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  3. December hmm.
    Family Christmas curry called off due to one of the hosts testing positive for Covid.
    Ally Pally to see Mark Gatiss’ Christmas Carol, the theatre is wonderful and the production excellent.
    Watched Get Back and other stuff on Disney+ after I’d subscribed.
    Birthday month, a week away in Newcastle and Hexham but between the two we stayed here for my birthday itself. The Dunmore Pineapple near Falkirk.

    Pineapple

  4. READING

    Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell. Superbly written novel about a band (called Utopia Avenue), or rather a “group” as they were called then, in 60s England. It’s all made up but namechecks all the other groups, clubs, characters from the era. In other words for the most part very well researched. After a couple of months I’m about 2/3 of the way through it, partly because I’m a very slow reader, but also because the writing is so rich and detailed and absorbing you just can’t skip through it. Highly recommended.

    WATCHED

    Catch and Release – NOT the 2016 film but a Norwegian 8 part TV thriller, excellent Scandi-noir

    HEARD

    Brad Mehldau playing The Beatles. He’s amazing

  5. Haven’t read or listened to much, but Xmas was a period of films, telly and more films.

    ‘Don’t Look Up’ was very good and deserving of all the attention it got. A pretty simplistic message delivered with all the subtelty of a sledgehammer, but what great fun! Mark Rylance once again stealing the show.
    Ridley Scott’s ‘The Last Duel’ I really enjoyed. Written by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, it’s about the last ever duel fought in France in 1300-and-something. Matt Damon’s wife accuses Adam Driver of raping her. The tale is told from three persepectives – Matt’s, Adam’s and the alleged victim’s. Not sure I’d have been so enthralled had it been a fictional story, but as a history lesson it was absolutely fascinating. And, apart from the actual duel itself, pretty accurate according to the internets.
    ‘Antlers’ is a horror film in which things aren’t going well for 12-year-old Lucas, what with his dad turning into a flesh-eating antler-based demon type thing and his younger brother looking likely to follow down the exact same path if he’s not careful. Fortunately, despite his unconventional home life, Lucas continues to attend school, where his teacher notices his propensity for drawing demonic images and how sullen and morose and plain weird looking he is. When people in town start turning up half eaten she decides to look into Lucas’s family life. I think horror films very rarely work well as it’s so difficult to scare people in an original way, and this one was just a bit meh.
    Stephen Merchant’s The Outlaws telly series was recommended by a friend who led me to expect something quite gritty. It was the opposite of gritty though. About as gritty as a Richard Curtis film, I thought. A bit similar-ish to that telly show The Misfits, but not as good. I’m currently one episode into Four Lives in which Merchant plays real-life serial killer Stephen Port. That’s much more interesting.

  6. Read
    Thanks to Santa, I am now – like many of you, I would guess – ploughing through Bob Mortimer’s autobiography, with Paul Morley’s chunky Tony Wilson bio right behind it (early days with Bob, but I did find the part about his health scare difficult to read as someone with my own A and E horrors).
    Thanks to a chance remark on here, I am also reading Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse, which features so many sentences you both need and want to read again – a Rowntrees Fruit Pastille for the mind!

    Heard
    I’ve been dipping into my AW chum’s best of year lists and the ones that have tickled me so far are Long Lost by Lord Huron – from that realm of music I have only become interested in and only know anything about through this site (i.e. a bit folky/Americana) and The New World by Swindle which is exactly the kind of record I spent the whole year looking for (i.e. a bit funky/BritUrbana. Yes, I just made up the word and I’m not entirely ashamed about it).
    The Chart Music podcast dropping 7 (seven) hours of material over the festive longueurs was a welcome and timely treat. The Film Cast (formerly Slash Filmcast) best of year podcast drew my attention to some excellent films last year, so I’m looking forward to investigating their picks when they’re available to me.

    Watched
    Highlight of the holidays was rewatching two modern classics, Mad Max Fury Road and Blade Runner 2049.
    The first half hour (in particular) of FR is so insanely fast as to make one giddy, while 2049 has this stately we-know-what-we’re-doing pace – a great yin and yang double bill, methinks.
    Odd, perhaps, that, having never seen the first three Mad Max films, FR doesn’t inspire me to want to watch them. I don’t think the problem is just M*l G****n. I’m firmly of the view that 2049 is massively superior to its predecessor, so that might factor in somewhere.
    I also took advantage of my Disney+ subscription to watch Soul, a film almost purposely designed for the AW demographic. I think it might be Pixar’s 11th best film. Yes, it’s that good.
    Lots of love on here for Detectorists, but I think Mackenzie Crook has really done something remarkable with Worzel Gummidge too: the way he creates a credible world, both out of time and full of contemporary care-for-the-countryside messages for kids, with well-rounded characters – including his own “no point in competing with Pertwee so I’m going to be relatively understated” performance – alongside explosions of lunacy like the brilliantly realised motorcycle gang, and tops it off with a payday for The Unthanks. Nice!

    AOB
    You’d like to think that The Pope pronouncing that the “denial of fatherhood and motherhood” by those who choose not to have children “diminishes us and takes away our humanity” might be the first metallic tickle of a penny staring to drop among his cult of out-of-touch celibates, but he was just, in the season of goodwill, having a pop at pet owners and people like me. Good man!

    • From a management point of view you can see why the head of the Catholic church might be annoyed at people not providing the world with children. Without them, what are his priests supposed to do for sex?

