My Secret Brexit Diary by Michel Barnier review – a British roasting

From theguardian.com/books

By Jonathan Powell

The EU’s chief negotiator found his UK counterparts bizarrely unfocused during the long haul to fix a Brexit deal – and believes they still don’t know what they’ve done

Rarely do we see thinking of the other side of a negotiation so quickly, while the trail is still warm. Michel Barnier’s new book helps explain why Britain ended up being comprehensively out-negotiated over Brexit and saddled with a flawed withdrawal agreement and a deeply disadvantageous future relationship, both of which will cause us major problems for decades to come. This is therefore an important account.

That said, Barnier may be an excellent haute fonctionnaire, but judging by the stilted prose of this “secret diary” he is definitely not an author. We learn little about the newly declared French presidential candidate other than that he admires General De Gaulle. There are no startling revelations and there is more technical detail – much more – than most people will want. Nor does this read like a genuinely contemporaneous diary; a giveaway is that he too often knows the future, writing, for example, that: “I will have Martin Selmayr on the line several times over the next few days.”

Power play … former Brexit secretary David Davis meets Michel Barnier. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

Nevertheless, five basic reasons for the EU’s success and the UK’s failure jump out of these pages, which, as a result, contain valuable lessons.

First, the EU side was professional and properly prepared, whereas the UK was not. Barnier was across the detail at every stage, and even read Stanley Johnson’s 1987 novel The Commissioner to try to understand his son. He focused from the beginning on the landing zone for the negotiation and prepared a full legal text of the free trade agreement before the talks began. When negotiations opened, the media made much of a photo of Barnier sitting with a file full of papers on the table in front of him while David Davis had nothing at all. The reality was far worse. Barnier was astounded by Davis’s “nonchalant” approach: “As is always the case with him we rarely get into the substance of things,” he writes about one subsequent encounter.

Second, Barnier says it was the unity of the 27, “so unexpected for the British, that forced them to finally agree to pay their full share”. The British side repeatedly tried to negotiate with individual member states rather than the Commission, but kept being sent back to Barnier. Even at the last moment, Boris Johnson tried to phone Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron, but both leaders refused to take his call. Barnier spends a vast amount of his time keeping member states on side, travelling endlessly to capitals and engaging with ministers. He saw off repeated British attempts to negotiate directly with the cabinet of the president of the commission, and Barnier reserves a special place in hell for the notorious Selmayr, Jean-Claude Juncker’s chief of staff, acidly commenting: “It is just a pity that he has difficulty in accepting the limits of his role.”

Third, the EU knew what it wanted and stuck to it. The British government spent a year negotiating rancorously and publicly with itself, which allowed the EU to take the initiative, set the agenda and frame the negotiations as it wished. It decided from the beginning that it would separate the divorce agreement from discussions on the future relationship, so the British could not use paying the leaving bill to buy access to parts of the single market. Britain tilted hopelessly at trying to change that sequence and tied its hands early on by setting out its red lines. Listening to Theresa May's Lancaster House speech, Barnier marvelled at “the sheer number of doors she is closing here! Has she thought it through?” The EU watched with amusement and horror as the British tore themselves apart. Barnier writes of May that “this is not really a negotiation with the EU but a far more intense negotiation, on an almost hourly basis, with her own ministers and her own majority”.

The fourth reason for British failure was that Johnson made the disastrous tactical decision to try to provoke the EU in the hope it would be shaken, even briefing it as “the mad man strategy”. Barnier spotted this straight away. In the face of “threats and unpredictability” he decided to remain “calm, confident and solid” and just keep going. The British approach backfired spectacularly. In October 2020, David Frost cancelled negotiations and refused to resume them unless the EU publicly changed its position and recognised UK “sovereignty”. A week later he had to humiliatingly crawl back to the table. Most disastrously, the threat of a no deal fell flat. Barnier comments: “The British want us to believe that they are not afraid of a no deal”; they are playing a “game of chicken” and the EU task is to “keep our cool”. When the British resorted to reneging on what they had just agreed in the Northern Ireland Protocol and breaking international law with the Internal Market Bill, far from forcing the EU into concessions, they destroyed the little trust that still existed.

