A very happy new year to you all, and apologies for the unhabitual day of delivery. To be clear, ‘Stiff Upper Quip’ will continue to come out on Thursday mornings, starting January 9th.
I did plan to send you all a missive during Christmas, but I noticed reads were way down anyway, so perhaps you were all already ensconced in personal worlds of revelry and retreat. For me, I passed just about the most stressful festive period, I think indeed stressful time, of my life, liberating my affairs from my London flat in advance of its sale and my impending divorce. Then I headed to my parents house for a different albeit more customary sampling from the taster menu of stress. And all the time I was battling horrible anxiety.
Nonetheless, I was delighted as ever to see more of you signing up in the period between Christmas and New Year which the German language elegantly dubs ‘Zwischen den Jahren’ (between the years).
Indeed, this newsletter broke a significant small milestone during this time.
This represents once again almost a doubling of the newsletter audience year on year, and unlike many others I haven’t imported an existing reputation onto Substack, unless you are very familiar with microarts scenes in the Berlin of the late-2000s. Ironically, I now seem to have reached a point where, for the first time in my life, my writing is actually going better than the rest of things. I have readers; I have no shortage of things to write about; and I even, thanks to my divine paying subscribers, have a few quid to encourage me in my musings.
It seems to be customary in the first newsletter of the year or the last of the old to offer a round-up of the best pieces of the year. I don’t disagree with the practice, so below are five which did well or that at the very least I like.
I moved to Belgium recently, a pretty major life shift, and this piece on my new homeland was very widely read.
Six months in Belgium - by James Harris - Stiff Upper Quip
This piece about ‘Friend Zoning’ proved a tad controversial, but I just about stand by it.
The Friend Zone - by James Harris - Stiff Upper Quip
This long sci-fi story was thing I wrote which I’m proudest of this year. Paywalled, tho, which I consider entirely merited.
La Folie - by James Harris - Stiff Upper Quip
This post forms part of a little sub-genre about enjoying life, which I always counsel you all to do.
It's OK to be OK - by James Harris - Stiff Upper Quip
I finally got round to writing my piece about my meltdown at Oxford University; paywalled but with a big chunky preview.
Oxford University 2001-2005 - by James Harris
For access to all of these and much more to come do convert to a paying subscription here.
In 2024, I also wrote several pieces for ‘The Critic’, and managed to eke out fourteen more online sales of my novel ‘Midlands’; I name the specific figure to give you an idea just how iterative self-publishing is. You really do sell them one by one and on the basis of a tailored pitch. More excitingly, I finished a send-out-able manuscript of novel number two, a ghost story set in the Thameside town of Erith, which I have tried to write with real narrative verve.
Of course, I want to keep writing in 2025, meaning the set-up of this newsletter will remain much the same; three free columns and month and two with a preview then a paywall. I’m also always looking for more people to interview and guest write to help keep the show on the road; I’ve had some excellent guest writers of late. I’ll be honest and say that, due to my salaried work, I am already at the limits of what I can do in terms of the amount content here, and I haven’t as yet decided if I'm going to renew my own newsletter for another season beyond this summer. Certainly, your encouragement as readers and increase in numbers does incite me to keep going at it for the forseeable. I'll let you know if it gets to a point where I can’t keep it up anymore, as the bishop said to the actor.
Anyway. Have a zestful start to this new year. These early days are always in some way a cause for optimism. Plus, over 2000 of you! Who’d have thought it.
a very happy new year to you, James
happy new year to you James and big congrats on the landmark!