Happy New Year!
Come away in, help yourself to some tea or coffee, plenty mince pies left, and a few slices of black bun. Have a seat and please tell us all – what have you been listening to / watching / reading or otherwise using to distract yourself from the grim realities ?
Happy New Year EHM (and all other inmates)
Seen
As with last year the hols provided the opportunity for a movie catch up binge. Best last year was Godzilla Minus One, worst Saltburn – I was afraid that would remain the breadth of my ranking system for some time. Fortunately, Nick Park and his people came to the rescue.
In order of preference..
Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
I’ve heard some negative (I mean so far as “not as good”, “missing something” etc) comments, but I thought this was sublime. Some of the gags/puns were a bit “on the nose”, but that was always part of the charm. And the execution is immaculate.
This was on in the cinema and I wish I could have gone but I wasn’t well at the time.
The Holdovers
A proper film like what they used to make where you can imagine people who want to act being delighted to get such a script. I was part of a recent discussion about the most “badass” scene in cinema and my thoughts turned first to Clint Eastwood and then Jason Isaacs in The Death Of Stalin, but there’s a scene in this film where Paul Giamatti spits out a mouthful of brandy where I almost wanted to cheer.
There’s also an exchange of dialogue many other Afterworders will identify with:
“Who put you in charge of the music?”
“I DID!”
The Fall Guy
They used to hang films on the charm and charisma of the leading actors and the wit of the dialogue between them and this film leans into that. That might explain its relative failure at the box office, as well as the fact that it’s mostly an old fashioned romance which was probably marketed towards an action crowd. It does meander, but again in “the way they used to make ‘em”. I also think it would work better without the “Fall Guy” moniker, but without that brand I suppose it would never have got made.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
Beautifully crafted animation made possible, I suspect, by the Spiderverse films. I’ve never seen or read any TMNT stuff before and I’m happy for this to be my version of their story. I’m not usually a fan of big sleb voiceovers in animated films, but I thought Jackie Chan and Ice Cube were ideal for this
Plane
It’s Gerard Butler, it’s straight-to-Netflix, but it’s a lean hyper-efficient bit of nonsense where tensions and stakes escalate and only MEN with MACHINE GUNS are going to solve this.
Bullet Train
was on TV. The opposite of Plane in the sense that – being strongly Guy Ritchie with a bit of Tarantino influenced – it dwelt a lot on its odd menagerie of players, it nonetheless delivered a great deal and variety of killings before, I think, losing it at the end as so many modern films do
Wonka
was made by the people who brought you Paddington and I remembered being knocked out by the trailer and the film, as a whole, I liked. There were too many songs (funnily enough, I feel much the same about the 1970s classic). I was hoping for a bit more
The Radleys
I’ve enjoyed a couple of Matt Haig’s books, but I didn’t get a lot of his usual humour in this adaptation of his tale of suburban vampires. Performances were fine and I was engaged, but it felt small, like a tv movie, despite the star leads. MUCH better than Saltburn, though!
On television I was disappointed by pretty much all of the Christmas-Specials-what-are-filmed-in-August with an old Gone Fishing set in Norway (what scenery!) being the highlight.
One of the channels showed all six episodes of The Franchise in a day. It’s exec produced by Armando Ianucci (although the idea and work of others) and in his style. This time it is a film production crew that is bumbling through petty internal politics and comedic ineptitude. Given AI’s (ooh, just noticed that) oversight the presence in the preposterous superhero script of a “Chronofunnel” had me thinking of his own Time Trumpet series. I enjoyed this as a binge, although I thought the great Jessica Hynes was a bit wasted in a thankless role.
Read
Very much a tv and people Christmas period. Not only did I not read anything, I now have a pile of new books to tackle.
Heard
The highlight has been Don’t Pretend You Don’t Remember, the new release by The Pony Collaboration which, I think, is their best so far.
Others such as Our Man Steve have compared their sound to Tindersticks and even, on this, to Pet Shop Boys. The artist I would compare them to is Darren Hayman and, occasionally, Belle and Sebastian. All good company, one way or another, and the point stands that they know their way around a tune and are pretty damned good at the lyrics too.