Boris Johnson meets Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, in London last year. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

Finally, the EU used deadlines effectively to get its way, whereas the UK walked into a series of traps. May unnecessarily triggered Article 50, which started a two-year stopwatch, without a clear vision of what she wanted. When Davis tried to hurry Barnier up, his response was that “[Davis] is mistaken. We have time on our side”. Barnier may be unreasonably proud of his catchphrase – “the clock is ticking” – adopted right from the beginning, but he is right that the British set a time limit that worked against themselves.

Sadly, Northern Ireland became collateral damage in this farrago. From the beginning Barnier saw that the “Irish question is the stumbling block”. May and her chief official, Olly Robbins, tried hard to protect the Good Friday Agreement with an increasingly Heath Robinson-esque structure by which the whole UK remained in the Customs Union. But Johnson never took Northern Ireland seriously, proposing fictional technological solutions for the border. At one stage, Barnier had to tell a group of European Research Group MPs that the health of cows could not be assessed by drone. It is clear from Barnier’s account that Johnson knew absolutely what he was agreeing to when he signed up to a border in the Irish Sea. And Barnier was appalled when Johnson told the press shortly after that there would be no controls on goods between Britain and Northern Ireland – “which is not what the withdrawal agreement says”.

The fact is, the die was cast from the beginning. The EU set the framework and the UK was unable to escape. As Barnier writes: “I still think it is insane that a great country like the UK is conducting such a negotiation and taking such a decision … without having any clear vision of it or a majority to support it.” His conclusion, with which I agree, is that: “There is most definitely something wrong with the British system … every passing day shows that they have not realised the consequences of what is truly at stake here.” There ought to a be an inquiry into why, when we pride ourselves on our diplomatic prowess, we were so comprehensively defeated at the negotiation table, but this diary is probably the closest we will get.

Barnier’s account ends in bathos. The final agreement is reached in a video call between Johnson and the EU team in Brussels on Christmas Eve 2020. He writes: “This is the last time that I see David Frost, and our final exchange is cold and professional. He knows that I know that up until the last moment he was still trying to bypass me by opening a parallel line of negotiation with President von der Leyen’s office. And he knows that he did not succeed in doing so.”

Ultimately, Barnier can’t even claim the satisfaction of a job well done, although he certainly out-negotiated the British. Everyone is a loser and we have still not felt the full cost.

 Jonathan Powell was Downing Street chief of staff and chief British negotiator in Northern Ireland from 1997 to 2007. My Secret Brexit Diary: A Glorious Illusion by Michel Barnier, translated by Robin Mackay, is published by Polity (£25). 

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/sep/25/my-secret-brexit-diary-by-michel-barnier-review-a-british-roasting

Brush with writing: A drop of ink may make a billion think

From hindustantimes.com

By Rameshinder Singh Sandhu

SPICE OF LIFE: A good writer is one who lives in the present, an observer, a voracious storyteller with the ability to draw lessons from all kinds of experiences

Writing is magic. It offers a rare joy and is my favourite companion, wherever I am and wherever I go. Often, it gives the opportunity to relive the simplest pleasures and express the many epiphanies that cross the mind, leading to clarity I had been seeking. I admire how it connects, showing the path to many as Lord Byron aptly observed, “A drop of ink may make a billion think.”

A warm thank you to the monthly school magazine at Punjab Public School, Nabha, the boarding school I attended, which planted the seed of writing. A writeup on the festival of Halloween was my first published piece, way back in 1999, when I was in grade 6. The engrossing narration about this festival from one of our guests at home became my inspiration. Seeing the piece in the magazine encouraged me so much that I began contributing an article every month.

