It’s that time of year again – when dictionaries around the world start announcing their ‘Word of the Year’. And first cab off the rank this year is Collins Dictionary. Their WOTY choice is – ‘permacrisis’ which they define as ‘an extended period of instability and insecurity’. We all understand the word – even if we have never encountered it before (and it is a new word, not yet found in dictionaries). Here’s the Collins’ list of runners-up (the possible words of the year that failed to win the top spot): ‘partygate’ the political scandal over Boris Johnson and those parties at Number 10 that broke Covid rules; ‘Kyiv’  – the capital of Ukraine (for obvious reasons): ‘splooting’ – the act of lying flat on your stomach with the legs stretched out (our dog does that, but do people ever do it?): ‘Carolean’ – meaning the age of King Charles III; ‘warm bank’ – a heated building where people who cannot afford to heat their own houses can go (happening in the UK now, and possibly coming to the rest of the world soon: this is what the climate hysterics have wished on us); ‘lawfare’ – a play on ‘warfare’ meaning the use of legal proceedings to hinder something you don’t approve of (I think this is the same as what lawyers used to call ‘abuse of process’); ‘sportswashing’ – promoting sporting events to distract attention from something else (like Dan Andrews paying $15 million to Netball Australia to distract us from the massive debt he’s got Victoria into?); ‘quiet quitting’ – the practice of doing no more work than you are contractually obliged to do (e.g. most bureaucrats and public servants… or am I being a touch cynical?) and ‘vibe shift’ – a significant change in a prevailing cultural atmosphere or trend (something no one over the mental age of fifteen needs to bother about!). So, there you are – the complete Collins Dictionary’s list of the hot new words of the moment. I must admit that the winner  – ‘permacrisis’ – is excellent. It captures perfectly the moment in which we live (sadly).