DPYDR isn’t on *hiss* Spotify, but I have been sampling the other albums that featured in the AW end of year poll and my pick so far is The Future Is Our Way Out by Brigitte Calls Me Baby, which a timelessly out of time collision between Richard Hawley when he plays like his haircut and 1985 period Smiths replete with the sort of deftness of lyric that such a mash up might suggest.
Early days, but I’ve also found much to like in the exotic 132 Ibn Battutah by Syriana and the woozy, jazzy, Rising by Jasmine Myra.
I’ve done this via my own playlist, which, as usual, includes everyone’s top tens and, as a result, is a bit unwieldy for many
My man KFD has done one too, which many will find preferable.
Over on the reissues poll, I’m getting down to Congo Funk!, a lively collection that implores you to shake those old bones in the same manner that a fruit pastille demands that you chew it
Upcoming
I’m very excited that the new series of Severance is almost here..
I’m always a bit wary of liking the Ponies to Belle & Seb as both were very initially very twee. But that Trevor Horn produced B&S album was out and out pop, and is now – gulp! – 21 years old.
Pony album #5 is already in the can. Warning: one track features me on BV’s (as part of a chorus). There’s still time to mix it out, mind.
Ah December.
On the 5th I went to Halifax Minster to see Bryony Griffiths and Alice Jones as part of a Christmas concert. They only played three songs as there were choirs, a brass band and readings (Barrie Rutter among them). When I say ‘see’ from where they were playing and where we were sat I occasionally caught a glimpse of Bryony’s fiddle bow. It was an excellent evening though, I’d never been to the Minster which is a stunning building, also seen on the Christmas service on Christmas day on the BBC. It was also my 70th that day so it was good to be back in my birthplace that day.
Next day was my 70th birthday party, lashings of alcohol as presents and I’ve now adopted a camel at Dudley Zoo which I hope to visit in August on my way to Birmingham for a concert.
Came across Babylon Berlin which I’ve binge watched still some to finish. Downloaded the music from it to my free Spotify account and found that there was music by the Brian Ferry Orchestra (he appears and sings a song in the series) which is Roxy Music songs played as 1920s dance music., most enjoyable.
Not much reading and not much done.
Watched TV fare Wallace and Gromit , quizzes etc ogled the guitars on Denmark Street in Strike.
There are also two rather good albums by The Bryan Ferry Orchestra.
I’d downloaded one listened to it as I painted a wall. I’ll search for the other
Looks like there are three BFO in total.
Two’s prob enough.
Was on Denmark Street on Thursday with my daughter, having a tentative if very enjoyable jaunt into London for the first time without my walking stick to hand (see moans from me in previous posts about lumbar issues)
It’s, for the moment, thriving. We think we noticed another new music shop next door to the equally new branch of Rough Trade Records.
This is great to see. I had thought the street would be nullified in the new hi tech environment created all around it.
It’s certainly been polished up and its now a regular Instagram andTikTok background area, but that’s the way wiv da kidz nah innit. Fair play to them. They all seem to want to play the guitars,
Spent most of the month not at home – eight days in Switzerland and nine days of family Christmas in a rented farmhouse near Chester – so not much to report except ….
I may be the only one on the blog who was delighted to receive for Christmas a CD by Ortolan. Who they? Well, since you ask, they are a Breton twelve piece ensemble. All of them play bombards, usually at the same time as each other. What a magnificent racket!
Named after the bird I trust, an illegal delicacy eaten with a handkerchief over the head, alas I believe the practice still goes ahead
One of the very best Succession scenes sees Tom and Greg do exactly this:
First the good news – on Tuesday I’m finally having my knee operation! After a painful holiday season when something happened that made things even worse than usual, I can’t wait to finally get it (hopefully) fixed. Even though it means I’m now undergoing a last minute sleep schedule adjustment…I’ll have to get up the same time on Tuesday morning as when I usually go to bed…
One or (most probably) two weeks of rest (and later a lot of rehab) then follows, and I have made plans for films to watch, albums to listen to, books to read, jigsaw puzzles to lay and projects to work on (writing, textile artwork, drawing etc) – I predict that very few of these plans will come to anything. (“The Internet made me not do it!”)