  7. Last month was the first time I didn’t post on the Blogger takeover page and I felt I had let the side down as I believe I was with @el-hombre-malo when he had just posted the first ever one (A Jerry Dammers Sun Ra tribute gig since you ask). Anyway now to make amends:

    HEARD:
    Really enjoying the Nina Simone Montreux Years disc- some great performances not least on her cover of the Janis Ian song Stars.
    I thought I had ordered the Willy Mason album Already Dead when it was released earlier in 2021 but realised i hadn’t. I rectified that and glad I did – the song Our Country is phenomenal.
    Mdou Moctar was a purchase I made from comments on here. The title track Afrique Victime is stupendous. I would like to see them venture further into extended jams – they have the chops and there is more melody in their work than Tinirawen have.
    Martyn Joseph 1960 – recommended by my mucker @baron-harkonnen – he has pretty good taste you know.
    Margo Cilker – Pohorylle -an uncut recommendation that I am enjoying although a little too short.
    A great compilation of French pop – Pop Psychedelique which is rather splendid.
    Finally my album of the month O’Connell and Love – Will you be there? Its the second album by Larry Love of Alabama 3 and his mate Brendan O’Connell. I know @retropath2 was a big fan of the last album Minesweeping and this one is equally as good. If you want earworm hooks this album has them in abundance. A lady called Stephanie Clift adds vocals/backing vocals on several tracks and is the perfect foil to Larry Love’s voice. This one has got lots of airplay. I originally ordered it from the dodgers but they couldn’t supply so had to get from http://www.oconnellandlove.com

    SEEN:
    The Spielberg remake of West Side Story was amazing. The dance scene for I want to live in America was fabulous and the newly added character played by Rita Moreno (the original Anita) almost stole the show. I love the original so much that I was fearful it was going to be spoiled but Spielberg has done a fantastic job. My one minor gripe would be that Tony is baby faced and looks too much like someone out of a boy band. Aside from that spot one.
    Gone Fishing Christmas special was really enjoyable and when Paul got his Christmas present there wasn’t a dry eye in our house.
    I really enjoyed the film Mudbound which was a different take on inter racial attitudes during the depression and into the second World War in Mississippi. The climax was pretty visceral but a compelling film that I would highly recommend. It’s on Netflix.

    READ: Just started reading Jonathan Coe’s middle England. Good to see some of the characters from The Rotters Club. Early days yet but the book is promising.

    • yes, what a storming gig that was! Magnificent piano player (Zoe Rahman!) and when I went to check who else was in the band I saw that Shabaka Hutchings was there on bass clarinet. Every single record he has been involved in is worth buying, and there are not many musicians I would say that about!

  8. In a rush to post I completely forgot to mention that I saw two excellent but different gigs last month. Robert Plant and Saving Grace and Madness and Squeeze. The first was excellent musicianship the second a fun filled night of two great bands bringing fun and nostalgia.

    • Went to see Robert Plant & Saving Grace at The Parr Hall, Warrington, I never thought I`d see Mr. Plant play Warrington! Great musicians and a great concert. I`ve seen Robert Plant twice now and the guy has pure class. He gives the spotlight to his band as much as himself. I could have sat through the show over again, pure joy. I was never a big fan of L.Z. but I love Robert Plant`s solo work, long may he run.

  9. December was weird this time around and Christmas was more or less ruined…got sick on the 18th and wasn’t back at work until 2nd January – staying isolated for two weeks, not seeing another soul apart from my sister coming by to leave a bag of groceries twice, having a chat from a distance.
    But although this experience with Bronchitis left me feeling like my chest had been the punching bag of Mike Tyson, and waking myself up from coughing so hard; I didn’t have a fever so still wasn’t very tired. Which meant that I could read books, watch TV and films, and potter about with personal projects etc, at least in my second week at home. So apart from not feeling very Christmassy and missing my family, it was quite OK.

    Read:

    Finished Vattenvarelser (“Water Creatures”) from last month, a collection of chapters on the cultural history of a number of underwater creatures, richly illustrated and very interesting. The longest chapter, on whales, was a shocking read…I of course knew that the whaling business was terrible, but the statistics and descriptions in that chapter made me feel physically ill.

    Also finished Small Ceremonies by Carol Shields – unfortunately, as it was my commute read, I had a week of not reading it, before remembering to get it out of my bag and keep going. By that time I’d forgotten a lot of the first half, so my impression of the novel as a whole is a bit confused. I enjoyed it, but not quite as much as her other novels – but I believe this was one of her earlier novels, if not the very first.

    During my illness I had time to pick up the latest crime novel by Johan Theorin, Benvittring (punny title, meaning both “bones decomposing” and “picking up the scent of bones”) in which we meet the old skipper Gerlof again, and his cop niece Tilda. This time two bodies are found on a beach, one newly killed under a deliberately set off stone avalanche and one buried skeleton wearing Gerlof’s old sweater. A stack of love letters and some oil paintings eventually leads to an old crime and the long shadows it’s casting. A fast and entertaining read, full of lucky coincidences and easily available clues that you just have to ignore the improbability of…as indeed in most crime novels!

    Then I turned to the latest horror novel by Sara Bergmark Elfgren, called Grim, possibly aimed at a YA audience (but not in a very noticable way), well written as always. This one is centered around a death metal band in the 80s, when the singer was found in an underground tunnel, apparently dying while performing some occult ceremony. The teenage son of his best friend in the band is having bad dreams about him and tries to find out what actually happened. Spooky atmosphere, very convincing, told from different perspectives and jumping back and forth in time, while getting more and more tense and creepy as it goes on. Clever ending.

    As usual, despite sounding much like a death metal growler this time, I did my annual reading of A Christmas Carol out loud to myself, starting on Christmas Eve. It was the only thing that made it feel like Christmas this year!

