usually, if not normally, i would call this annual post something as grandiose as "best", look you see. other than appreciating the great ego delve that would see me as someone equipped to declare such (best) of anything, to be honest i'd have a hard time selecting one "outstanding" thing of anything from 2024. and that's down to there being so many (surprisingly) excellent things.
instead, then, a kind of "does what it says on the box" post, or if you will what it says in the title. quite likely i shall miss some things out, but then you cannot lament what you didn't know wasn't there. or something like that. kind of.
travel
as per quite a few posts in the first (give or take) quarter of the year (for people who talk in such forms of measurement) i went off to that there New Zealand. this was a journey that i had not ever expected to make, but was very much glad to have done so. beyond getting to see beloved family either once more or for the first time, it's one amazing country. somehow i very much doubt that i am alone in wondering why, having gone to New Zealand, i went and left it. really, it's incredible.
certainly the travel to New Zealand was not as straightforward as it could be. the whole thing nearly stopped before it started due to their "secret" visa thing which they claim totes is not a visa, which is called the NZeTA. just get signed up for one before you go.
flying, in particular for so many hours at once (i think 17 or so between Dubai and New Zealand) wasn't quite as sh!t as i remembered or feared it was. still, the glamour and excitement has long since been eroded from international flights, replaced as it has been with cost cutting, profiteering and the misery of having to travel with other people, some of who(m) are astonishingly ignorant. highlights, from a certain point of view, included getting my shoes x-rayed in case they had explosives in them, and getting knacked off of a customs official for the kind of cigarette lighter i had in my bag. i did find it a bit strange that he confiscated one of them and left three identical ones in my (Bowie) bag, but it did not feel appropriate to tell him how to do his job.
cinema
if i remember right it was seven (7) times i went to go see a film at the cinema. well, seven different films. nearly all of them were alone, with it being just Venom 3 or whatever it was called seeing me go with someone else, in that instance young William. going to the movies is often billed as a "social thing", but that has never made sense, since you basically sit in darkness and ignore who(m)ever it is you have gone with for the duration of the film. or at least you are supposed to.
what was the best film i saw this year? that would be a hard one to narrow down. overall i was most impressed with Civil War, which was the first (i think) i saw this year. it was nice to see that some films are still allowed to trust an audience with a premise and get on with it. easily the best performance i saw during the year was Demi Moore in The Substance. a truly bonkers film, laced with Kubrick references and not for all tastes. on a similar note the film Heretic appeared to exist only to allow Hugh Grant to show off some acting flair, for there was little else to the film.
on the whole, or overall, in 2024 i kind of rediscovered just how much i once loved going to the movies. this was no bad thing to reconnect with. unsure if frequent cinema visits shall continue into 2025, but it just might. depending what they put on.
vibes
how improbable and strange that the year started off with something as momentous as a coming together of Liam Gallagher and John Squire and it should prove to be forgettable. oh, their album was really good, just that Liam managed to overshadow it a bit as the year went on.
if i were to pick an "album of the year", well, i couldn't. perhaps the closest i could get is to name two, being KillerStar with their self-titled record and Death Song Book featuring Brett out of Suede. the one off of Crowded House was a pleasant surprise, as it was way better than the previous one. for the two heavyweight releases of the year, being new albums from The Cure and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, both were excellent, extraordinary albums. yet this is what one would expect from both, if they were not going to be such then they wouldn't have bothered releasing them.
being in the century we are, there were whimsical, throwaway and temporarily enjoyable albums measuring about 30 minutes each off of Kaiser Chiefs, Kasabian and someone called Blossoms. none of these three set the world on fire, but they were momentarily enjoyable. worst, by some distance, was a phenomenally disappointing return of Primal Scream with an awful record.
absolutely ludicrous vibes purchases this year involved paying north of £20 for some Argentine metal disc called Satan Sex Ceremonies as the title and cover amused me. then there was also the i knew i would kind of regret it £150(!!) Rock N Roll Star set celebrating Bowie's Ziggy Stardust. considering all the material they had available it really is a poor set, but here we are.
famous people
rather bafflingly, and for the most part unexpectedly, i got to meet three (3) famous people this year. in chronological order that would be Piers Corbyn, Griffin Dunne and Hugh Cornwell. being as diplomatic as i can, the last two were an absolute delight to meet.