I had a quiet Christmas and didn’t do as much as planned then either, thanks to the pain. But I had the week off and got some much needed rest at least (and good food).
Read:
I reread (TBH I’d only read parts of it before) Sharon and my Mother-in-Law. Diary from Ramallah by Suad Amiry. Most of it takes place in 2001-02 during the Israeli invasion, but includes memories from the 80s and the Gulf war in -91. It’s grim, but also full of gallows humour and uplifting solidarity amongst neighbours and friends among the (often surreal) terror they live through. My guess is that it’s ten times worse today, but this at least gives a glimpse of the everyday madness and how to somehow live through it (if you’re lucky).
Then I read the fifth volume in a series of diaries of a Swedish artist – she’s entertaining even when I don’t agree with her opinions, and my mum loves her books, so I pass them along to her.
Then a short book by Annie Ernaux – the French title is L’Autre fille, I read it in Swedish (it doesn’t seem to have an English translation yet). Not one of her best, TBH.
The opposite of Han Kang, whose latest novel We Do Not Part IMO is her best work so far. Horrendous atrocities, nightmares and heartwrenching emotions have seldom been depicted in such a poetical and hypnotic way… Snow is a huge part of the story, and it has an ambiguity in the narrative – are characters alive or dead? Ghosts or hallucinations? Can you connect telepathically if the pain is strong enough? Thankfully we don’t get any answers, just beauty and heartbreak and a brilliant reading experience.
I’m struggling my way through a book I started in December, just before I abandoned it for Han Kang for a bit; which also happens to be about snow. It’s about the history of snow, in all sorts of ways, and usually this would be the kind of book that I love. Unfortunately the author is not a great writer and he has a few ideas that he keeps harping on and on about that I find highly annoying. It’s fine as long as he’s telling you the facts about the science and history of snow, most of it is very interesting – but then he’ll add his own nonsense and spoil it all.
Apparently I’m alone in thinking this, as it’s gotten great reviews everywhere…
And of course I kept my tradition of reading A Christmas Carol aloud to myself in the hammiest of ham performances, with voices and all, on Christmas Eve and forward (my throat won’t allow me to read aloud in one go anymore, so I keep going until I start sounding like a crow, and continue the next day, and the next, for as long as it takes – five days this year).
As always I’d rate it 10/10, and I include my performance with the obvious merits of Mr Dickens in that rating! 😀
Seen:
It can’t have been very good, because I don’t remember any of it.
Heard:
I had my final catch-up on Spotify of the albums I’d looked forward to but never found on CD, to be able to write my nominations for the Best Of 2024 poll:
I absolutely adored the debut album from Haley Heynderickx a few years ago (I believe I may have put it as my number one? At the very least it was Top 3) so I had high hopes for her second album, Seed of a Seed. Of course it couldn’t live up to those expectations, but it isn’t bad, just a few too many “OK” tracks and fewer “WOW” ones than the debut. I’ll definitely buy it when it gets released over here (in a month or so), and hopefully it will grow on me with time.
Swedish pop prince Benjamin Ingrosso is very talented if you enjoy that sort of thing, and I do. His latest album, Pink Velvet Theatre is full of radio bangers which have dominated the radio playlists all year long, without outstaying their welcome. If he had made this album without putting unnecessary interludes between several tracks, it could have been competing for the number 20 spot on my list!
Fun fact: I once met Benjamin in my local supermarket, he was singing to himself the whole time he was shopping (not in a loud “look-at-me-I’m-a-star” kind of way, but in a “I mustn’t forget this melody before I get home” way.)
Christopher Owens is an artist whose solo albums I’ve greatly enjoyed in the past, so when the newest album I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair got rave reviews everywhere, I got very excited. Unfortunately this is another time when the critics and I don’t agree. I thought it was distinctly underwhelming.