    I also read a slim volume of Truman Capote stories; Breakfast at Tiffany’s plus a few short stories (including the Christmas one, which I’d read before), very enjoyable.

    And then I finished the month by reading the final installment in the so called “Copenhagen Trilogy” by Tove Ditlevsen; Dependency, which is the best one of the three and a really harrowing read. The descriptions of her drug dependency and rehabilitation are painful to get through.

    Heard:

    Andy Shauf released an album of demos from 2018, called Wilds, and if you’re a fan of his, it certainly won’t disappoint.

    Didn’t get on with the new Plant/Krauss album, nor the new Albarn effort. Martha Wainwright’s Love Will Be Reborn is so-so, something about it slightly annoys me, and I can’t pinpoint what it is.

    The “Taylor’s Version” of Red arrived, and I didn’t enjoy disc 1 much, but absolutely adore disc 2! I don’t know if it’s just better songs on disc 2, or if it’s the production as well – I haven’t felt up to revisiting disc 1 yet, so can’t really analyze what the difference is…and I’ve never heard the original album, so it’s nothing to do with preferring those versions.
    But the best part for me about this ongoing “Swiftaissance” was stumbling upon a YT channel where two Swifties react to and analyze her albums and videos in the most brilliant way. Such mad emotional fans, but also absolute scholars in everything Swift, able to unpack even the slightest lyrical clue and connect the dots from previous songs, interviews etc. It was an absolute joy to binge all of their videos!

    Seen:

    More TV and films than usual – yet I can’t remember any of it! Probably because most of it was absolute shite…I quit watching a lot of stuff half-way through, bored senseless.

  10. Heard:
    Hartwin Dhoore, both solo and in his trio. Thoroughly listenable box playing of European dance tunes, which is right up my rue/chemin/strasse.
    Nick Hart sings Nine English Folk Songs, which does what it says on the tin. His first release is out of print on CD, such has been its success. I have pre-ordered his third. Young singer of trad, whom I got to see at last at Bromyard in September. Distinctive, dry East Anglian delivery, with own sparse accompaniment on guitar – it’s all about the voice.

    Seen:
    Hard to comprehend that I saw the Furrow Collective just four weeks ago in the minimalist yet organically warm ambience of Stoller Hall, Manchester. With the house lights up throughout, spotlighting their universally masked audience, and with unofficial stayathome guidance reducing numbers, the quartet worked hard to generate warmth. I must confess there are other groupings that, for me, do better at being greater than the sum of the parts. The subliminal moments were all where Lucy Farrell took the lead; she could sing the telephone directory etc etc. She has her first solo album coming out later in the year; for that, I’ll be near the front of the queue.

  11. Christmas was very quiet mainly because the closer it got the less Mrs B and I were prepared to risk catching Covid and having to scrap our plans for a family gathering on Boxing Day

    GIGS: I saw 2, both of similar genre. We made our first visit to The Stoller Hall in Manchester to see The Furrow Collective do a Seasonal show in the smaller hall. About 55 punters which is considerably more than the the last time I saw them, in the same year that they had won best live act at the Folk Awards. The audience were fully masked. I enjoyed them a lot. 3 days later we went to Bury Met to see Awake Arise which is a Christmas amalgamation of 2 acts, Lady Maisery and Jimmy Aldridge & Sid Goldsmith. Bury Met announced on the morning of the gig that Rowan Rheingans was unable to perform. I think if you didn’t know they were a performer short you probably wouldn’t have noticed but that’s because they left out the songs that she sings lead on. I enjoyed them but would like to see them with Rowan

    On the following day I should have seen a world class performer who I’d booked to play at our folk club but he told me at 12:30 lunchtime on the day of the gig that he wasn’t coming. I still love him as a performer but, you know, not quite as much

    HEARD: Following recommendations on this very forum I bought the current albums by Cassandra Jenkins, and by Elbow. The former reminds me in parts of Mark Isham -era Van Morrison. The latter (Flying Dreams 1) is a gorgeous record and it seems to have slipped out without the world at large noticing. Guy Garvey’s lyrics and vocals are just lovely. I also bought More Notes From The Field by Jacob & Drinkwater and I like it a lot

    READ: I’m a really slow reader and I found parts of The Electric Muse Revisited really hard going but I persevered and finished it. Quite a few of the artists mentioned, and 4 out of the 5 authors have died since the original book was released in 1975

    WATCHED: We enjoyed A Very British Scandal, about the Duke & Duchess of Argyll, available on the iplayer. Top performances from Paul Bettany and Claire Foy in the lead roles. What is clear from the drama is that the Duke and Duchess absolutely deserved each other, and I don’t mean that as a compliment

    AOB: while mostly staying in I passed the time by going through my Genealogy Database to work out which of my ancestors and relatives were likely to feature in the 1921 Census which was released 2 days ago. Access to the records, beyond the very limited free search element, is significantly expensive so I’ll be taking a trip into Manchester Central Library this month to have a look. It and the National Archive HQ at Kew are the only 2 places in the UK offering free access

    • @Vince-Black I am glad you enjoyed the Elbow album. I think it is one of their best and although it got pretty good reviews it seems to have completely slipped under the radar on here. I think for many they are now unfairly derided – Guy Garvey is a very good songwriter and to my ears a half decent singer too.

      I forgot about A very British Scandal – most enjoyable series about two pretty dreadful people.

    • It’s rather easy to get “A Very British Scandal” (about the Duke & Duchess of Argyll) muddled up with “A Very English Scandal” (about Jeremy Thorpe and Norman Scott).

