloom came off the rose pretty damn quickly. We’re still rebuilding the savings.
However, we did treat ourselves, and welcomed our new member of the household, Harvette, into our lives in April. I am delighted to report she has been doing sterling duty, pulling over two hundred miles a week in daily driving while also whisking us around the country for expeditions and adventures to Suffolk and our beloved Coniston. She is calm, reliable but gently stylish—much like her owners.
In July, she took us to the Peak District, where C and I celebrated our second major event—our thirtieth wedding anniversary. This phrase still spins my wheels to write. We met in 1986, became a couple a year later, and bound ourselves in a legal fashion in 1994–although it could be said the major commitment had already been signed when we moved into our first house in Walthamstow, East London earlier that year. The photos of our wedding on our parent’s wall have faded almost to monochrome. My memories of that day are blurry (boy, we got through a lot of fizz that day) but highly coloured. A lot of things have changed since then, but Clare remains my constant, my always, my forever. We move on, together.
Let’s shift gears before things get too soppy. A few hard datapoints on the site’s performance should chill the atmosphere down a bit. I have deliberately tried to offset the balance between The Swipe and other writings through the year. I’m happy that people respond so well to the ‘ten links and a song’ format. But I don’t just want to be that guy. Excuses And Half Truths remains a good old-fashioned hand-crafted blog like what they did back in the 1850s, offering variety and scale of content (I hate that word but sometimes you gotta lean into the lingo). The floor is also always open to guest writers and contributors. If, like pal Ryan Morris, you’d like to showcase your work to literally dozens of people, just reach out.
The site is up on reader numbers since this time last year, with the inevitable spike in interest on Saturday morning. Viewing figures drop slightly, with certain core posts generating eyeballs daily. I’m not sure why a review of slightly dodgy post-apocalyptic movie The Divide or a ‘recipe’ for Sorbet Colonel should prove so popular, but hey, clicks is clicks, amirite?
Future plans? Well, not sure, although I’m still considering further outreach in terms of my fiction. You may have noticed I’ve been looking at short-run short-form ideas, and as I seem to be banging out sub-2000 word stories at scale, it makes sense to look into getting those out to people in some form. A lot of this is still in the ‘thoughtful face while gazing into the middle distance’ stage of development, so don’t expect 2025 to start with a bang.
The fracturing of social media following the enshittification of whatever Twitter is now has led to a few challenges in promotional strategy. I’m now on Mastodon, Threads and Bluesky, with a non-Excuses photography-only feed on Instagram. Perhaps I should start using it for blog duties, using the Threads cross-link. I’m never going to be a like-and-subscribe type, but I get regular telling-offs from people whose opinions I respect that I should be louder about myself. UGH, fine, OK, I’m great, love me.
Creatively, I have aligned even more heavily with Reading Writers, who had a pretty good year. I’ve been a member of the group for over a decade, and am now one of the longest-standing regular attendees. Suggestions that I take up the chairman role have been flinched away from. I’m happy to contribute and support, but me in charge of Reading’s longest-running writing group would lead to a rapid tailspin and crash. I’m just not that guy. I am, however interested in helping get the word out about our little family to a wider group, an initiative I hope to talk more about soon.
All of which speaks to the general mood of 2024 as a whole. TLC and I freely admit we have engaged hermit mode this year. We’ve barely been to the cinema (I suspect the Deadpool/Wolverine movie may have been our last trip) and live music has been a bust. We’ve made significant progress at the contentious top end of the garden, but it currently looks like a plastic-covered crime scene, on pause until the spring. We have been reading and cooking and eating and well—you know, being. We end this year with lots of good intentions, work to do, and hopefully the energy to do it. No hard numbers, no solid metrics. Just a feeling, unlike the prevailing fog of gloom which seems to have settled around the world, that we are on the cusp of something better. We shouldn’t be feeling so positive but somehow, honestly, we do.
Put it like this. I read an editorial about positive negativity in New Scientist yesterday. You’ll know the basic tenet—things are always darkest before the dawn. I’ll mention no names, but the ugly rise of some very ugly people doesn’t mean they’ve won. It means their venal incompetence is on display and ready to be pushed back against. If we do that with love, positivity and a sense of humour then there’s every chance of a happier ending than we’re all currently catastrophising. Keep positive, keep making and creating, find joy in every small thing you can. Don’t let the bastards get you down is a phrase which has never seemed more important.
Or, to paraphrase a point made in this wise and insightful review of Mike Leigh’s 2008 movie Happy-Go-Lucky (via Ian Dunt, whose work has become a favourite this year):
Optimism is not a solution for the problems of the world. It’s a choice made in the face of the problems of the world.
The call for a quiet revolution seems like a big swerve from the initial intent of the Annual Yearly Report, so we’ll just park it for now as a potential positive gain for 2025. I believe in keeping our options open. I can’t say glitterbombing the battlements isn’t on the agenda for next year, but double negatives send their own message. Like Matilda from the Roald Dahl book says, you can make a right from two wrongs.
Anyway. Let’s summarise and conclude. Excuses And Half Truths remains a creative outlet which continues to engage and amuse me, keeping the batteries charged and the brain-meats tender. I’m always delighted to hear people enjoy the newsletter and blog. I guess that’s partly why I keep going. I guess that’s partly why I keep trying to make it better.
I therefore close the 2024 Annual Yearly Report on a positive note. We have progressed, have exciting if ill-defined plans for 2025 and look forward to new challenges and adventures. Next week, pending the first Swipe of the new year, a brief announcement and a bit of storytelling.
Your Outro comes from Annelise Emerick, with a song which popped up on the folky end of the algorithm and frankly floored us. Let this one take you into the next twelve-month with love, warmth and good feeling from TLC and I.
See you in 2025, stakeholders.