And unfortunately I didn’t love the Wilco EP Hot Sun Cool Shroud either. Six tracks, two of them I’d call interludes, not songs, two good but not great tracks and two underwhelming ones. I’m still buying it (have it pre-ordered in fact) but that’s because they’re Wilco and we’re not worthy… 😉
I had much better luck when I listened to the latest Loney Dear album All Things Go. It’s not my favourite by him, but it’s still very good. In fact, I believe it made my list (no 14?). The first and the two last tracks are just OK, but everything in between is very good – the title track being my favourite.
Leaving Spotify and returning to my WMP I’ve tried to enjoy the new album from The Cure but I find it dull and not my vibe. I can hear that it’s “good”, I’m just not the audience for this anymore. Not unhappy that it won the poll (but slightly surprised).
And my every-other-album streak with Laura Marling seems to continue, because I quite dislike Patterns in Repeat. This dislike is represented by the god-awful line …”You and your dad is dancing in the kitchen, life is slowing down but it’s still bitchin´…” No thanks.
White Denim – 12 is another meh. I can’t even think of a reason why I don’t like it, it’s just not memorable in any way.
My final buy of 2024 was the reimagination of the Buckingham Nicks album by Andrew Bird and Madison Cunningham (I confess I don’t know who she is…but her name fits the project very well) called Cunningham Bird. Andrew Bird is an auto-buy for me, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have bought it; I have zero interest in Fleetwood Mac or any of their members, and have never heard the original album. This is pleasant enough, thanks to their voices and the arrangements with plenty of space for his violin, but the songs are bland and I’d rather hear a new self-written Andrew Bird album. Didn’t make my list.
Thankfully they didn’t recreate the original’s cover art!
I have high hopes for 2025 – mostly because it couldn’t get much worse than 2024 was for me!
Of course, politically it’s a different story…but isn’t that the case most years?
Sincere good wishes for that operation, Locust 🙏 As always, your cultural consumption is overwhelming!
Thanks – at the moment I’m more nervous about over-sleeping than the operation!
And here’s me thinking I had a slow month… 😉
Good luck for the operation.
Good fortune to you and your pesky knee Lo. 🤞🦵
Best of luck, Locust.
I recognised the name Madison Cunningham and had ponder for a minute or two then remembered where from – she guests with Rufus Wainwright on the opening track of his Folkocracy album – a very good version of a Ewan MacColl track called ‘Alone’
Good luck for the forthcoming op, Locust.
Also, would you mind posting the name of the annoying snow book? It sounds like something I might read (interested in crystals and solid state chemistry).
Thanks in advance.
Madison Cunningham/Andrew Bird – this is what she sounds like solo (I rather like her album):
Thanks for the well-wishes, everybody.
@fitterstoke – unfortunately (or fortunately, if you ask me…) the book about snow is in Swedish and as it’s brand new it ‘s not translated yet (and may never be).
Hope your op goes well, and the recovery/rehab, the tough bit, better. Given I am bound to need one soon, all interest in the post-op.
Oh, well – never mind. Thanks anyway!
Regarding Madison Cunningham – I’m sure her “Revealer” album was somewhere in my top 20 of 2022 – it’s worth a listen, if you liked the clip.
I did quite like it, and I will have plenty of time to investigate the album now…because instead of two weeks I’m now told I can’t work until I’ve rested and rehab:ed for two months!!!
I had the op yesterday morning, and apparently what they saw in there was not what they expected, all sorts of problems and “extreme inflammation” all around. Bc of my diabetes they don’t want to use the anti-inflammatory stuff (hits the kidneys hard, apparently) and though they removed a couple of the problem-makers (plica and half a meniscus) there are a few left that they can’t do anything about (one of them being quite bad osteoarthritis), so, in conclusion, I’m going to be laid up for a while!
It’ll be a meagre beginning of the year for me, so instead of buying albums I’ll be listening to Spotify (the free version ofc) and instead of buying lovely new books I’ll be reading my TBR (perhaps t’is the moment in time to sit down to read Ducks, Newburyport ?)