  12. READ: Well, I had to, after the series, ordering Dopesick, the book, by Beth Macy, mid December. A daunting and upsetting read, and every bit as vital as the Disney(!) series. The Purdue story is only really the first third, it progressing into the subsequent tidal wave of cheap heroin that engulfed the rust belt, oxy having pump primed the populations cravings. Terrifyingly bleak and very well written. For light relief I followed this up with Gone Fishing, the book by Paul and Bob to tie in with the series. As someone who hates fishing but who loved the series, I guess some odd legacy of having had an angling father and elder brother try to convert me to the joys as a boy, it is a delight. A mix of anecdote and history, I found it, actually, a more satisfying read than Mortimers actual autobiography, which was a bit slim pickings.
    WATCHED: I don’t think we watched any festive treats at all over Xmas, the yearly purchase of the bumper 2 week edition of Radio Times a bigger waste of paper than ever. But the highlights we did watch were the Colman/Thewlis vehicle, Landscapers, the true tale of the strange relationship that allowed a husband and wife to indulge in a deluded parenticide and escape to an increasingly tragic round of diminishing returns on the money gained thereby. Both actors at their peak. A run, then, through the final series of Gomorra, a cheerless return to form of unlikeable characters doing unspeakable things. I loved it, the wife less, she embarking on watching the whole of Downton Abbey over about a week. Try as I might, dipping in and out, I couldn’t help but find some traction, finding it akin to Corra at its last century peak, a top notch soap opera. Finally, we both liked the unpleasantness of Inverahrah in the latest Very British Scandal about the nasty Campbells.
    LISTENED: Perhaps as I was still off work, Dec was less of a rush, as I try to hoover up the nuggets from other folk’s top choices of the year. I think I was pretty up to speed this year, able to find most I wanted to check out in time for submitting my own. Thus the end of the year was a strangely pleasant traditional guitarish band fest, accompanied by Del Amitri, Teenage Fanclub and the Stranglers, all surprising with autumn of their career delights. The Coral missed the boat, but I remedied that after Xmas.
    XMAS: it was ok…. It’s true, humbug was closer this year than usual, what with Prozac sugaring my pill. However, I cheered up enough for Boxing Day, the boy able to visit for the first time in 2 years, he now a resident of Sweden, which was terrific, he and his partner staying over, making also for the first full gathering of all our combined kids over the same time period. Lovely.
    NEXT: With Santa bringing me a wetsuit, I was pressganged into joining my wife in her new found passion for cold water wild swimming. So far I have had only my maiden immersion, a warm New Year’s Eve, 10 degrees in a local lake/ gravel pit. Strangely uplifting and exhilarating. Watch this space…….

  13. I’ve never bothered contributing to this thread before, but I think I will start doing it as it’s a good way of keeping track of what I’ve been into – I usually forget as soon as I move onto something else!

    Listened…
    – I waded through the 1970-71 concert stuff Pink Floyd posted on Spotify. Nice to do once, but a bit samey after a while, and the sound quality is poor. Made me think I would have loved to see them back in the day, but I’m grateful their recorded output was relatively slim – makes you appreciate more what we do have rather than what we don’t have.
    – Got a couple of classical SACDs for Christmas, one of which (LSO) has Debussy’s short-ish orchestral piece “Prelude a l’apres -midi d’un faune” which is now a new favourite of mine. (I first heard of it when I saw it as part of a concert last year)

    Watched…
    – I wasn’t too enamoured with Don’t Look Up. I liked the message, and for a good hour or so it was on a par with The Big Short for razor wit. But it got too silly and comedic. Would have preferred a bit more subtlety.
    – I caught up on Power of the Dog, which got rave reviews last year but which I missed at the time. I am honestly torn between whether it was brilliant or too obscure. It’s a kind-of arthouse kind-of western type thing with Benedict Cumberbatch (who initially seems miscast but then you start to see why he’s right for the role). I don’t want to ruin the story but honestly I got to the end and thought “eh?” and didn’t get it at all. Then after wiki-ing it, I realised there was a whole twist and an almost submerged plot that I hadn’t picked up on AT ALL. It suddenly seems like a very clever film – but I can’t decide if the director has just been annoyingly oblique, or whether I was just too thick to pick up on what was really going on.

    Read…
    – I’ve read a couple of different translations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight over the past few weeks. The film was one of my favourite films of last year, and coincided with a newly found obsession with Tolkien and with Alan Garner, and since then I’ve become a bit obsessed by the poem and done a bit of a deep dive into it. Fascinating how much like an unsolvable puzzle the story is, which makes it open to interpretation.
    – And speaking of Alan Garner, I also read his new one Treacle Walker. A haunting little novella that lingers with you, and no doubt I will read it again a few times.
    – Over the festive period I revisited a few classics on Audible – some John Wyndham (Trouble with Lichen), Joyce (Dubliners) and Henry James (Turn of the Screw). All were very enjoyable, and Chris O’Dowd’s narration on Dubliners is just perfect.
    – Also currently deep into Swann’s Way – volume one of Proust’s massive tome In Search of Lost Time! I aim to get this under my belt in 2022.

    • Your reaction to The Power of the Dog (I got to the end and thought “eh?” and didn’t get it at all. Then after wiki-ing it, I realised there was a whole twist and an almost submerged plot that I hadn’t picked up on AT ALL. It suddenly seems like a very clever film) was exactly the same as mine, word for word. I watched it a second time a few weeks later, now aware of what was going on, and I must say for me it stands as the best film of 2021.

      • I haven’t watched it a second time, but might do so.

        I’m still not sure if it was being too clever-clever or not! It certainly didn’t go the way I thought it was going to go. It seemed to be building up to be a film about the relationship between (x) and (y) (don’t want to give spoilers) but then the sudden plot development near the end seemed to come out of nowhere – although also totally obvious when you think about it! Sounds like I am talking in riddles, but it’s a hard film to talk about if you don’t want spoil it for those who haven’t seen it.

