Category Archives: Personal

New Year’s resolutions 2025

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Following the success of 2024’s resolutions, I’m going to set a similarly ambitious list for 2025:

1. Read 30 books, including the complete works of John Wyndham

With only four left to go, finishing the complete works of John Wyndham will be easy. However, hitting my target of 30 again this year may be more challenging, particularly with the 883-page The Mirror & The Light being on the tentative “to read” list.

2. Get into Talking Heads

Continue my adventures with Talking Heads‘ back catalogue and other media, specifically:

Three albums: Remain in Light, Speaking in Tongues, Little Creatures

Two films: Stop Making Sense and David Byrne’s American Utopia

Relevant episodes of the the This Must Be Talking Heads podcast

3. Watch 12 specific films

Setting myself a target list of films to watch has worked well in the past and again in 2024. So this time, as well as watching the two Talking Heads related films as part of the previous resolution, I’m aiming to watch nine more music documentaries, plus three others:

Vivian Stanshall: The Canyons of His Mind (2004)
Beware of Mr. Baker (2012)
The Stone Roses: Made of Stone (2013)
Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love (2019)
Zappa (2020)
The Sparks Brothers (2021)
The Velvet Underground (2021)
Moonage Daydream (2022)
In the Court of the Crimson King: King Crimson at 50 (2022)

Son of Frankenstein (1939)
Apocalypto (2006)
Lancaster (2022)

4. Complete Pokémon Blue

This year’s video game resolution is to complete the game I’ve already started, so hopefully should be more successful than previous ones (Lords of Midnight, Braid, Escape from Monkey Island).

5. Run a 10+ km distance once a month, get a parkrun PB, and volunteer at parkruns

I ran two 10k races in 2024 and found them a lot easier than my first in 2023. I’m already signed up for another in February, and may do the Altrincham 10k again in September. But now I know I can do the distance, I don’t need to do organised (and expensive) races to motivate me. This year, I aim to do at least one 10 km distance every month, whether it’s an organised race or a casual run. And since my nearest parkrun is 2.5 km away from my house, running there and back would do it.

I’m way ahead of my parkrun target. Originally, I’d aimed to get to 100 by the end of 2026, by getting to 50 in 2023 (failed) and 60 in 2024 (over-achieved by reaching 75). So this year, I’ll continue doing parkruns as often as possible, but volunteer instead of run at every fourth event I attend. I’m also aiming to get a parkrun PB this year.

Other fitness goals, such as continuing to swim and go to the gym regularly, are upgraded from resolutions to habits.

6. Give blood 4 times

Self-explanatory.

7. Publish 3 blog posts

I have a couple of ideas I’m working on already. New Year’s resolutions posts and The Ambivalence List Volume 2 don’t count.

8. Learn how to pronounce Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch

Self-explanatory.

New Year’s resolutions 2024: end of year review

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Time for my annual round-up of New Year’s resolution achievements. This year, I chose to be ambitious – possibly unrealistic – with my resolutions, as a spur to action.

1. Read 30 books, including the complete works of John Wyndham

Status: almost complete

I read 31 books, returning to my long-term average. However, I only read 13/17 of Wyndham’s books. I’ll complete that challenge early in 2025.

2. Get into Talking Heads

Status: unclear

I definitely listened to a lot of Talking Heads, and appreciate them a lot more now. So, in that sense, I achieved the resolution.

On the other hand, I defined this resolution more specifically as becoming familiar with their back catalogue up to Little Creatures and watching Stop Making Sense.

I’ve certainly listened to the first three albums to the point of familiarity, but I’ve spent less time listening to Remain in Light, Speaking in Tongues and Little Creatures, and I haven’t watched Stop Making Sense yet. I’ve also subsequently added watching American Utopia to the Talking Heads to-do list.

So, I’ll continue with this one in 2025.

3. Do two 10k races and reach 60 parkruns

Status: achieved

I absolutely smashed the fitness resolution.