So far I’m doing OK without the opioids I was sent home with, and I believe I can do with ordinary painkillers of less forbidding reputation – I’m very resiliant to pain, (too) well illustrated by the fact that I’ve been working full time walking non stop 8 hours per day on that knee without taking painkillers, despite feeling much pain, and this have been going on for months…
Well, this now could be the time when I actually DO all of those things I’ve written lists for – you can’t scroll the Internet for two months without getting bored! Time to finish that novel I’ve (not) been working on for a decade…
I’m not allowed to move much at all this first week post-op, apart from some light exercises (mostly sitting or lying down) so I suspect I will hang around here a bit more than usual!
Oh goodness me! And yes, stay off the opioids if you can. Coming off them can be worse than the pain.
Maybe have some Snoozy Choc instead?
This thing called Christmas dominated the end of the month (as I suspect it did for most people).
2 weeks off work, doing nothing, but always needing to be doing something (“go here, go there, such and such is coming round …”) leaving me more knackered than I was before (and as I went into the period suffering some form of mutated flu that couldn’t make it’s mind up what to do – 2 ear infections, a chest infection, and a stonking cough in the mix).
Heard: of the selection of 5″ discs that I received, the stand out was Matt Berry’s Simplicity – just over half an hour of simple riff library type music, with a possible usage explanation.
Read: Mark Paytress – When Superstars Rocked the World, 1970–74
(been on the “to read pile” since Tiggerlions review many months ago.. Knocked it off in under a week, and very good it was too.
Seen: loads of gash TV, highlights being (almost ) daily doses of Only Connect, Wallace & Gromit, and Strike.
Found on Disney+ and worth a watch: Say Nothing – drama set against the backdrop f Northern Ireland troubles, and story of IRA member Dolours Price
(every episode ends with “Gerry Adams says: nothing to do with me!”)
Months ago? More like years. 1/7/2022. But, thanks for the mention.
😉
Matt Berry’s new album, “Heard Noises”, is out 24th Jan if you liked Simplicity and are interested RD. Couple of singles are out already from it.
Listening now, and will no doubt be purchasing. Thanks for the heads-up
Seen
All of us Strangers
It’s a story about storytelling, when a scriptwriter in his 30s revisits memories of his parents, who died when he was a child. A dreamy, ambiguous tale that picks away at themes of loneliness, grief, regret and sexuality. Andrew Scott is terrific as the sad, aching heart of the film, ably assisted by Paul Mescal and Claire Foy.
Aftersun.
Mescal again, this time playing a single dad taking his young daughter, Sophie, on package holiday to Turkey. Sophia sifts through memory, video footage and her imagination as she (and we) looks for clues. This is very much a show don’t tell film that I imagine some would find rather frustrating. I found it incredibly moving.
It’s a Wonderful life
I’d not seen this film for years. It’s still gorgeous but my word when it touches on the grief and pain of George Bailey’s life it doesn’t sugar the pill.
Squid Game 2
It takes a little while to warm up, but once the games begin it is still horribly tense and upsetting. Can’t wait for the third (and hopefully) final series to drop later in the year.
Read
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
This is a real sweetheart of a book that reminded me a lot of John Irving (specifically Garp) and Chabon’s Kavalier and Clay.
Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper
It was no surprise to discover that one of Harper’s literary heroes is James Ellroy. Like Ellroy, Harper swims in a Hollywood cess pool that corrupts all it touches and attracts the cruel, immoral and the broken. Where Ellroy’s best known LA set works are set in the past, the Tinseltown of Everybody Knows is very much up to the minute.
I watched no terrestrial TV over Xmas, I don’t have an aerial so that may be the main reason. I did watch the full series of Dopesick on an online channel called odysee which is similar to youtube but a decentralized video hosting platform, it was really good and I came across it quite by accident. I also downloaded and enjoyed The Order, Nightbitch, The Substance and The Apprentice over the festive period. I have a 4 year old and a teenager, so life at home is always pretty busy but I make time to find a time/place to watch the football, especially if Liverpool are playing.
Music wise I have put together a couple of mixes – one was of my fave tunes from 1978 linked with clips from movies from that year which went on my Mixcloud channel last week and another mix coming on Friday taking samples from the 28 Day/Weeks/Years Later films and splicing the samples with new electronica & dub, that was great fun putting together.