As I reached grade 10, my letters started finding place in the letters to the editor column of newspapers. Within a short span, my collection of letters grew, and I preserved them in a large glass frame, still hanging in my bedroom.

My first piece of 500 words in a newspaper was about a nostalgic visit to the boarding school, years after passing out. I can easily recall the date: December 7, 2012, and also who was first to congratulate me. Interestingly, it was published in the newspaper you are now reading. I wanted to write more, and I did, and will always continue to since it keeps me so alive.

Ideas to write come anytime, anywhere – be it while bathing, walking or even while holding conversations. Some of them surprise and I want to jot them down before I forget. No wonder I’ve scribbled on napkins and pamphlets. Ideas crawl to me in the middle of the night. There was a time I kept writing them on papers, never able to find them, when needed. Thankfully the habit of keeping a diary saved me, which stays not only by my bedside but also joins me wherever I go. Its pages on return are always filled with so much new.

The habit of writing a diary helps a writer. My diary stays not only by my bedside but also joins me wherever I go. Its pages on return are always filled with so much new. (Representative image)

A unique euphoria awaits me as I wrap up a piece, and it is all set for submission. The moment I hear it’s been selected, my happiness knows no bounds and seeing it in print is a dream come true. However, rejections too are part of the process and despite them one should go on. Sometimes, there’s no reply, while sometimes the same line, ‘Thanks. Regret our inability to carry the piece,” or “Sorry, your piece is not being used,” with no further explanation.

As shared in Chicken Soup for Writer’s Soul book, there have been cases when some also received stinging feedback but didn’t give up. In 1889, Rudyard Kipling received the following letter from the San Francisco Examiner: “I am sorry; Mr Kipling but you don’t know how to use the English language.” In 1902, the poetry editor of the Atlantic Monthly returned the poems of a 28-year-old, with these words: “Our magazine has no verse for your vigorous verse.” The poet was Robert Browning. Even Stephen King was rejected a hundred times.

So, what makes a good writer? First and foremost, one who lives in the present, an observer, a voracious storyteller with the ability to draw lessons from all kinds of experiences, an open-minded traveller and most importantly an ardent reader. Nearly a decade ago, when I got a chance to meet Ruskin Bond, he too underlined the power of reading. It not only enriches our writings but also our mind and this reminds me of a quote by Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes, “The pen is the tongue of the mind.” In one word: Absolutely! rameshinder.sandhu@gmail.com

The writer is an Amritsar-based freelance contributor

https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/chandigarh-news/brush-with-writing-a-drop-of-ink-may-make-a-billion-think-101632226032731.html

The power of dream journaling: How it can lead to sweeter dreams

From femalefirst.co.uk

By Leah Larwood

“Dreams are the royal road to the unconscious.” -Sigmund Freud

Leah is a hypnotherapist and wellbeing writer. She also runs courses teaching people how to have lucid dreams, and workshops in poetry therapy and writing for wellbeing: www.themoonlab.net.

We all know the benefits of journaling. It’s a powerful self-help tool to explore what’s troubling us through the writing down of thoughts and feelings. It’s also just a great way to understand our interior world and something we can turn to whenever we need to harness our inner therapist. Many people find journaling about their daily lives helpful, others find journaling about specific areas of their life beneficial, whether it’s a way to reflect on relationships, work life or as a way to develop more gratitude in our lives.

Many are also increasingly turning to nocturnal journaling as a way to explore unconscious thoughts, feelings and beliefs, as a way to better understand ourselves on a deeper level. One core element of dream work is keeping a dream diary and there are several reasons why keeping a dream journal can be beneficial to you. Here are just some:

Benefits of nocturnal journaling

1. Enhanced dream recall: Firstly, through the act of dream journaling you’re likely to recall even more of your dreams. So if you set an intention to remember your dreams, and start to write them down, you may find you begin remembering more of them. Once you see dreams as valuable you will be more likely to start to recall them.

2. Better quality of dreams: When you keep a dream journal, your dreaming mind knows that you are listening and your unconscious mind may start to give you more dreams of greater interest and psychological value.