        Did you think Cumberbatch was good? On balance I did, but for most of the time I was watching it I thought the film demanded someone a bit more manly and more of a traditional alpha male.

        • I found Benedictine Cumbersome totally believable in his role. Real life partners Kursten Dunst and Jesse Plemons work very well together and I was very impressed with young Kodi Smit-McPhee, who I’d seen before in a very good television war drama called Gallipoli.

          Also, I must say, after the absolute brilliance of Bright Star and now TPOTD, I must consider Campion one of my favourite directors. Second only to Terence Davies.

      • Yes! Another of my little obsessions last year, was Mr Garner.

        Treacle Walker is a very slim book – you can read it in under 90 minutes I would say. I wasn’t sure what to make of it at first but it has planted itself in my subconscious a bit.

      • When the book came out there was an excellent podcast with a panel discussing Garner’s work and the symbols and inspirations in Treacle Walker – also had excerpts from an interview with the man himself. I found this very helpful in unpicking the book:

        https://www.backlisted.fm/episodes/backlisted-special-treacle-walker?fbclid=IwAR26wxbcXWjtXeEaBhcRLHpIpWqLqoE77GyK49wG-QP_GqI0usgobGyj0Sw

        “This is a Backlisted special, recorded at the Bodleian Library in Oxford to celebrate the publication of Treacle Walker the new novel by Alan Garner (Fourth Estate).

        The panel discussion features Erica Wagner, writer and critic and editor of First Light, an anthology of pieces about Alan Garner’s work; Dr Melanie Giles, archaeologist and the author of Bog Bodies, the definitive account of the phenomenon which plays a significant role in the book’s story; and Professor Bob Cywinski, physicist, whose conversations with Alan Garner about time, landscape and local legend provided the inspiration for the novel.

        The podcast also features readings from the novel from the (excellent) 4thEstate audio book featuring Alan’s schoolfriend, the actor Robert Powell and audio clips from an interview about the novel that Alan recorded with his daughter, Elizabeth Garner. The music is by John Dipper, taken from a short film by David Heke premiered at the live event. All proceeds from the event went to support The Blackden Trust, the Garner’s educational charity based in The Old Medicine House, a Grade II timber framed building that Alan and Griselda Garner saved from destruction and which is also the setting ofTreacle Walker.”

  14. Read:

    A Christmas Carol by Dickens – Predictably magnificent. Had never read it before, and knew it would be good, but genuinely stunned that Dickens just whacked this out with what seems so much ease in under 100 pages. It’s simultaneously wild, profound, and brilliantly, brilliantly written. 10/10 will read again.

    The Fellowship of The Ring by Tolkien – My only prior Tolkien experience was The Hobbit and a couple of decent biographies. I have to confess, I thought this wasn’t actually very good. The world building is decent and I can see why it blew minds at the time, but the actual writing is fairly horrible, even for a kids book, and it made me reflect that I’ve never quite clicked with Fantasy literature the way I have with science fiction. Peter Jackson did a phenomenal job.

    On Freedom by Maggie Nelson – I thought this was really good, particularly the first half. I really enjoy Nelson’s stuff; I don’t always agree with what she’s saying, but it’s reliably well-reasoned, well written and thoughtful. In some ways, that’s exactly what you want from this sort of thing; brilliant arguments from a different point of view. Her ability to recognise, articulate and navigate multiple sides of the same discussion is something you don’t often see these days.

    Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion – I was tremendously saddened by the passing of Didion over the holidays. She’s a long-time favourite, to whom much of what I’ve said above re: Maggie Nelson also applies. She has this total clarity of vision but without the ego that so often besets the great 20th century American essayists. This was just as good as I remembered it, and I topped it off with Didion’s Vogue essay “On Self Respect”, a piece which I tend to read at least once a year even in the normal course, because it’s perfect, foundational, and – to my view – the best thing she ever wrote.

    A Hitch In Time by Christopher Hitchens – I wasn’t entirely sure I needed this in my life, but I’m glad I went with it. A dozen or so essays from the LRB that have not been compiled in any of his previous collections, including thoughts on some of his usual betes noires (the Clintons, Kennedy, Kissinger, Nixon), and some subjects I’d not previously seen him touch on (Thatcher, Princess Margaret). The highlights, for me, were a piece on P.G Wodehouse, and a long takedown of Isaiah Berlin. Both are perennial favourites of mine, and it’s unusual to read someone go to town on the latter the way Hitchens does, even if the suspicion remains that an overriding fondness causes him to pull his punches. There’s also an essay on Salman Rushdie which contains zero surprises, but is still devastatingly well written. As ever, when reading Hitchens, it’s difficult to escape the thought that we really could use his insight into this strange old present, and some of the public figures who inhabit it. Maybe he’d prove hideously out of time, but I doubt he’d go down without a hell of a fight.

    Windswept and Interesting by Billy Connolly – I’ve never really watched much Connolly, but several people recommended this as being brilliantly funny. My prejudice on the way in was that an awful lot of Connolly’s humour seems to revolve around saying “willy” in a Scottish accent. Sadly, this book did little to dispel that notion. He’s clearly a deeply likeable and decent human being, and I can see why others find him funny, but he doesn’t seem to tickle me, which made this a bit of a slog. His loss, I’m sure. The fault is almost certainly with me, and maybe one day in future the penny will drop. I do hope so.