theatre
so i ended up going to see two (2) theatre productions this year. both were last minute (more or less) decisions, and done on the cheap. i don't really have the energy to go and look for the links, but somewhere (here) you will find my posts on the delights of Fawlty Towers and Dr Strangelove
which was my favourite, or which did i consider the "best" of the two? really hard choice. i have not laughed as hard as i did during the second act of Fawlty Towers in all the time i can remember. yet the first act of Dr Strangelove was staggering genius on every level. if there is any way to tell the two apart then i suppose it would be that i'd happily go and see this production of Dr Strangelove again, although i doubt that chance will permit.
how likely are further theatrical adventures in 2025? not really sure, or i don't rightly know. there is every chance of me being in that there London (innit) frequently enough to go, and i have every confidence that cheap, (quasi) last minute tickets will be on offer. yet the main draw of seeing these two was the exceptionally comfortable familiarity i had with the story of each.
service stations
an oddity of my life is that i seem to spend a fair bit of time at these (service stations) twice a week, or thereabouts. quite a curiosity is that other people now do a "best service station" thing, some of them on a national broadcast level, a few years after i started doing it. oh well, if people are going to copy one thing off of me rather that, i suppose.
sadly i didn't make it to my usual winner of the service station of the year - the one near Castle Donington, purely for being near there - during 2025. i did, however, find a new favourite in the form of the one at North Grantham on the A1. close second was probably Tibshelf, although i have also discovered that London Gateway is nowhere near as bad as i had always assumed.
happily i managed, for the duration of the calendar year, to avoid the two worst service stations in the known world, which remain Blyth and Wetherby. both of these are bad mostly because they are a sort of strange magnet for really, really ignorant people. you know, people who just meander about and stand blocking entrances, in particular to toilets, and hold up queues at coffee and food places whilst they ponder life choices instead of ordering and moving on.
biggest decline in a service station is, alas, Ferrybridge. at the start of the year it was good, but by the end of the year it had started to attract the sort of ignorant, retarded type of people who make Wetherby so damned impossible to just get in and get out of.
gigs
probably one of the wisest things i have ever gone done is book tickets to go and see a joint tour by Suede and the Manic Street Preachers twice in one week. and the dumbest thing i did was not buy tickets for more nights of the tour.
overall, and by some distance, the best was Suede at Leeds. it was, they were, just totes f****** amazing, man. next best was Suede at London, followed by Manics at London, followed by Manics at Leeds. i think i am a little Manics-ed out for the moment, so have decided to skip their imminent tour. but if Suede announce more gigs, well, i am there.
worst concert of the year is as easy to name as it is disappointing - James. i really love their music, to the extent that i have always turned a blind eye to just how obnoxious and full of himself Tim Booth is. anyway me and a few others got "tricked", for north of £60 a ticket, into going and seeing a quarter-hearted soundcheck billed as a "special pre-tour show". if you wish to read more then click here, but it was enough to put me off the band for life.
reading
for some reason i have fallen out of the habit of reading. quite a shame, and i have at least one dozen novels (probably more) sat here that i really, really wish to read. i can't even recall from the little i read during 2024 which was the better, so it was probably the 4th novel (came out in paperback) from that tall bloke who used to do that show, whose brother plays bass in Suede and also started out as a backing dancer for Sonia.
car crash
not really sure this is something one can have a "best" of, but here.
little things in life moment
every now and then i get to do something i think is totes amazing. it doesn't matter that no one else is interested, or "gets it", for i do. like playing the song Baker Street whilst actually on Baker Street.
sure, this video (above) is a slight cheat, as i was parked around the corner from Baker Street when i played it. well, it would have been illegal (and stupid) to film whist driving. but i did indeed play the song again whilst on Baker Street. twice, possibly three times, as it happens, as traffic does not move too quickly on that famous road. i used to think it was so easy........
cigarettes
yes, yes, smoking is bad for you, etc. anyway, i got to smoke a good deal more Marlboro Red than i thought i might, which was excellent.
exhibition of the year
from what i can recall i only actually went to one (1), which was the Batman one.
it was excellent, a real highlight of a couple of days in that there London (innit) which were not spent doing all that verk stuff.
right, i think that's about it. other than being sure i have missed some aspects out, well, wow, that was quite a full year for me. and yet i feel so hollow, so transient, so little connection to life, so very disconnected from anything and everything. not much left to do except to see what, if anything, the year ahead (2025, it says here) brings.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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