3. Increased awareness: Not only will you develop better self-awareness through dream journaling but you’ll also start to recognise your recurring dream signs. Whenever you spot an obvious dream sign, such as dreaming of flying gold donkey or an ex-partner or another unusual encounter that just wouldn’t happen in waking life, make a note of them. They will help you to recognise when you are dreaming and start to influence your dreams (this is also known as lucid dreaming).

4. A direct line to lucid dreaming: The more connected you are to your dreams, the easier it will be to become conscious in your dreams. A lucid dream is a dream where you’re aware it’s a dream and you’re able to exert some influence over what happens next in your dreams. Keeping a dream journal is the first step to lucid dreaming – the cornerstone if you like.

5. Better understanding of self: Dreams can be revealing and often they present us with new information about our interior lives. So, through listening and then recording your dreams, you’re able to observe your inner most thoughts, feelings and beliefs – and have a better handle on what’s going on for you.

How to keep a dream journal

• Keeping a dream diary can tell you so much about what is going on for you. The simple act of recording your dreams alone is a powerful tool.
• Start by setting an intention to remember your dreams. If you don’t remember anything, just write: I don’t remember any dreams. The act of recording daily is important.
• It’s also important to connect with how you were feeling in the dream so in your journal make a note of the feelings present. This can tell you more than the imagery in the dream itself.
• Over time, start to notice any recurring themes, patterns, people, feelings, symbols or features that stand out in your dreams. This can provide you with helpful information as to what is going on for you beneath the surface.
• When you keep a regular dream diary it’s as though your dreaming mind knows you are listening and will start to present you with dreams of increased value.

Top three tips for dream diaries

1. Write down your dreams as soon as you remember them. Whether that’s in the ‘notes’ section of your phone or on a scrap piece of paper by your desk. You can write them up later in your dream diary.

2. Don’t feel as though you need to write out the entire dream. Just a few bullet points will be fine. Note the key people, location, any dialogue and an outline of what takes place in the dream. Feel free to illustrate your dream or include charts or images, anything that works for you.

3. The most important thing is to note any emotions that occurred in the dream, including what each of the dream characters were feeling. Remembering, that everything in the dream is you.

https://www.femalefirst.co.uk/dreams/power-dream-journaling-how-can-lead-sweeter-dreams-leah-larwood-1318077.html

All great fun: Mary Churchill dances through the war

From spectator.com.au

Mary Churchill’s War: The Wartime Diaries of Churchill’s Youngest DaughterEmma Soames

The famous photographic portrait by Karsh of Winston Churchill as wartime prime minster personifies heroic defiance and grim determination. His daughter Mary’s affectionately intimate and emotionally volatile diaries, depicting the family in close-up during one national crisis after another and in final triumph, are an informal record that perfectly complements Churchill’s own six authoritative volumes of memoirs of the second world war.

Emma Soames, one of Mary’s five children, has edited them with vivid clarity and understanding, providing an introduction, a summary, elucidations and footnotes. She rightly points out that ‘it is not long before the reader of these diaries is eavesdropping on history’.

No matter how formidable the generals, admirals, politicians and peers of the realm gathered at Churchill’s table at Downing Street or Chequers are, Mary almost always finds them ‘gay, charming and interesting’ and, to her, ‘sweet and kind’. ‘Gay’ is by far her favourite term of praise — in the OED (‘dated’) sense of ‘light-hearted and carefree’ ‘brightly coloured, showy’. In Mary’s generously flexible judgment, the word can be applied equally to General Smuts and rehearsals at the Dorchester for Queen Charlotte’s Ball. And she, too, is usually gay, charming and interesting, and adores ‘Mummie and Papa’ — as they adore her.

She was already keeping a diary at the age of 16, early in 1939. Like many other dedicated literate diarists, she seems to have hoped, even if subconsciously, to convey to posterity an impression of enthusiasm and piety. She was a regular churchgoer who evidently felt able to communicate with God straightforwardly and to ask for all sorts of favours. Her most fervent prayers are for her father’s safety on hazardous journeys to America, the Soviet Union and North Africa, and for victory and peace.