    When The World Ceases To Make Sense by Benjamin Labatut – Mentioned this already on another thread; one of the most entertaining books I’ve read in years. Tall tales of scientific discovery, genius and lunacy, spun by Labatut with his pitch black comic sensibility and beautifully Latin American leaning to the macabre. It’s Borges meets Allende in Recoleta Cemetery, and I loved every bloody word of it.

    Seen:

    Loads of Christmas movies, none of which I’ll bore you about here.

    Spider-Man: No Way Home – Vast amounts of fun, particularly the first half. I thought towards the end it began to suffer from some of the issues which have historically beset the Sony spider-movies (too many villains, slightly sludgy looking CGI battles at night), but that’s really a small complaint. The kids absolutely bloody loved it, as well they should.

    Freaky – I’m a sucker for a bodyswap movie, and this was enjoyable. Vince Vaughn plays a ludicrously brutal serial killer, while Kathryn Newton is his latest prospective victim. Some jiggery pokery with a cursed dagger sees them accidentally swap bodies. Obviously, it’s not fine art by any means, but the scene where Newton as Vaughn wakes up in a bedroom full of fairylights and Panic At The Disco posters before it abruptly cuts to Vaughn as Newton waking up in a warehouse replete with dead animals hung from the rafters, sinister mannequins and numerous sharp objects
    did make me laugh out loud. Not sure I’d watch it again, but it passed an evening with friends well enough.

    Ghostbusters: Afterlife – Great popcorn movie, no complaints at all. Obviously a bit of a free throw to lift much of the vibe from Stranger Things (as well as part of the cast); but sometimes the obvious move is the right one. Didn’t love the end, but hey – that’s fan service. It was all good fun.

    Cobra Kai, Season 4 – Quite possibly the stupidest drama imaginable, but so much fun. I regret nothing.

    Bruised – This clearly wasn’t all that good, and has had a poor reception, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I liked the idea of someone finally gender-flipping the whole Rocky template, and I thought Halle Berry did a pretty good job. I’m a sucker for sports movies, and particularly sports movies where people lose and don’t give up. Men have had a lot of them, I don’t see why women shouldn’t get some too.

    The Last Duel – Thought it was OK. Scott is such an up and down director.

    Don’t Look Up – I have to confess, I thought it was cack-handedly awful. Satire with the bite of a goldfish. Probably shouldn’t have been too surprised, as Adam McKay’s previous movie (Vice) achieved the remarkable feat of making me side with, of all people Dick Cheney, such was its ham-fisted insistence on telling you exactly what to think and then repeatedly hitting you over the head with it for another two and a half hours. Watching DLU made me reflect that sometimes the most important messages really are cursed with the absolute worst messengers.

    Heard: Lots and lots of Christmas music, latterly dovetailing into YHLQMDLG by Bad Bunny (great record), the new Burial (a return to more traditional Burial territory after the distorted euphoria of last year’s efforts), the new Nas (the collaboration with Hit-Boy continues to yield great results), and an unaccountable January playlist comprised of numerous strange bedfellows, including I Found Someone by Cher, Perfect Blue Building by Counting Crows, Sweet Home Buenos Aires by Javier Calamaro, Se A Vida E (That’s The Way Life Is) by the Pet Shop Boys and the wonderful Blue Skies by Willie Nelson (what a song, what a vocal).

    AOB: Currently waiting for the Coachella headliners drop, having retained tickets since 2020. It’s looking like Kanye (allegedly playing the hits, and not the gospel music), Billie Eilish and one other (maybe The Weeknd). Have to confess I know barely anything of Eilish – does anyone have a view/has anyone seen her live? Give it a spin, or go see who’s headlining the other stages?

    • A couple of things to challenge you on there, Bingo old chap…

      How can you not love Billy Connolly?? Each to his own I suppose. I think he is (or was) the Funniest Man In The World at his peak. Granted, I haven’t read this new book however.

      You didn’t like The Fellowship of The Ring… nooo. The trilogy has grown into one of my favourite book series and I now read it annually. I actually think Fellowship is the best of the three, for going “epic” but also retaining some of the childishness and playfulness of The Hobbit (which is a bit TOO much like a children’s book by comparison). The early chapters are my favourite, with Bilbo’s party and then his vanishing, then life rolling on in The Shire with this chilling threat building up in the background… just beautiful. And I absolutely love all the weird stuff they left out of the films – the barrow wight and Tom Bombadil. I feel by comparison the films (and fantasy films in general) tend to be too blunt, fast-moving and bombastic, when what makes the stories really sing are these quiet, strange moments. Honestly, I liked the LOTR movies (and the Hobbit movies) at the time, but since getting back into the books again I can’t stand watching them as they just seem like he squeezed all the charm out of them. Made the hobbits “funny” and the elves “pompous” for example.

    • The director has been very clear; if you don’t like this film, there is definitely something wrong with you, such is its moral imperative.

      It’s just a shame that the same moral imperative didn’t suffice to induce him to make a half decent movie in this instance.

    • You’re definitely not the only one. Apparently making bad art is not only ok, it’s positively to be celebrated, as long as we agree with its politics.

      I haven’t seen a shitter film than Don’t Look Up in a long, long time.

      • You should check out Spider-Man: No Way Home, Freaky, Ghostbusters: Afterlife or Bruised. I’ve not seen any of them but I’m confidently expecting them to be a lot worse.

              • Going on my gravestone. (Except “he was” instead of “you’re” otherwise people out walking their dogs might think it refers to them, especially if they too happen to be among the beautiously inclined.)

                  • Suggestion noted but vehemantly spurned in a fit of picque, I thank you nonetheless.

                    I’ll tell you another film I saw recently though. Last Night In Soho. I thought it was just ok, worth watching once but certainly not twice. My brother loved it. And he generally has similar cinematic tastes to you.

