100 times 2020 Didn't suck
I don’t think, no matter how horrendous the year, it’s ever a good idea to dismiss it. I know most of the, “get in the bin“ sentiment is tongue and cheek, conciliatory, or flippant, but it gets to me a bit. Because, not only is there so much good still happening, but in the worst of times, it’s even more admirable how much progress we can make.
If 2020 was a board game, it’d be Whack Attack, the ugliness just kept rearing up, but there was so much collective smashing against it too. It gave me hope anyway.
This is a list to prove humans aren’t all scum, leaching from an already sinking planet.
The now iconic Civil Service tweet that cut through the double speak of Boris and cronies and basically petrol bombed neutrality.
My favourite Welsh maker, Charlotte from Twin Made, did a Tweet XStitch of the Civil Service taunt and auctioned it off for £285. She donated £150 of that to The Trussell Trust. Nice to know that a laugh at the expense of the elite helped stock food banks for the most vulnerable.
Donald Trump got the boot.
A nurse from Sevenoaks in Kent decided to propose in Iceland, the frozen food shop, when his romantic plans to do so in Iceland the country got scuppered by the pandemic. He got down on one knee, in a suit, and pulled the ring out in the quietest aisle he could find. Well played, Robert Ormsby; we should all be so irrepressible.
Taylor Swift collaborated with Bon Iver on not one, but two songs. This is a double whammy for me, as while I’m a Swiftie, (even got a T-Shirt that says so) I’ve loved Bon Iver for years, and knowing he didn’t think he was ‘too cool’ to duet with Miss Americana herself, reaffirmed my faith in him.
Exile came out first, and summed up the ache that swells inside when it’s beyond over and you know that particular love isn’t ever going to keep you safe again. “You’re not my homeland anymore, so what am I defending now? You were my town, now I’m in exile, seein’ you out”. Ouch.
As for their second effort, Evermore, it was only released in December and Spotify tells me it has already amassed 22,776,756 plays. There isn’t a song more befitting of a global pandemic.
6. My favourite pun of the year was at the expense of one of the smuggest looking politicians that ever has lived, Mr Cummings and Goings himself.
7. A team of Australian scientists found a tower of coral that was so tall it exceeded the height of the Empire State Building. Reaching more than 1,640 feet tall, it’s the first detached reef of a significant scale discovered in more than 120 years.
8. Chuck Feeney a billionaire who promoted ‘Giving While Living’ and spending most of your fortune on big, bold, charity bets instead of funding a foundation upon death, achieved his aim in 2020. It’s taken him nearly 40 years, but he’s managed to distribute $8 billion and like Forbes Magazine calculated, “he's given away 375,000% more money than his current net worth. Anonymously.”
An example of what that looks like, you ask?
“1.1 million square feet of new research facilities and 2,600+ research and postgraduate positions to help Ireland’s university system become a world-class leader.”
9. I’m not even ashamed to brag here, I got PAID to write! I was published in The Simple Things Magazine, in the beautiful ‘Magical Creatures’ feature, writing about one of my all time favourite birds, the-shorter-than-you’d-think, Puffin. (Did you know the collective noun for puffins is circus? I think that’s adorable!)
10. While playing Blockbuster over Zoom, I found out that the collective noun for a group of pandas is embarrassment… An embarrassment of pandas. That is ridiculous and wonderful and something I will never forget.
11. The Mars InSight Lander reported back some insane findings, Mars hums. Yep, you read that right. The planet hums and scientists here can’t work out why! Although we too, here on Earth, have background vibrations like waves and the wind, Mars reverberates at a higher pitch than most natural hums on Earth.
12. Lashana Lynch has taken up the Bond mantle, she will be the first female 007. Plus, she’s black… Surely, proof that 2020 has permeated Hollywood, not just our personal psyches? The fruition of ‘Time’s Up’ and Black Lives Matter on the silver screen? Here’s hoping!
13. Cirque du Soleil allowed us to peek into their shows by offering free 60 minute performances to stream. This is a company that cannot safely train or perform together, and they could definitely have been consumed by that dread, but they still found a way to connect with their fans across the world.
14. In 2019, Evo Morales, former president of Bolivia, lost power in a right-wing coup and was forced to seek political sanctuary in Mexico and then Argentina. All charges against him were dropped in October of 2020 and he finally returned from exile in November.
15. Scotland became the world’s first country to provide free, universal access to period products.
16. Rappers Cardi B, Little Nas X and Megan Thee Stallion made cash app donations to their followers, highlighting how many jobs were being lost and the importance of getting food but then staying home.