She is a prolific user of exclamation marks, on special occasions in bunches!!!, interspersed with French phrases. Alone in her bedroom, reviewing the day’s events, she is critically self-analytical, and her selfish, ‘shy-making’ behaviour often makes her despondent, tearful and determined to do better. She loves her sisters more than they seem to love themselves. Diana, after a divorce, suffered nervous breakdowns and committed suicide, and Sarah, also after marital failure, took to the bottle. Churchill cherished his only son Randolph, who never reciprocated, and Mary, reluctantly, finds it impossible not to recognise that her brother’s arrogant, demanding boorishness is unlovable.

She enjoys a robust appreciation of food: everything from cottage pie to haute cuisine is ‘scrumptious’. Visiting restaurants and nightclubs with her friends is ‘great fun’. She very much likes going to Mirabelle for lobster and champagne, and on to The 400 Club for dancing till dawn. Though reluctant to give up many of the luxuries of civilian life, she enlists, aged 18, as a private in the Auxiliary Territorial Service and is assigned as a gunner to anti-aircraft batteries. She is later commissioned, and eventually promoted to captain and awarded the MBE (Military) and the Cross of Lorraine by the Free French. When stationed near or in London she can still wear stylish clothes off duty and keep in touch with fashionable friends.

Winston Churchill and his daughter Mary outside the Mansion House in June 1943. [Alamy]

From the Strangers’ Gallery in the House of Commons she witnesses some of her father’s most inspiring speeches, such as the ‘We shall never surrender’ declaration after Dunkirk, the tribute to ‘the Few’ after the Battle of Britain, and his repudiation of the censure motion against him on 2 July 1942, which he defeated by 475 votes to 25. His oratory is ‘magnificent’.

She is courted by two young suitors and wonders agonisingly about them, one by one, whether what she feels is really love, and turns them down. We learn from her editor that she became involved in a ‘dalliance’ with a sergeant, which was considered ‘inappropriate’ (officers were not supposed to dally with other ranks).

Churchill was easily able to commandeer his daughter as his ADC on official trips. On one of these, to Quebec, New York State and Washington, she is in introduced to President Roosevelt, who would become a good friend. On a visit to the British embassy in Paris, she meets Christopher Soames, a junior military attaché; they are immediately attracted to each other and very soon decide to marry, in 1947. When Soames was appointed HM Ambassador to France in 1968 it was obvious that Mary was well-prepared be a successful diplomatic hostess. This is a happy book.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2021/09/eavesdropping-on-history/

In defence of reading diaries

From thecritic.co.uk

By Tim Dawson

I’ve just finished “The Milk of Paradise”, the twelfth and final instalment of James Lees-Milne’s magnificent diaries. The youthful popinjay has crystallised into the old fruit. In decrepitude and frailty, his love for his wife has been renewed — though a suitably elegant young man still prompts a discreet second look. This is the 90s. His friend Prince Charles has tumbled to his nadir; the government are as grey as the storm clouds gathering over the Old Ways; New Labour is ascendant. Of course, Lees-Milne is acutely aware of the sea change. But he’s pithy and sanguine and, though he sees Blair elected, dead by the New Year — long before the progressives really sank their teeth into the National Trust, a desecration I’m glad he missed.

There is nothing quite like a diary. They are a peephole into another’s soul; a voyage through a different life. It’s why reading a private diary without permission is such a violation. In a world of heavily publicised, commercialised “immersive experiences” — the worst of which has to be the interactive attraction; where you pay twenty pounds to be shouted at by some Pontins rejects — they are the ultimate immersive experience. Join playwright Joe Orton, riding high off the success of “Loot”; politician Tony Benn, as he foments the revolution from his Kensington townhouse; poet Dorothy Wordsworth, as she ambles the fields and pathways of 19th Century Cumbria. A good diary captures the full spectrum of human emotion. We experience people at their most depressed and their most joyful; their most selfish and their most generous; timorous and hubristic, often at the same time. We get to know them — but we get to know ourselves, too.