I’ve run two 10k races (Altrincham and Tatton Park). I’ve also got my parkrun total up to 75, which was way beyond my expectation. In the last quarter of the year, I also started going to the gym and swimming regularly.

4. Complete and submit 10 Private Eye crosswords

Status: achieved

Another roaring success: 18 crosswords completed and submitted, including the Christmas one.

5. Watch 10 specific films

Status: achieved

Easily completed within the year, turning around a miserable past performance where a previous year’s list had taken five years to get through.

6. Publish a Hate List and a Love List

Status: achieved

Hate List Volume 21 and Love List Volume 3 were both published on Boxing Day.

7. Complete Braid

Status: failed

I even extended the video games resolution after setting it, to include both Braid and Escape from Monkey Island, but apart from a brief test play of Escape, I didn’t touch either.

Instead, I started playing Pokémon Blue on an old Gameboy Color, and have made a reasonable amount of progress. So that’s what I’ll continue into 2025.

8. Learn how to pronounce Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch

Status: failed

I just didn’t tackle this one at all.

Overall, I think it was a fairly successful year, and the ambitious targets did induce me to achieve more than I’ve managed in the last few years. I read more, listened to more new (to me) music, got fitter physically and mentally, checked more films off my ‘to watch’ list, wrote more, and found time for some enjoyable retro gaming.

New Year’s resolutions 2024

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I haven’t posted any New Year’s resolutions on here for a while, mainly because I’ve been very bad at keeping them – or not set myself any at all – for the last few years. (No prizes for guessing why!)

However, the point of resolutions is to set yourself some ambitious goals which spur you on to achieve improvements to your life which you wouldn’t otherwise have made – even if you don’t manage to complete or stick to them all.

So, in that spirit, I’m going to make an absurdly over-ambitious list for 2024:

1. Read 30 books, including the complete works of John Wyndham

I used to typically read 30+ books a year; there have been a few years when I’ve read 50+. Since 2018, I’ve struggled to read 20 a year – in 2023 I only managed 18. Combining this with an author reading challenge should help, since Wyndham’s books are generally quite short.

2. Get into Talking Heads

Talking Heads is the band that it’s most anomalous that I’m not already into. They’re exactly the sort of band that I would love. I like the few songs I’ve heard – the big hit singles – but I’m not familiar with their work beyond those. I get why their fans are typically intensely zealous about them. I’ve just never put enough time into listening to them myself. So this year, I’m going to make a concerted effort to really listen to their back catalogue – at least up to Little Creatures – and also watch Stop Making Sense.

3. Do two 10k races and reach 60 parkruns

I did one 10k in 2023 (and it nearly killed me); I want to build on that and do two more this year.

I wanted to reach 50 parkruns in 2023 (from a start of 33). Unfortunately I only reached 42. So I’m setting myself the even more ambitious (by 1) target of reaching 60 by the end of 2024.

4. Complete and submit 10 Private Eye crosswords

I’ve been a Private Eye subscriber since the early 2000s, and I occasionally complete the crossword – on average, it seems, about twice a year. If I start it, I usually finish it – it’s just a matter of making the effort to start it. So this year, I’ll make the effort more often.

5. Watch 10 specific films

Setting myself a specific list of films to watch in the year (typically, classics or cult hits that I hadn’t seen, or DVDs that had been sitting unwatched on my shelf for some time) worked quite well in 2017 and 2018. My 2019 list is still unfinished (by one film). But I’m going to set myself another list to work through:

Dracula (1931)
Frankenstein (1931)
The Mummy (1932)
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
National Velvet (1944)
Godzilla (1954)
Stand By Me (1986)
My Cousin Vinny (1992)
Donnie Brasco (1997)
Children of Men (2006)

I also need to watch Paths of Glory (1957) to finish the 2019 list.