17. WAP was released, and although I’m not a fan, the line, “I want you to park that big Mac truck, right in this little garage“ sung with fierce sincerity, was the kind of light relief I needed in 2020. Plus, a song all about female pleasure that causes that much of a stir, when men have mainstream hits about the same topic all the time, demonstrated we still need feminism.
18. The Pentagon declassified 3 videos that had previously been leaked, confirming that UFO sightings had been recorded and still remain unsolved mysteries to this day! Read all about it here.
19. Dwayne Johnson showed his days of being The Rock are not actually behind him when he ripped off the gates of his home, rather than be late to work, after an electrical malfunction locked him in. Hilarious stuff. He wouldn’t wait 45 minutes.
20. Captain Sir Tom Moore raised over £38.9m for NHS Charities Together in the run up to his 100th birthday by walking 100 laps of his garden. (Pretty much all he was allowed to do, but still great!)
21. At 23 years old, Marcus Rashford, a footballer with no political training, had more grace than our elected government to care about British children going hungry during the pandemic. Who says sports and politics shouldn’t mix? (Dangerous megalomaniacs that don’t want the status quo to change.)
22. Africa was declared free of Wild Polio, despite as recently as 2012 being the area that accounted for more than half of all polio cases worldwide. Take that vaccination naysayers!
23. Cardiff’s first radical bookshop opened, and despite the owner contracting Covid during the busiest shopping week of the year, and having to close, has been thriving.
The tiny shop, found in Castle Emporium, even has a Pay It Forward board, where people can donate money for books for people who can’t afford them, (who can use the money, no questions asked, for any book at all) my fellow Cardiffians contributed a few hundred pounds in 2020.
Shelflife I love you.
24. Crayola launched a box of crayons that would allow children to, "accurately color themselves into the world". The ‘Colors of the World’ collection accounted for a diverse range of skin colours.
25. Victims got some justice when Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison for the litany of sexual assaults he committed.
26. The beloved 1985 children's picture book ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt‘ became a jumping off point for window decoration and garden dressing-up, as people started displaying bears for children to find. When we weren’t allowed to travel, this transformed familiar areas into new magical realms, helping us to see our communities in a new light.
27. Jedward relentlessly mocked anti-maskers, anti-vaxxers and anti-BLM-protestors. Publicly deriding all sorts of celebrities, dropping puns all over the place, Jedward generally just made themselves more relevant than ever before.
28. Philip Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’ Trilogy has so far been fantastically adapted for TV by the BBC, and the third book has had the green light for production. I cannot wait to see what they do with the Mulefa, from The Amber Spyglass!
29. At the Golden Globe Awards, Awkwafina made history as the first person of Asian descent to win in the lead actress category.
30. Kamala Harris became the first woman, first African-American and first Asian-American to be elected Vice President of the United States. (Some of her voting records are shady though, so let’s keep an eye on that moving forward)
31. The incredible Wind of Change podcast series was released by Pineapple Studios and Crooked Media. The premise: Was one one the best-selling songs of all time, ‘Wind of Change‘ by the Scorpions, actually written by the CIA in an attempt to undermine the Soviet Union? Uh. Maz. Ing.
32. Dolly Parton took it upon herself to try to save the world, she invested loads of money into the Covid-19 vaccine research, her name was actually cited in Moderna’s preliminary report about the effectiveness of their vaccine. Maybe she really is a diamond in a rhinestone world…
33. Even TikTok couldn’t be completely frivolous, indigenous creators used the platform to highlight cultural pride and young people went mad for it. They are literally looking up ‘Indigenous TikTok‘.
Shina Novalinga exposed us to Throat Singing, done by the Inuk, and James Jones (known as Notorious Cree) broke down the stigmas around indigenous men who have long hair, cultural dress and traditional arts. Shina even got interviewed by Vogue!
34. The world’s only white giraffe has been tagged with a GPS tracker in the hope of deterring poachers in Garissa County, Kenya. So far, so good.
35. Nasa renamed its most prominent building Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters in honour of a black woman who dedicated her working life to pushing the frontiers of the aerospace industry in the 1950s. (If you haven’t already watched Hidden Figures, starring Janelle Monae in the role of Mary, you should really see it.)
36. In February, Finland's new government announced plans to improve parental leave for men, giving fathers the opportunity to spend more time with their newborn children and moving towards greater gender equality.
37. The last Ebola patient was discharged from hospital in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
38. Amber Fossey drew all sorts of cute critters to cheer us up. She was a doctor for 14 years, but gave it up to draw and write after seeing the way art therapy benefitted patients with poor mental health. Her stuff is so simple and frequently links to the real wonders of the natural world, like Sea Urchins choosing to wear hats, her Instagram account @zeppelinmoon is a treat.
