best.....

hello there

well, cor blimey, another year just about all done. at the very least it was, or is, at time of writing and subsequent publication, look you see. so, in keeping up with a vague tradition (of sorts) that very few have any interest in, time for me to give consideration to "highlights" of the year. 

for clarification, this, or these, are all of course my interpretations of "best", or the finest. i have no realistic expectation for anyone to agree with the choices, or assume that such is correct. we would all have our view on such, certainly, and mine would be no better nor worse than, say, someone what screeches loudly about theirs on all that social media stuff. yes, by the way, this is relevant to the year 2021, although in some instances a calendar year is transcended. or what have you. 

in no particular order of importance or success (or "best") level, then. 

.....plague of the year

a rather nice and easy one to start with, for the winner is, of course, what used to get called coronavirus but now suspiciously gets called covid-nineteen instead.

which variation, strain or "mutation" of it is best, though? now that is a question. everyone was all excited about that "delta" one when it came out, but the (presumably) last of the year, that omni consumer products one out of RoboCop seems prolific whilst not doing much damage. 

.....album of the year

quite tricky, this one. it turned out that a few good albums came out during the year (2021). none of them, ultimately, disappointed, and yet i am struggling to name one (1) as better than the rest. 

surprise records were that one off of Inhaler, bought via a cheap offer off of a facebook ad, and the one from The Stranglers, which turned out to be better than what i expected. the one off of Crowded House did exactly what a Crowded House record should do, and well enough. happy days for the one off of Duranx2 turned out to be really good. as did the new one off of James, although no, it does not scale the heights of Girl At The End Of The World. the Manics album was nowhere near as disposable sounding as the previous, and Bobby Gillespie successfully stopped the rut that was the poor last couple of Primal Scream records. quite a good year for vibes, then. 

.....service station of the year

finally, or at last, i managed to make it all the way to the one service station what i have dreamed of visiting since (the upper later end of) the mid 80s. 

getting to call in at the legendary donington park service station was certainly a highlight of the year. this is of course the service station most likely (probably) visited by hundreds of thousands of metalheads on their way to monsters of rock , not to mention top bands like Bad News, Motorhead and what have you. alas, some maintenance work was underway, so i could only use the temporary urinals and not the ones what Lemmy would have used, but still. 

.....humanitarian of the year

many, many interesting and (partially) wonderful people have done all sorts of things to help out fellow people. this is as true of this year as any. but, that said, quite a straightforward choice this year; for someone stood out more than anyone else. indeed, yes, i speak (write) of Arse Flare Man out of the Euro 2020 (or 2021, as it turned out), cup final. 

should you be (and i would speculate blissfully) unaware, this is the brave, plucky chap, immensely comfortable with his sexual fluidity, who inserted a flare into his backside (his arse) and ignited it for the entertainment of others and to celebrate England making a football final. he did so after going on a bit of a binge of heavily stepped on, ineffective cocaine and cheap cider. roughly half the population saw him and said yes, this is the kind of thing we have missed during lockdown, whereas roughly half the population saw him and said yes, this is precisely why all English people should be on lockdown forever. in a real sense, then, he unified a grateful nation. 

.....film of the year

i watched a few films this year and most of them were reasonable entertainment. certainly the best of them was that Interstellar that i finally got around to watching. but that one was not released this year, was it. a dear old friend once said a "new" movie only becomes an "old" one after you've seen it, but that is not helpful for a look back at a specific (in this case 2021) year. 

by default, then, and mindful of the fact that i have not yet seen this new Spider-Man one, it was certainly, perhaps infamously, so that the most recent (at time of writing) James Bond one, No Time To Die, came out this year. it was, after all, quite good. very good, in places. 

.....book of the year

and quite like films, i read a few books, but am unsure which ones (if any) were published in the year under review (2021, again, if you missed it). the one which comes to mind, probably (perhaps) the most enjoyable, was that debut novel off of him, the tall one from Pointless. the second one came out in hardback this year, if that counts, and should it turn up in paperback next year, then yes, i shall probably pick it up and have a read, assuming i am still around. 

.....weather event of the year

them what do the weather forecasts have, it must be said, a bit of a reputation. some regard them as people what just have a guess at how a particular day might be; others are less diplomatic and refer to them purely as outright lying b@stards. or similar obscenities. 

yeah, that picture there above (just before this writing) was taken on an evening where they said it absolutely, certainly, totes would not snow. thanks for that. 

.....gig of the year

it turned out that i only made it to (some) 66% of the gigs i had intended to for the year. but, of them, 100% of the gigs what i gone went to were ace. very difficult indeed to say which of them was the greatest or "best". the Manics, and indeed support band Low Hummer, were class, and i had the chance to see them with a good friend. more right here, if interested. 

yet a Manics gig was, is and always shall be, a known quantity of (high) quality. one can more or less take as a given that the chance will, every couple of years or so, forever present itself to see them, and it will be that they shall be class. such chance does not come quite so often. and so, on that basis, gig of the year, for me, goes to Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. for those interested yes, more here, and for anyone who wants the basics, it was one of them gigs you appreciate as being a privilege to have been in attendance for. quite remarkable, stunning and many other such celebratory words. 

right, well, that's in all likelihood enough of that. i am not sure all that many people still read what i do here, but if you did thanks for doing so. just as long as your 2021 was more good than bad, well, that's all that particularly matters, in the end. 

be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!