6. Publish a Hate List and a Love List

The last Hate List (Vol 20) was published in 2016. I have the material for another one; I just need to get my act together, edit it and get it out there. Similarly for the Love List, the last one of which (Vol 2) was published in 2007.

7. Complete Braid

I’d been meaning to play this for some time. I bought it in a Steam sale in January 2021, played for a couple of hours, got stuck, and haven’t been back since. Another one where I just need to set aside some time for myself to have a crack at it.

8. Learn how to pronounce Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch

Self-explanatory.

Eggs, Bacon, Chips or Cheese

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At school we used to play a bizarre game.

St Mary’s C of E in Welton, Lincolnshire, was an ordinary, medium-sized, rural primary school. For the most part, the playground games were equally ordinary and universal: classics like tag (though we called it tiggy) and British Bulldogs, plus of course football. These could all be played on the concrete play area that we had access to for most of the year. The school had a much larger grass playing field, but this was usually out of bounds due to the soggy ground that was the inevitable result of the British weather.

However, during the few weeks of early summer, when it was sunny and dry, but we hadn’t yet broken up for the holidays, other possibilities were opened up.

First, we had to seek permission to “go on the grass”. A child would be nominated by their peers to go and ask the supervising teacher, who would then walk to the edge of the concrete play area adjacent to the grass. Meanwhile, the children would all line up along that sacred boundary and poise themselves in anticipation. The teacher would reach down and touch the ground, feeling for moisture and assessing the situation. Then they would loudly announce their decision: yes or no. If it was a no, we would all trudge dejectedly back to our humdrum, concrete-based games. But if it was a yes… the whole school would sprint out onto the grass, screaming with delight. Some would race to see who could reach the far side of the field first. Others would run immediately to secure a preferred area to play. Once the field had thus been ritually claimed, we would decide which game we were going to play. And more often than not, it was Eggs, Bacon, Chips or Cheese.

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New Year’s resolutions 2020: end of year review

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2018 was such a wash-out for New Year’s resolutions, I chose not to set any in 2019. In 2020, I set only one:

1. Don’t buy any more books.

In 2019, my book hoarding habit and unread book pile had reached problematic proportions. Therefore, I resolved not to add to it for at least a year. I was helped somewhat by the pandemic, which meant I wasn’t pottering around and popping into bookshops and charity shops anyway. I failed on two specific occasions:

a) A copy of The Spheres by Iain M Banks came up for sale on Ebay. This was a booklet published in a limited edition of 500 for a science fiction convention, and is very difficult to get hold of. I’ve had a search alert on it for a long time, and one finally appeared this year. I couldn’t miss the opportunity, and bought it.

b) In July, the brilliant Tom the Dancing Bug comic was published in book form by Clover Press, and again, I couldn’t miss out. Both books are now sold out.

So, I acquired three books. But compared to the previous average of over a hundred a year, it’s a vast improvement.

I also completed a previous resolution:

3. Switch to safety razors, shaving soap and brush. (2018)

Finally done, and I even managed a shave with no cuts before the end of the year!

Facebook Deleted

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Facebook is trash. It manipulates you into addictive behaviour to keep your attention. It sells your personal data to people who want to use it for shady purposes. It is undermining the fabric of society and politics. It is causing vast damage to mental health. And it is not going to change.

It’s been a long time since I’ve really used it, and whenever I do occasionally pop back to see if there’s anything worth seeing, there never is. Maybe my friends are still posting good stuff, or maybe they’ve all moved on with their busy lives too. Either way, the algorithms have swamped my timeline with ads and junk.

So, now that it’s clear I’m getting no value or joy from Facebook at all, and Facebook is sucking vast amounts of value and joy from human society as a whole, it’s time to push the nuclear button and delete my account entirely.

To Facebook: goodbye!

To my friends: see you elsewhere!

New Year’s resolutions 2018: end of year review

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You can probably guess, from the fact that I’ve only posted one article since the last end of year review, that I haven’t had a lot of free time in 2018. I offer the same reason for my pitiful performance below.