                    • Ooh that’s on my Must See list. With one thing or another I missed it in the cinema, but I love Edgar Wright and I’m one of those people who worship Baby Driver as one of the finest films of the 21st century.

                    • Saw it last month. I enjoyed it well enough; I quite like Edgar Wright. Not sure I’d watch it again, but I thought it was an interesting presentation of London, and I liked the nods to Polanski and Giallo.

                      I quite liked the way it foregrounded some of the historic abuse that’s been doled out to women in Soho, and using all the ghostly Johns as the horror element was a nice touch. I thought the volte face on that front at the end was in slightly questionable taste, and I’m surprised there hasn’t been more criticism of it, albeit it’s quite nice to watch a movie that isn’t falling over itself to push the correct political buttons at all times, and there was no real harm done.

                      I feel like Wright is still finding his style post-Cornetto trilogy, and is trying on a few hats, but I’m all good with that. I reckon he’ll do something really interesting down the line.

                      Great soundtrack, naturally.

                      Saw it in a double bill with Bond, which I disliked viscerally.

      • There is a serious point here, I agree. I don’t really like Don’t Look Up, but I find if I try and be direct about its shortcomings, it comes across as if I am attacking the message. And I actually agree with the message!

        I found this to my detriment and bemusement on a facebook group I am one where I was a bit disparaging about Don’t Look Up, then found myself being upvoted by a particularly forthright Trumpist/climate change denier/gun lobbyist.

  17. Heard

    Nothing much new to report, but still enjoyng some of the best from last year, especially Allison Russell, Rhiannon Giddens, Charles Lloyd and Justin Adams and Mauro Durante.

    Seen

    same as everyone else by the look of it. I liked (but didn’t love) Power of the Dog and Don’t Look Up. Amazing how the latter has created such polar views here and everywhere else. Given the generally bad reviews I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected. A Very Brtish Scandal and Landscapers were nicely done, especially the latter; ditto The Tourist, even if it wears its Coen Brothers’ influence a bit too much on its sleeve. Most of all we finally got round to watching Succession which after a patchy start when I was wondering what all the fuss was about did win me entirely around. Fabulous writing and acting. We took out a couple of month’s Sky Entertainment on Now to watch Succession, and discovered – joy unconfined – that Curb Your Enthusiasm is on there, including the last three series none of which were on terrestrial. It is as glorious as ever. Getting Salman Rushdie on to tell Larry about how irresistibly sexy having a fatwa put on you was genius, as was Larry’s subsequent success with Elizabeth Banks.

    Read
    Like many others here, I am sure, I got the Macca lyrics book(s) for Christmas. It is a beautiful thing and I am enjoying working my way through it slowly, listening to each song as I get to it, reading the related piece, and then listening to the song again. ‘Give Ireland Back to the Irish’ doesn’t get any better, mind.

    And I have just finished one of my other Christmas books, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun. As with never Let Me Go I have a few reservations, but still it is a great and subtle read and I galloped through it

  18. HEARD
    ….not a lot of new, although Japanese dark psychedelic shoegazers Barbican Estate did drop their long awaited (by me) debut on the 23rd December. Very good, recommended if any of the words in that potted description appeal to you.

    SEEN
    I was a bit disappointed with Spiderman: No Way Home. Seemed like stunt casting in search of a plot, and somehow it all seemed very small. I put those misgivings to rest with a rewatch of Into The Spiderverse, which covers similar ground but is at least 10,000 times better. It absolutely fizzes with creativity and imagination, and has some of the best animation I’ve ever seen. I also caught up with the reissue of Jackie Chan’s Armour of God, and I’m sorry to say time has not been kind to it. While Jackie is undoubtedly one of the all time cinema greats, this one had too much not especially funny slapstick (including some jokes that definitely didn’t fly in 2021) and not enough heroic stunt action. Over in no-budget corner, Scare Me was decent – two horror writers in a snowbound cabin try to frighten each other with scary stories. Might sound like a set up for an anthology pic, but the gimmick here is that the stories are acted out onscreen by the writers themselves, and the action never leaves the cabin. Interesting, with two very good central performances, but maybe fifteen minutes too long. Triumph of the month though was Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes, a micro budget Japanese time travel movie where a cafe owner receives a message on his TV from himself two minutes in the future, and events spiral out from there. It’s immensely likeable, only made my brain hurt a little bit, and everybody involved seems to be having loads of fun – deserves to be a breakout cult hit like One Cut Of The Dead.

    READ
    just realised all the stuff I’m rating this month is Japanese, but so be it. The best book I read was The Little House by Kyoko Nakajima, a short novel about a woman who serves as housemaid to a Tokyo family in the 1930s. Kind of a Japanese take on The Remains Of The Day, with similar themes of service and repression. It doesn’t have the eerie offbeatness of Nakajima’s short stories, which I think I raved about a month or two ago, but it’s an excellent novel and highly recommended. Also read Steve Van Zandt‘s autobiography and was absolutely floored by his ego. If he’s not ending apartheid, he’s coming up with all the ideas for The Sopranos. There are some good stories, but I came out of it thinking he was bit of a dickhead, which probably wasn’t on his list of goals when he started writing.

      • You know what I believe is better than Into The Spiderverse, and from which I believe that film copied a lot of its tone, plot and style?

        Big Hero 6. If you’ve never seen, I recommend it heartily. (Mind you, it took a while to grow on me, from repeat watchings by my son, so might not seem great on first viewing). It’s actually a superhero story by stealth, as it starts out quite confusing and all over the place, but gradually coalesces into the tale of a gang of geeks finding a common purpose and becoming a superhero team. But along the way it’s quite a moving story with lots of good stuff about friends, family and how to cope with feelings of revenge.