39. In the USA there was the best voter turnout in 120 years. (And they kicked the psychotic tangerine out of the White House)
40. In Portland, Oregon, the school system’s superintendent said he was “discontinuing” its use of police officers in schools. A step to defunding the police and diverting funds to initiatives, or professionals, better trained to meet certain demands.
41. IBM and Microsoft are refusing to offer facial recognition technology to police forces as they can be abused and used for mass surveillance and racial profiling.
42. Fang Fang, an award winning Chinese writer, documented the events of the pandemic in Wuhan as they unfolded, in a diary that millions of Chinese nationals read. She faced backlash from many but was undeterred and many found comfort in her assessment of the psychological taken by the long periods of isolation endured.
43. Eileen Flynn became the first woman from the Irish Travellers community to sit in the Seanad Éireann (the upper house of the Irish Parliament).
Her main ambition is to introduce hate-crime legislation in the Republic of Ireland.
44. The ‘Where is my Name’ campaign finally succeeded and the Afghan government agreed to allow mothers to have their names printed on their children's national ID cards.
45. My absolute favourite Instagrammer took the time to address how marginalised communities aren’t always great allies to other marginalised communities. She got a lot of abuse but still put out the kind of content that made people from Asian backgrounds feel seen, and educated the rest of us on how to be more intersectional in our thinking.
I think she was the only person I saw being loud about how Covid-19 was disproportionately impacting on Asian-Americans. Must have been exhausting. She still did it. Plus, she gets all the points for being a travel influencer that actually gives all the shits about the places she visits and wants to do so in the most equitable way possible.
46. In Northern Ireland, same-sex marriage legislation came into effect.
47. An as-of-yet-unidentified-man is having fun teasing aeroplane pilots by flying above LA in a jetpack. There were 3 separate sightings of him in September and October, as high as 6000 feet in the air apparently. (Let’s hope he’s not a terrorist!)
48. A 17-year-old student discovered a new planet on the third day of his internship with NASA. Memorably named TOI 1338 b, it’s 6.9 times larger than Earth! (Why hadn’t anyone else noticed it?!)
49. Croatia made it legal for gay couples to foster children, overturning a law that had banned them from doing so in 2018.
50. In July, Iceland’s tourism board launched the “Let It Out” program, giving people the opportunity to record their best blood-curdling scream and have it played on a loudspeaker somewhere out in Icelandic nature. It’s free, ongoing, and you can listen to other people’s screams, if that’s how you get your kicks!
51. Albania banned conversion therapy.
52. Major Chris Brannigan won a Pride of Britain award. He marched 700 miles across the UK in his bare feet raising over £500,000 for research into Cornelia de Lange Syndrome. It’s a life-limiting condition that has no treatment or cure. Children with CdLS, like his 8-year-old daughter Hasti, have feeding problems, speech difficulties, texture aversion and suffer from seizures and severe anxiety.
It took him 35 days to complete his extremely painful walk in full body armour, carrying 25kgs of kit on his back. He decided to go barefoot as a tribute to his daughter, who finds it painful to wear shoes.
53. In Bristol, protestors pulled down the statue of Colston (former slave trader) and rolled him into the river to sleep with the fishes.
54. Quarantined Italians sang from their balconies to each other.
55. People found inventive ways to reduce food waste when it came to their halloween pumpkins, donating the decaying shells to parks for the squirrels to enjoy. The arty offerings doubled as beautiful autumnal trails to photograph too.
(Just a fyi though, pumpkins give hedgehogs the shits, which isn’t good when they need to be storing as much fat as possible during that time of year, so don’t go out of your way to do this all the time)
56. Jacinda Ardern. (You should know why)
57. Detection Dogs for Conservation saved more than 100 koalas from the horrendous fires that swept across Australia.
58. Dena Murphy was awarded the TSB Community Hero Award. She’s not your average 91-year-old, Dena shares her love of gardening with people undertaking community service, helping them learn new skills in her allotment in New Moston, Manchester. She does 3 hour stints, come rain or shine, and I think my back would struggle with that at 36!
59. Sudan lifted the death penalty for homosexuality.
60. Bookcase Credibility, always a thing to me, became a thing on Twitter. The tagline being, “What you say is not as important as the bookcase behind you.” Never has this been truer, than in a year when so many politicians have had to record messages from home.
In May, the insufferable Michael Gove, had to explain why he had The Bell Curve (arguing a link between race and IQ) and work by the Holocaust denier David Irving sitting on his shelves.. I could have saved him the effort, it’s because he’s a prick.