1. Complete The Lords of Midnight.

Status: failed.

2. Switch to a non-free private email provider.

Status: failed.

3. Switch to safety razors, shaving soap and brush.

Status: failed.

4. Watch 13 specific films (see list).

Status: passed (barely – I finished watching the last one on 5 Jan 2019).

1, 2 and 3 are still ambitions, but I’m not going to make any resolutions to complete them in 2019, as I’d obviously just fail again.

New Year’s resolutions 2018

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2017 was a bit of a wash out on resolutions. Buying a house and starting to renovate it took up too much time. In 2018, the house work continues, plus we’re getting a puppy in a couple of weeks. So I don’t hold out much hope for these:

1. Complete The Lords of Midnight.

2. Switch to a non-free private email provider.

3. Switch to safety razors, shaving soap and brush.

4. Watch 13 specific films:

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
Ben-Hur (1959)
Cleopatra (1963)
Zardoz (1974)
Sholay (1975)
Network (1976)
Logan’s Run (1976)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Conan the Barbarian (1982)
Tron (1982)
Apollo 13 (1995)
Contact (1997)

New Year’s resolutions 2017: end of year review

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It’s time to see how I did with my 2017 New Year’s resolutions. And the answer is: very poorly.

1. Complete The Lords of Midnight.

Status: failed.

2. Use DuckDuckGo at all times.

Status: largely passed.

DuckDuckGo is a search engine which doesn’t track you. You should use it.

3. Switch to a non-free private email provider.

Status: failed.

4. Switch to safety razors, shaving soap and brush.

Status: failed.

5. Switch to a better solution than takeaway coffee cups.

Status: mostly passed.

I was gifted a Keep Cup which helped me to achieve this one.

6. Watch 13 specific films.

Status: passed, barely.

I say barely because I watched the last one, Gandahar, on 1st January 2018. But I achieved the higher goal: knocking a good chunk out of the “films I want to watch” list.

What next?

I’m going to carry 1, 3 and 4 forward to 2018. A bit shamefully, this is 1’s fourth year as a resolution. I’ll carry forward 6 as well, with a new list of films.

Cultural Highlights of 2016

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In a year of relentless tragedy and despair, here are a scant few things I enjoyed.

BOOKS

Malcolm Lowry – Under The Volcano

This was my third attempt at tackling Lowry’s famously impenetrable novel. The first chapter is particularly gruelling, but after breaking through it for the first time, the dark humour and self-flagellating wisdom which follow make it all worthwhile. For anyone tempted to have a go themselves, I found these notes very helpful in decrypting the dense symbology.

Keith Roberts – Pavane

The best thing I read all year though, by far, was Pavane. It’s an alternate history novel, in which Elizabeth I was assassinated, the Reformation was quashed, and a triumphant Catholic Church retarded scientific progress. In the 20th century setting of the novel, England has steam-powered road locomotives, a network of giant semaphore towers for cross-country communication, and new stirrings of political and religious revolution.

But the appeal of the ahistorical premise isn’t what makes Pavane such a great book. This year, I also read S. M. Stirling’s The Peshawar Lancers, in which a late 19th century meteor shower destroys civilisation in the northern hemisphere, the British elite relocate to India, and by the early 21st century, a steampunk Anglo-Indian empire is in conflict with a devil-worshipping Central Asian Tsardom. This premise is equally interesting. However, Stirling’s novel turned out to be a huge disappointment: a poorly-written mediocrity, no more than a third-rate Raj adventure story with added airships.

Roberts’s, on the other hand, is so beautifully written it’s almost poetry. By the time you’ve read his description of a steam wagon making its way across the Dorset heath on a foggy night, oiled pistons hammering and scalding water dripping from the tank, or of a semaphore tower, its clacking wooden levers, and the blistered hands of its Guild apprentice operator, it’s impossible to believe that such things never even existed.

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