        I think it’s definitely one of the finest kids’ films of the last decade.

        • Fun fact: Big Hero 6 is technically part of the Marvel universe.

          It’s not a bad movie at all. Nowhere near as good as Into The Spiderverse though. Not least because it doesn’t have absolute bangers like this on the soundtrack.

          • There was something that bothered me conceptually about Into The Spider-Verse. I’ll struggle to explain this, but hear me out. You go into the film knowing it is going to be a film about a young kind called Miles who is Spider-Man here, not the usual Peter Parker character. So you wonder how this can be, and the title of the film makes you think the explanation is going to be that this is some kind of parallel universe Spider-Man. But actually… it turns out that in Miles’ universe, the actual Spider-Man already exists, and it is just a coincidence that Miles ALSO gets bitten by a radioactive spider and ALSO becomes a Spider-Man.

            I found that really unsatisfying. Do you know what I mean? I was built up for a neat explanation involving parallel universes, to explain this Miles guy… but instead (ignoring the parallel universe bit) it’s just coincidence that he is also bitten by radioactive spider the same as the regular Spider-Man who already exists….

            Wait, come back….

      • Thirded. I had to watch it twice on the same weekend when I saw it (cinema paradiso rental, remember those?). It made me want to watch the animation special feature on the disc, which is also fab.

  19. Heard: almost nothing – I’m sharing living space with a wife on endless Teams calls and two sleeping teens on their holidays.

    Read: ditto.

    Watched:
    Mrs F and I watched Superman & Lois on the iPlayer. Knowing little about biology, I enjoyed the Royal Institution Lecture series.

    AOB:
    After more than a decade of talking about it, I’ve finally started on turning my garage into a useful space (or, rather, I have employed a man to do it for me) and he did two weeks before buggering off to finish another job. This necessitated a long weekend emptying the junk out of the garage into garden sheds (one of them my mum’s) and the house. It now has an insulated chipboard floor, at least. Offspring the Younger is keen to get his drums set up in the soundproofed room – for that alone, it will be worth it. And I’ll be able to WFH without taking over the dining table.

    Offspring the Elder returned from university complaining of aches following lung surgery in the summer, went for a walk in the freezing fog, felt short of breath, had a panic attack, and so we had an ambulance round, and a trip to A&E. Her good news is, following an MRI scan and tests, she doesn’t have the suspected Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, she just has skin and joints slightly more stretchy than most (but not clinically so). The pnuemothorax earlier in the year really was just spontaneous, what with being a gangly streak of piss like her old man.

    We all got through the festive break without other illness or fallings out, which was an achievement in itself.

  21. SEEN:

    Across the freezing Fens for a concert by popular choral combo the Gesualdo 6 at Ely Cathedral. Second time seeing them in the 700-year-old Lady Chapel – a stunning venue for unaccompanied, unamplified human voices. This time they performed a series of festive Epiphany-related music – all beautifully delivered under the guidance of rising choral superstar Owain Park. Pre-concert you can wander freely around the wondrous semi-darkened deserted interior of the main building – stunning as always.

    Then on to St James’ Park for more singing as the mighty Cambridge played Newcastle Utd in the FA Cup. The vertigo-inducing away section is ridiculous, and knackering to reach, but the U’s fans made a hell of a racket – in between looking at their phones and filming themselves – and what unbridled joy at the 1-0 win at the end. The now regular images of the new owners looking wholly pissed off in the following day’s papers only added to the pleasure.

    Before Christmas went to a couple of gigs in Cambridge featuring rising jazz piano talents. First up was the Fergus McCreadie trio – in a less than promising setting of a brightly lit Baptist church, with a modest congregation and an upright piano to keep him company. The set was mainly drawn from his superb “Cairn” album which draws on contemporary jazz piano stylings which is then shot through with Scottish folky themes. Despite the set-up, it was wonderful – sitting 12 or so feet away you could really sense the empathy and telepathy you see in great jazz trios – remarkable for a modest bunch of 20-somethings.

    And then on to the plush surroundings of the Stapleford Granary arts centre to the south of the city to see Bill Laurence, of Snarky Puppy fame. Subtle lighting and a shiny Steinway grand for a solo Bill, who worked his way through a mix of his own work with covers including a stunning version of Bill Evans’ “Peace Piece.”

    READ:

    As Putin sabre rattles and the Captain of the Royal Navy’s new aircraft carrier warns of a heightened “war threat” with Russia, it was interesting to read recently that 14 Tory ministers have received financial support from Kremlin-linked plutocrats. I’m fascinated by this kind of thing – and have found Luke Harding’s “Shadow State” to be a useful primer for developments in both the UK and the US over the last decade. Also been reading Peter Pomerantsev’s “This is Not Propaganda” for his inside take on life in state-owned troll farms and their targets/victims. Both were published a couple of years ago and probably need an update – but there’s much here on the strategy and tactics the Kremlin and other malevolent states use. Next on the list, a new report from think-tank Chatham House on the strange unwillingness of the UK government to tackle endemic money laundering by Russian actors.

    HEARD:

    Bits and bobs from the best of lists on here and elsewhere. Enjoyed Ntjam Rosie’s “Home Cooking” – African-flavoured pop-soul with simple guitar and harmony backing – and Malcolm Jiyane’s “Umdali” which conjures up the music of Abdullah Ibrahim’s Ekaya from the 1980s. Also picked up a copy of the most recent Gesualdo 6 album “Josquin’s Legacy” – 17th century choral music – which I recall made the mid-teens in duco’s end of year list.

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