The JRB presents tunes and accompanying editorial from our EAP member Tymon Smith.
It’s the end of the year as we count it and yes, we all had plans. We all thought that the worst was over; that wings and Marmite could once again be spread.
But as they say in the classics, ‘Beware the ides of Dezemba. Don’t cross the Omicron. Vax not so populi after all.’
So what should have been a joyously celebratory, throw cares to the wind, drinks in the cooler and troubles in the sea kind of musical selection is now just another scuppered plan, replaced by an uncertain collection of half-realised ideas, unfulfilled promise and existential dread.
Not that you shouldn’t listen, enjoy and repeat but just that you should know—it didn’t have to be like this.
As always thanks for listening, enjoy yourself as best you can, it’s later than you think and remember to take your jabs, observe the protocols and plan for 2022 like it’s 2019.
Listen here:
- Tymon Smith is a member of The JRB Editorial Advisory Panel, and a freelance journalist who writes about the arts and South African history. Previously the literary editor of the Sunday Times, he is the recipient of a silver Standard Banks Arts Journalist of the Year Award for feature writing. He was the head researcher for the interactive DVD Between Life and Death: Stories from John Vorster Square, and is working on a book about the Johannesburg police station.
