From the editor: Goodbye 2017, hello 2018

It’s been a funny old year. Looking back at everything that’s happened on a global scale it kind of feels like someone’s taken a history book and turned it into a series of simplified comic strips for the Sunday Funnies. Or a pantomime. Yes, with social media shouting out “he’s behind you!” every time a new Donald Trump meme makes its way onto the circuit.

As with all classic pantomimes though, there were goodies as well as baddies (nice one Meryl Streep on YouTube!), songs to sing along with together loudly and without embarrassment (Ed Sheeran, Rag’n’Bone Man, Ariana Grande etc making their mark on the landscape), farce to laugh at (Brexit logistics anyone?), and hope for success over adversity. I do like hope.

Which leads me to 2018. This year it feels like New Year’s resolutions could be more than simply a vague inclination towards self improvement. Personally, the shape of my family is changing. Matriarchs are doing their own thing, sisters are doing it for themselves, and brothers in arms have their own babes in arms to contend with. It feels like time to stop relying on the family grapevine and instead to step up and cultivate my own relationships with these adventurous relations.

In a similar vein, perhaps it’s time I stopped relying on my usual news sources and dug a little deeper and independently for the lowdown on what’s really happening in the world. After the Brexit vote a very surprised friend in Vienna messaged me to ask how this had happened. It’s time I took my cue from him and re-established contacts in Kansas, friendships in Canada, and liaisons in New York to get the skinny from the grass roots.

So let 2018 be a year of hope. And perhaps the odd Happily Ever After.

Victoria Nangle
editorial@thelatest.co.uk