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Dec. 25, 2023 - The Unexplained - Howard Hughes
09:59
Howard's Christmas Message 2023
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Across the UK, around the world.
My name is Howard Hughes and this is The Unexplained.
Well, I'm sitting here, I've completed the podcasts for 2023 now, and I hope that you've enjoyed at least some of them across this year.
Thank you for your kind and constructive comments that keep coming in, always gratefully received.
Now things seem to be very quiet.
Something really odd has happened.
I'm recording this a couple of days before Christmas.
But it does seem to me that people have not given up on the year.
That's wrong.
But it just seems to me that they've gone into holiday mode early.
It's almost as if they've said, well, 2023 has been a hell of a year, one way and another, and we're probably going to go into the holiday as early as we possibly can.
And so what it means is the road outside where I live is incredibly quiet, where in previous years I've noticed a stampede outside, you know, people rushing to drive to wherever they're going to drive to get last-minute presents and do things.
You know, maybe that is still to come because I think there's one more day of shopping to do, if you've got the fortitude to face it.
But it seems to be dead quiet.
And that is a reflection, I think, of the year that we've been in.
So as far as I'm concerned, 2023 has been a challenging year.
The low point of it was the fire in my flat.
And despite my best efforts, I'm still clearing up from that.
I have a lot to do, and I think I'm going to have to turn some attention to myself and the things around me for a while to try and get all of that sorted.
But that's the plan as we go into the new year.
You know, plans, plans, plans.
But that's what I want to do.
And the high point of the year for me was definitely getting to see the United States again.
I loved going to America.
I feel a bond with America.
It feels a lot of the time like home to me.
So to get back to America and to just be able to look at Boston, I didn't get a chance on the cruise to do a tour of Boston or anything, but just to be able to look at the big American blue sky and get a small sense of what it's like to be there, that was very important.
And it made me determined to go back as soon as I can.
You know, maybe not to Boston this time, but maybe to go back to New York, maybe even to venture to the West Coast, but it'll probably be East Coast.
And you get to the situation where you think, how come I left it for so long?
I don't know, really.
I was just busy, many challenges to face, a lot of rivers to cross, and I just didn't get back across the Atlantic for years.
And yet America had such a big influence on me.
It was nice to see that quite a few things haven't changed in America.
For example, AM radio in America is still alive, medium wave as we call it here in the United Kingdom, that across Europe is being turned off by broadcasting organizations.
And I think that's folly.
In America, AM pretty much is still alive and sounding good in the big cities and outside.
Here in Europe, they've decided to turn AM off and say everything can be digital in the future.
But the one thing, and I've been saying this to my broadcasting colleagues for at least 10 years, the one thing they never thought about is what happens, and it looks even more likely these days, doesn't it?
What happens if there's a crisis?
What happens if something happens that turns off the power?
And all you have is a basic battery-operated, and the batteries last a long time in an analog radio, battery-operated radio.
Maybe the phone networks temporarily get disrupted.
How do we communicate at a time of crisis?
And the best way to do it is by old-fashioned AM radio.
Steam radio as they used to call it.
They called it steam radio, I believe, because of the water they had to use to cool the broadcasting systems, the great valves, as we call them in the UK, or tubes as they call them in America, used to produce steam.
Somebody's going to tell me I'm wrong about that.
Maybe my listener, Ian, will tell me that I've got that completely wrong.
But I believe that is the definition of steam radio.
So I think we've lost our way, certainly in radio, but I think we've lost our way in an awful lot of other ways.
And as I've said a couple of times recently, some of my listeners have been saying to me over the year, why don't you express your opinions on the state of things, on the way the world has gone, and various other aspects of it.
I've got my views about it.
But I didn't want to start expressing them here, but I do have very clear thoughts.
I think, for example, that prices of things have been allowed to get way too high.
Somebody's making a big profit.
There's nothing wrong with profit.
That's how economies and nations are built.
But I think, and I need to read into it a bit more, I think, but I think a lot of it's got out of kilter.
And I think, as a group of people, and you're here listening to this because you think about things, I think we have to get together and I think we have to demand that there is some kind of change.
I'm not talking about going out on the streets and overturning things.
I'm just saying, telling those people that we put in positions of power that it's time to make things different.
Maybe that is where we've got to in civilization.
It's a big thought and it's Christmas.
But I just wanted to briefly go there and one of these days I might separately start to talk about my views on those things.
Because I do have them, even though I'm not politically affiliated.
That's what I was going to say.
I'm not that way inclined.
I do have views.
So there, for those people who asked, that's the answer to that.
In terms of the unexplained, it's been a busy year, and for me, it is always a pressure, but a nice pressure to get guests, to book people, to persuade guests to come on the show, to get your ideas for guests.
So please keep your guest ideas coming in.
The best way always to do that is to go to my website, which is theunexplained.tv.
Follow the link, and you can send me a message there through email.
And if you put in the subject line there, guest suggestion, then I'll see it.
It's going to take me some time to work through all of these things, and once again, I come to the end of a year and the beginning of another year, and I say, I've got to streamline the guest booking on this show.
And yes, undoubtedly, at some point, I will.
At some point.
But for the moment, it is this organic system that I've come up with over the years.
In other words, me doing everything.
For the moment.
But, you know, maybe I need to think more expansively in 2023.
What do you think?
I need a little time over Christmas.
I think we all need a little time over Christmas if we can get it.
If you're working in the public services like my dad did for all the years that he did that when he was in the police, then I understand what that is like.
And I hope you get some time off after Christmas.
I remember my dad putting on his uniform on Boxing Day.
And I was getting up to have fun.
I was about nine years of age.
And my father was polishing his police boots.
He had to go out.
But for most people, Christmas is a time to enjoy and maybe reflect a bit.
And certainly that is one of the things that I'm going to be doing over this Christmas.
I just need a little bit of peace.
And I think for the quality of everything that I do, including these shows, I just have to stop and think a bit.
So, from this point until the first week in January, there won't be any more podcasts unless, you know, there's something urgently screaming out to be done.
I'm not going to do any more podcasts.
And I'm just going to bide my time and make some plans, I think, is the best way to describe that.
So no podcast, and I'm going to make some plans for 2023.
If you've got suggestions for what I can do, then gratefully received.
Some people have asked whether there will be an unexplained cruise in 2024.
It is on past experience way too early to tell that, but I will let you know if there is.
But I've got some other plans too for things, and I will reveal those in the fullness of time here.
But I tell you something.
After the headlong dash, the madness that this year has been, and the fact that I'm always thinking about shows and things that I have to do, it's a weird feeling.
It's a strange feeling to just...
I'm just kind of, I've just rigged something up quickly to record this.
It's just a strange feeling to stop for a moment.
I think I forgot.
Maybe a lot of us have done this.
I forgot how to relax.
And I'm going to have to find out again.
If you've got any tips on that, very gratefully received.
But I am, again, we come back to the beginning of this conversation.
I'm very, very surprised at how this is close to Christmas.
It's getting near.
It's so damn quiet.
I'm not entirely sure what happened.
Tell me if it's quiet where you are.
I just think an awful lot of people have already hit the off switch.
Now, the important bit, I hope that you have a wonderful Christmas if you're spending it by yourself, if you're spending it with family or friends, if you're at home or far away from home.
I hope that it's a really good and fulfilling experience for you.
And I wish you for 2024, and you know how superstitious I am about wishes for the new year, but I wish you everything that you would wish for yourself.
Thank you to everybody who's helped me this year.
Thank you to Adam, my webmaster.
Above all, thank you to you.
This is The Unexplained.
I'm Howard Hughes.
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