61. David Chang, founder of the Momofuku restaurants, went on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in October to highlight how much the catering industry was suffering because of the pandemic. He became the first celebrity ever to win the million-dollar prize.
He donated all the money to the Southern Smoke Foundation, which provides grants for emergency expenses in the food industry.
62. Martin Rees, a magician from Hertfordshire, achieved the Guinness World Record title for the most magic tricks performed underwater in three minutes, managing 20 in total. (I like imagining he’s spent lockdown perfecting that, in my mind he was face down in a bath, turning into a raisin, most days.)
63. Here in Wales it was announced that we’re going to create a National Forest in order to preserve nature, improve biodiversity, and sequester carbon from the atmosphere. The plan is: plant on 5,000 acres of land each year, eventually increasing to 10,000 acres per year at some undetermined point, in order to hopefully meet our target of reducing carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. Looking forward to seeing how this one progresses!
64. Sticking with trees, During Australia's historic fire season, the Gospers Mountain fire burned 512,000 hectares of land in Wollemi National Park before it was contained. Specialist firefighters worked tirelessly from the ground to save the world’s last Wollemi pines — also known as the “dinosaur trees,” because their existence dates back to prehistoric times. (Love this? I got this from the Good News section of One Tree Planted, and all their environmental stories uplift me hugely. Check them out.)
65. Taylor Swift dropped 2 albums, without warning. Folklore and Evermore. The stans rejoiced.
66. Professional roller skater Tinuke Orbit broke the record for most cartwheels on roller skates in one minute, with 30, and the most spins on e-skates in one minute, with 70, on Guinness World Records Day 2020. (Sorry to all my skater pals, I know you miss it)
67. Being a huge Harry Potter fan, this one made me really happy… A new species of pit viper, discovered in India, has been named Trimeresurus Salazar, after Salazar Slytherin, a creepy character with an affinity for snakes from the series.
68. A team of scientists from the University of California have designed a white paint that can reflect 98% of the heat coming from the sun. If used on the exterior of buildings, it should help to cool the interior year-round, reducing the need for air-conditioning.
69. In order to achieve Pakistan's "10 Billion Tree Tsunami Programme" the country began employing day labourers who had been laid off due to the pandemic to plant trees. The initiative created 63,600 jobs and got the average person more engaged with environmental affairs.
70. Dara McAnulty became the youngest ever winner of the RSPB Medal and Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing. His book, Diary of a Young Naturalist, is exquisitely written. It not only reflects on the profound connection he has with nature, but also intimately portrays his experience with Autism. Read it. (I watched him speak at Hay Festival Online and was mesmerised)
71. The White-Tailed Eagle has been extinct in England for 240 years, but miraculously, they decided to return this year and were spotted sweeping over the North York Moors, flying a distance of over 400km to get there.
72. It has been discovered that if you shine an ultraviolet light on a platypus (still not sure why you would though?) it will glow, and become fluorescent with a greenish-blue tint.
73. Netflix’s Trinkets showed just how much teen TV has improved, it was crammed full of humour, thoughtful representation and empowerment on so many fronts. Plus, there was Moe Truax (a character I rooted for so hard that I genuinely shouted at the TV) and a soundtrack to die for. Read my full review here.
74. This might be a divisive one, Harry and Meghan decided to give up their royal titles. It makes my list because I believe they chose to put their own happiness and mental health before tradition. To me, they gave a green light to being able to change your mind, something we are often too ashamed to do.
75. In Argentina’s Iberá National Park, a pair of Red and Green Macaw’s produced three chicks, representing the first wild-born macaws in the country for 150 years.
76. For the first time in 50 years, wild dogs are present in Bicaur and Mupa National Parks in Angola. And, if a country that is still recovering from a 30 year civil war can simultaneously be responsible for improving conservation, so can the rest of us when recovering from the pandemic!
77. Post Malone put on my favourite musical fundraiser, others were more impressively star studded and raised bigger sums but the sound and offerings were a bit jarring to me. This was a Nirvana cover set with the grunge included. Post wore a dress, Travis Barker graced the drums and bassist Brian Lee got praise from Nirvana’s Krist Novoselić himself, who tweeted “Oh yes!!! “Lounge Act” — hats off to bassist.”
Post is clearly a genuine Nirvana fan, he has the ‘Stay Away’ tattoo on his face to prove it. All the songs drip with passion. He’s also as self-deprecating at the late Cobain, “my first performance without auto-tune… Everyone knows I can’t sing for shit, but I’m trying to sing my heart out for ya’ll tonight.” Well, it struck the right chord for me, I’ve watched it 3 times, so far. Plus the gig raised over $2.7 million! NME did a great write up of it.