Been slowly reading a great book called Punk Diary 1970-79 by George Gimarc which has been sending me down rabbit holes online checking out bands I’d not heard of. I also come off my socials, FB & X during Jan which helps, I did it last year and the only thing I felt sad about come the Feb was that 2 of my friends had died in the previous weeks and I hadn’t known about, but I’ve still gone ahead with a detox to kick off the new year, so fingers x no-one pops it this month.
Looking forward to seeing Nosferatu next week, oh yeah and for the first time in my 62 years I’ve been summoned to jury duty in a few weeks time aaaand, I’m painting the local church hall this and next week, never a dull moment.
Just because I’m really lazy, could you add links to the mixes. I’ve really enjoyed these before
thank you : https://www.mixcloud.com/Gardener/
I listened to an hour of this last night. Thank you so much, @gardener – brilliantly constructed, magnifique.
aww , cheers man I appreciate that, the Feelin’ 72 and ’75 mixes are my personal faves – I played the ’72 one at a festival last summer and that went down like free ice cream!
From Christmas Eve on I was floored by a nasty virus which had some decidedly odd symptoms including what amounted to narcolepsy. I just couldn’t stay awake, I kept falling asleep every hour or so. On Boxing Day I clocked up over twelve hours of sleep. It has been a long weird trip that’s left me with ongoing feelings of nausea and a very annoying cough. Consequently during the latter bit of December I didn’t really pay much attention to anything, I read a little but listened to hardly any music. I found I couldn’t concentrate for any prolonged periods of time. Happily that has now ended and life is back to what passes for my version of normal. Prior to this though I…
Heard.
Beethoven String Quartets played by three different sets of musicians. The Smetana Quartet, The Balcea Quartet and The Busch Quartet. It’s been very interesting contrasting the more historical recordings of The Busch Quartet with the modern approach of The Balcea Quartet via the Smetana Quartet who bridge the gap between them.
More Beethoven, The piano sonatas played by Igor Levit, fine recordings by the young German pianist. Very enjoyable indeed.
Interspersed with the above has been sizable chunks of the works of Gabriel Fauré, some piano works by Ravel and Satie and pieces from Benjamin Britten and Arnold Bax.
The usual quantities of jazz were inhaled with my recent quiet fixation on Keith Jarrett continuing throughout the early part of the month.
Read.
The Japanese – A History in Twenty Lives by Christopher Harding. This covered quite a lot of ground historically I was already conversant with but proved entertaining nevertheless.
Three Shades of Blue – Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans and the Lost Empire of Cool by James Kaplan. Ostensibly a book about how A Kind of Blue came to exist but that’s almost incidental to the overarching story covering this period of jazz and the people it enveloped. Recommended for those with an interest in the period and of course for anyone who has any interest at all in American jazz.
The Searcher by Tana French. The first in a new crime series from Ms French. I like her shtick so I liked this.
What has now come to be an obligatory Maigret.
Seen.
I binge watched Day of the Jackel mainly fascinated at how Eddie Redmayne manages to steadfastly maintain a degree of one dimensional presence over such a sustained period. It was decidedly average.
I guess we all watched Wallace & Gromit I know I did and along with Cunk on Life it was easily the most entertained I felt through the ravages of the virus over the Christmas period.
The Only Connect and University Challenge specials were consumed partially to maintain brain function but also enjoyed along the way.
Nothing else springs to mind.
A.O.B.
Cough, cough, cough..,
Oh, get well soon, Pencil.
The Only Connect specials were a hit with my daughter and me. She’s just cottoned on to it.
Cunk’s two books are worth attention. One has her own illustrations. Done with the expected effort and rigour.
Thanks Beez. I’m a lot better now just a lingering cough and bouts of nausea which hopefully will clear up sooner rather than later.
Life without Only Connect would be a bleak prospect. It’s one of the few things I make a point of watching. I’ll keep an eye out for the Cunk books. I thought Ms Morgan excelled herself this time. Genuinely laugh out loud funny.
It’s great to see Diane Morgan now following Charlie Brooker’s path and becoming a big star in the U.S. via Netflix…. but whither Barry Shitpeas?
Who needs Barry Shitpeas when you have Elon Musk?