"Diaries bear the soul; social media blurs and buries it"

The key, I think, is honesty. A biography should deal in facts, corroborated truths; diaries deal in perception. Memoirs are a different beast entirely — the product of a thousand half-remembered stories, anecdotes skewed by a lifetime of embellishments and retelling. The best diarists are operating in the moment, and there is often a scatological or sexual element. Comedian Kenneth Williams did a neat line in bowel movements and onanism; the Pooterish, priapic Conservative MP Alan Clark is always fussing over jaunty globes and other such delights.

Perhaps this is why the best diarists tend to be creatures of the foothills rather than the peak. If you’re a former Prime Minister or President, you’re unlikely to debase yourself with such salacious trifles — and you’re unlikely to tell the whole truth either. Diarists should operate beyond the suffocating confines of reputation management, which is why many of the best diaries are published post-posthumously. Inclusion, therefore, is both a compliment and a threat. “I’ll put you in my diary!” Kenneth Williams would shriek, knowing full well the volume wouldn’t hit the public sphere until after he was gone.

Aficionados have their favourite diarists, and their favourite entries. Samuel Pepys on the plague: “Great fears of the Sickenesse here in the City, it being said that two or three houses are already shut up. God preserve us all.” Alan Clark, forced to shoot a heron: “For a split second, he seemed simply to have absorbed the shot; then very slowly his head arched round and took refuge inside his wing, half under water. He was motionless, dead. I was already sobbing as I went back up the steps.” Lees-Milne, on the death of his beloved Alvide: “She had come straight from the hairdresser and looked so pretty. Sudden, I am sure — but what is “sudden” at the time of death? And I not there to hold her hand. These days to be my hell on Earth.” The best passages transmit the author’s unique feelings and circumstances through the page and across the decades. You don’t just read, you witness.

The old gag is the man who grandly decides to keep a diary then can’t think of anything to put in it. “My Diary, by Arnold J. Rimmer. January the first: I have decided to keep a journal of my thoughts and deeds over the coming year,” reads Lister from his shipmate’s deftly secreted opus, in the popular sci-fi sitcom Red Dwarf. “A daily chart of my progress through the echelons of command, so that perhaps one day, other aspiring officers may seek enlightenment through these pages. It is my fond hope that, one day, this journal will take its place alongside Napoleon’s War Diaries and The Memories of Julius Caesar. Next entry… July the seventeenth: Auntie Maggie’s Birthday.”

"Pepys is fascinating not because his world is so different to ours, but because it’s so similar"

But great diaries don’t simply chart historic events. There is much joy to be found in the details and descriptions. Pepys is fascinating not because his world is so different to ours, but because it’s so similar. The colourful coffee houses, the feckless Tories, the deadly epidemic. (Though I can live without his pickled oyster suppers. No wonder you could smell 17th century London before you could see it.) 

So what of diaries, and diarists, now? The obvious answer is that the internet, Gawd bless it, has chalked up another kill. Social media documents everything. Its users’ every thought and impulse, preserved forever. But, of course, it’s all projection. Be it sex or politics, art or religion — nobody, or at least very few, are saying what they actually think. Diaries bear the soul; social media blurs and buries it. We’ll always have the frustrated politicians’ tomes, and the actors’ and writers’. Perhaps, in the future, Youtubers and tik-tokers and blue tick twitterers will record their real feelings, too. And, surely, there will be the current denizens of our institutions — the ones who don’t agree with our cultural trajectory, but feel impotent, supplicants to it — carping nightly into their moleskins. Precisely who publishes a diary may evolve, as everything must. But there’s ample room for them yet. 