Treat yourself and watch it.
78. Invertebrate charity Buglife completed mapping a series of interconnecting pathways, called B-Lines, across the UK. Conservationists can now create stepping stones of wildflowers as a network of feeding opportunities for bees, butterflies and the like.
79. Henk Jonkers, a professor at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, might have discovered how to create “self-healing” concrete, quite the scoop as all concrete eventually cracks. Cracks in concrete are bad as they let water in, the water can cause the steel reinforcements to corrode and the building can collapse. But Jonkers has started adding a magical ‘healing agent’ (a bacteria that produces limestone when it comes into contact with water and fills in the microcracks) This ‘healing agent’ can prolong the life of the concrete for 200 years!
80. Back to music, Yungblud made my year in so many ways: his androgynous looks; attending BLM marches, talking openly about ADHD and depression. But this mash-up cover of Taylor Swift and Avril Lavigne in the Live Lounge gave me goosebumps.
How many young guys are this sincere in their tributes to mainstream female artists? Lavigne and Swift are frequently maligned in the press and here he is, tender in the tribute. (Yes, I might have a crush on him…)
81. A shiny metal monolith appeared in a random spot in the Utah desert, the odd installation got so much media attention, it led to copycats across the world. Global scale cat and mouse ensued, between the installers and officials that dismantled the illegal installations. Long may the harmless fun continue.
82. Best headline of the year? FA confirm they are not turning Wembley into a giant lasagne.
83. Nanaia Mahuta was appointed as New Zealand’s foreign minister, her Whakapapa (ancestry) makes her royal lineage within the Māori world. She will undoubtedly have exciting ideas to share.
84. In Tanzania, the Kilimanjaro Porter’s Assistance Project went from helping travellers climb Kilimanjaro to teaching their porters organic farming practices, giving them and their communities another source of sustainable income during the pandemic. All made possible b y donations of previous hikers.
85. At the British Book Awards, Candice Carty-William won both Fiction: Debut and Overall Book of the Year for her novel Queenie. Read my review here.
86. Greta Thunberg expertly trolled Trump on Twitter, mirroring his own childish words, that he’d thrown at her, back to him. Impeccable timing Greta!
87. It became a legal requirement to give people personal space.
88. Joe Biden called someone a “lying, dog-faced pony soldier” for the second time, fumbling a John Wayne line he thought exists, but doesn’t, and still became president.
89. In October, Onward became Disney and Pixar's first film to openly include a LGBTQ+ character, the cyclops officer, Specter, voiced by Lena Waithe.
She captioned this, “She thinks the sun shines out of her arse“. I couldn’t love her more.
90. Everything Jameela Jamil said and did.
91. It was announced that Keeping up with the Kardashians would finally end.
92. Beyonce released the film, Black Is King. It was primarily shot in Ghana, South Africa and Nigeria and is essentially a love letter to Africa and the Black experience.
93. Argentina legalised abortion.
94. Johnny Depp finally got convicted of 12/14 assault charges. The slippery git had still been enjoying top roles and magazine front covers until then. Domestic violence is notoriously hard to prove and prosecute, maybe this high profile case will give victims some hope?
95. Greg Dailey, newspaper deliver man in New Jersey, left a note in the newspapers for all 800 houses on his route, offering to drop off goods to anyone in need—free of charge. With the help of his family, he’s been spending 12 hours a day delivering food to those in need ever since! He’s one of Time’s Heroes of 2020.
96. 650,00 people watched the live stream of Andy Serkis, who played Gollum in LOTR, reading The Hobbit. It took him over 11 hours, and he used a range of incredible voices to keep people captivated.
97. Global renewable electricity installation hit record levels in 2020. According to the International Energy Agency, almost 90% of new electricity generation in 2020 was renewable, with just 10% powered by gas and coal.
98. Joe Wicks saved parents from despair during homeschooling. By offering 30 minutes of free, guided, exercise routines suitable for the home, daily, he added some structure to those long, intimidating, weeks.
99. No denying it, 2020 was a shitty year for the Trans community. But, seeing so many people be enraged by that, and watching the Black Trans Lives Matter movement gain traction is a big deal. And one of my cultural highlights was Travis Alabanza and Kuchenga appearing on The Guilty Feminist podcast.
100. Bryn Celyn Care Home filmed the residents playing real life Hungry Hippos, and faith in humanity was restored.
What did I miss? What’s your favourite number? Tell me in the comments.
Happy 2021 dear readers, going forward, let’s remember progress isn’t linear and keep fighting!