@Sewer-Robot The real Mr Shitpeas is actually a TV director called Al Campbell. Mainly involved in Comedy, he directed a few episodes of Inside No 9.
Cheers @kjwilly. Chat GP is right – this place is a treasure trove of information about music and culture..
HMPV?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c23vjg7v7k0o
I’ve had something similar (much milder and minus the nausea) lately. The tiredness/sleepiness may be the brain being slightly oxygen-starved due to congestion of the airways (my non-expert opinion – correct me if it’s nonsense). Plus a bit of the old SAD on top.
GWS and keep inhaling the Jarrett.
I gave up trying to figure out what exactly this virus is. From what apocryphal stuff I’ve heard a lot of people have been falling ill with a virus locally each presenting with various symptoms with striking differences from person to person. I ran a high temperature for a while that seemed to come and go, then there’s the nausea and the persistent cough and headaches but my nose has remained unblocked throughout. Then there’s been the propensity to fall asleep and for a week or so my sense of taste and smell was distinctly heightened. I’ve been experiencing an uptick in silent migraines too getting attacks of these almost daily and often multiple attacks on a single day. Monday was the worst for these so far when I had six seperate attacks during the course of the day. As I said it’s a very weird bug.
Three Shades of Blue sounds like my kind of thing. Duly ordered.
Ditto.
December’s always odd and this was more than most. I’m not a fan of all the Christmas hurly burly, so it was nice to get away for the week before, a week in Jackfield, in the Ironbridge Gorge. A favourite part of the world, we walked up and around the Wrekin, as well as along both sides of the riverside, through all the now near fully reclaimed remnants of the Industrial Revolution, as majestic buildings decay. I love how the residential areas have revived from the sorry state of the 70s and 80s, even if Telford’s pernicious presence is now just about co-terminous. I suspect the spoil is already on the turn, mind, as in getting worse again, but for the moment there is nothing finer than the walk from Jackfield over into Coalport and up the hill, for a black pudding and cheese toasty at the All Nations. Plus a pint, of course.
Telly was broadly rubbish; we watched mainly repeats and dvds. Of the Xmas specials, only the Gone Fishing offered expected joy, the French scenery glorious and a wonderful mismatch with the cheerfully surly pensioners. Gavin and Stacy was disappointing, a lazy rerun of all the tropes that made it once so funny, trotted off and box ticked in order. Yes, the critics loved it, but they seem easily pleased.
Musically, the gig of the year came very late, the Friday before the 25th. @stevet and myself went to see the Sharon Shannon Big Band tribute to Shane MacGowan. And it was a belter. Space and laziness means I will just add this short cut here:
https://atthebarrier.com/2024/12/22/the-sharon-shannon-big-band-a-tribute-to-shane-live-review/
Happy New Year, or, at least, let’s see if we can still be here in a year, given the lack of good will in the world.
December 24, eh?
Seen:
Loads of TV; Wallace & Gromitt was exceptional; Fishing with Bob and Paul was lovely and I rattled through both series of Gangs of London which was ridiculously violent and hugely entertaining. The Jackal was very good and Eddie Redmayne was extremely believable.
We had a couple of days watching the best racehorses in the country, (and Ireland,) over Christmas. Boxing Day was spent at Kempton with our good friend Bryan Drew and his family in the Ladbroke’s suite, watching his horse, Bravemansgame in the King George. BMG won it in 2022, (we were there,) but he’s probably reached his ceiling now; 2nd coming into the straight but finishing 8th. Look out for him in the Grand National. My passion for National Hunt racing came from my Irish Dad who adored Arkle. Saturday afternoons in the early 1960’s were spent with Dad watching ‘Himself’ on black and white TV and the mighty horse inevitably beat his hapless rivals in another epic display of jumping and stamina. Happy days.
Two days later we were back at Newbury, (where we’re members,) for the Challow Hurdle. Bryan had a runner in the first race, (3rd,) but the big excitement was watching on the big screen as his Willie Mullins-trained novice hurdler, Final Demand, romped home in Ireland. Make a note of him; he looks special.
