".....something happened to it along the way"

No Sunshine Award for this blog! 

A parishioner (affectionately, I hope) even sent me a New Year message describing me as a 'curmudgeon.' 
So, here's an appropriately realistic view of the month of January: as someone said to me yesterday about the new year, 'So far ... it's done me no harm....'
As they say, Keep it real! 

There’s a certain Slant of light,

Winter Afternoons —

That oppresses, like the Heft

Of Cathedral Tunes —

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us —

We can find no scar,

But internal difference,

Where the Meanings, are —

None may teach it — Any —

’Tis the Seal Despair —

An imperial affliction

Sent us of the Air —

When it comes, the Landscape listens —

Shadows — hold their breath —

When it goes, ’tis like the Distance

On the look of Death —

Emily Dickinson 

As for the year that has passed, let's sum it up in the words of A.A. Milne: 

“"I don't see much sense in that," said Rabbit. "No," said Pooh humbly, "there isn't. But there was going to be when I began it. It's just that something happened to it along the way."”

But  let me end on a positive note: despite the cotton wool-wrapped idiocy of the Advertising Standards Authority (let's all complain to the State - dangerous in all kinds of ways -  in a kind of over-sensitivity competition)  here - at last - is a sensible response from the Church of England ...