https://thecritic.co.uk/in-defence-of-reading-diaries/

DIARY OF A DEMENTED HOME WORKER: Bin there, and have done the decluttering

From southernstar.ie

DIARY OF A DEMENTED HOME WORKER: It’s week 77 and while I’ve been busy ‘sorting’ things, looks like everyone else was busy getting in early and booking their summer holidays for next year

• IN an attempt to ignore my own mess, I went on a mission of mercy this week to help my sister declutter her home office. As we waded through the mini-mounds of paper it got us to thinking (always a dangerous thing), how much of your own life, or your kids’ lives do you really need to catalogue? I should point out that she’s not by any means someone who’d be candidate for one of those TV intervention shows, but rather she has a strong ‘attachment’ to lots of things, including the invite to every wedding she was ever at (even the ones she’d really rather forget); every birthday card and school report from the age of around nine; and every card for every occasion her three kids have ever received (I randomly opened around six of them, and they were all from someone called Ciaran. Admittedly they were written in super cute writing that I bet took a grown-up about an hour to coax out of him, which made them slightly harder to recycle but we had to stay focussed). She also has a huge box of all the kids’ art work from over the years which we just plonked straight into the ‘to sort’ corner. I’m patient, but c’mon. She promised she’d sift through it later and curate a small but meaningful collection, but I can’t be sure she hasn’t kept the lot.

• I know other people then who are the complete opposite – as soon as they open a card and read it, they toss it in the recycling, it doesn’t matter how meaningful the message. Same for their kids ‘art. After they convincingly proclaim ‘that’s fabulous pet’, out it goes. There’s no place in their hearts, or their Ikea storage, for sentiment. I’m probably some place in the middle. I’ll allow an especially cute baby card to loiter on a windowsill or under a magnet on the fridge for a week (max), before it gets the door; and as for kids’ artwork … I’m literally too afraid to ‘relocate’ any of it. Any time I’ve even attempted to move a piece on (even ones that have been brought home mistakenly and are by someone else), I’ve been caught rotten and had to put on an Oscar worthy performance along the lines of  ‘I’ve no idea how that got in the bin. Luckily you spotted it’. Of course I’ve only one child, so it’s relatively easy to keep a handle (and a lid) on things. Once you start to scale up, so called ‘mementoes’ can get out of control very fast indeed. So where do you draw the line between heartless and hoarder? Exactly how many pictures and creations made out of loo rolls say ‘I love you’ sufficiently. I mean if our kids already occupy almost our every thought, living moment and personal space … must they occupy all our storage baskets as well?

How much of your kids’ lives do you need to curate? Depends on how much Ikea storage you have I suppose. An easier question to answer is how many people have already booked a holiday for next summer? Everyone – it seems

• Anyway, while we were sorting we also came across a baby book. Not a single page had been written on it, so it went straight into the ‘regifting box’ (along with, you’ve guessed, 27 candles). It was one of those books where you’re meant to write in when your baby took their first step, got their first tooth, slept through the night sort of thing. That got us thinking (again), though, how some records are actually useful and worth keeping, as you quickly forget things you never in your wildest dreams thought would slip your mind. If there was a gun to my head I’d honestly have to say I cannot remember when my own kid got her first tooth or took her first step. I could approximate (I know it wasn’t freakishly early or late), but that’s about it. I know some people who set up an email account in their kid’s name and write them random messages about these things, and other stuff. Now I’m not knocking it (well, not completely), but where would you even get the time, or more importantly the inclination? At the end of most days the only thing I’d be motivated to write would be along the lines of: ‘you were a right pain today and bed time was more torture than usual’ sort of thing. Anyway, under my strict watch, my sister managed to whittle her paper mountain down to something more manageable for her boys’ memory boxes. As we sat back with a well deserved cuppa, we wondered if they’d appreciate them in 20 years … probably not, we decided, but we would, because we know all the sodding hard work that went into them.

https://www.southernstar.ie/life/diary-of-a-demented-home-worker-bin-there-and-have-done-the-decluttering-4229256