Heard:
My listening pleasure during the month was filled with modern British prog in the guise of Frost* and their career-defining new album, Life in the Wires. It has filled me with joy and pride that a band I’ve followed since before they were even a band, 20 years ago, has produced such a magnificently epic work. I also received some Danny & The Champions of the World albums, ( the 3 that were missing from my collection,) so the last few days of December were filled with jangly guitars and brilliant songs.
Read:
I’ve re-read Heppo’s excellent Abbey Road book as part of the research for my blog, as well as Lewisohn’s Complete Recordings of The Beatles for the same reason. The playlists for the three episodes of Abbey Road that I’ve written, (ep: 3 is out tomorrow, Friday 10th,) have accompanied my writing sessions and the whole thing still brings me such joy, 102 episodes in.
26th December marked an important anniversary for me; 3 years sober. With all of the Kempton Park excitement, I nearly forgot but it was late evening when my brain registered the date and its significance. I’m not an evangelist for sobriety; far from it; but I can honestly say it’s the best thing I’ve done, if only for my mental health. I continue to monitor myself, every day but, so far, so good.
In December, listening to many of the artists listed in the AW 2024 album polls took up a lot of my free time, and very interesting it was too. Apart from that. I managed to finish one book and start another.
The Shallows, by Nicholas Carr, concerns the author’s exploration of the effect on the human brain of the Internet and latterly the smartphone, specifically in relation to neuroplasticity – the shaping and reshaping of the mind through habits and external influences. Comparing the deliberate distracting properties of this medium and technology to the previous dominant form, the book, he asserts that human society is in danger of losing the ability for focused, in-depth thought.
Almost as an antidote to that rather depressing analysis, the book I’m reading at the moment, Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, is a delightful presentation of the intertwining of the strands of her life – botanical and environmental science, of which she is a US Professor; native American approaches to the land, shared rituals and practices; her own biography and that of her family who come from this heritage. Scientific and spiritual approaches to the land and environment are not often common bedfellows, the one tending to be cold, formal and siloizing into academic disciplines; the other romantic and generalising, unfocused and tending towards sentimentalism. The author in this book manages a more systemic, multi-disciplined approach, which really does weave together the different elements to make a satisfying and coherent tapestry, presenting logical and meaningful arguments for why we should all connect with the land that supports us.
Nothing much of popular culture to report.
I took two weeks off for the festive break, and spent the first one redecorating Offspring the Elder’s bedroom (I finished at 4:30pm on Christmas Eve, which was cutting it a bit fine). I caught up with a backlog of podcasts during, so it wasn’t all wasted.
And I had lunch at my cousin’s lovely new house. Lockdowns and busy lives meant I’d only seen her once (at a funeral) since her 2019 wedding, and she now has two daughters. Crohn’s means I rarely eat out, but her hubby has something similar, which meant I didn’t have to explain turning up with a packed lunch. It was a lovely day in great company, and made me feel less of a hermit.
Then Mrs F and I went to the Christmas lights at our local National Trust estate. I was having a bad guts day. We got half-way round and I had to dash off in search of a loo. When I finally reappeared, the rest was a bit of a quick march. That’s the other side of IBD, and a reminder of why I rarely buy tickets for anything in advance.
Also: I did my occasional check in with Pal Wad of this parish. “I’m busy collecting records and collecting medical problems.”
I watched an extraordinary Spanish film, La mesita del comedor (The Coffee Table, 2022). It’s billed as a “black comedy” or a “horror comedy”. The Guardian reviewer described it as “a scabrous exploration of how far black comedy can be stretched”. None more black, I’d say. I like black comedies and horror comedies, but there are no laughs at all to be had in The Coffee Table. There’s plenty of irony going on, I suppose, but it’s one of the most intense and disturbing films I’ve ever seen.
I like films where the protagonist fucks up and gets deeper and deeper into shit because of their fuck up (it makes me reflect gratefully on how none of my stupid fuck ups have ever had life-ruining consequences). In The Coffee Table, the protagonist is a decent bloke who unintentionally commits not just a major fuck up, but as devastatingly terrible a fuck up as it’s possible to imagine. The rest of the hour-and-a-half film is devoted to him trying to come terms with what he’s done.