Tag Archives: books

New Year’s resolutions 2026

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1. Read 30 books, including at least one from each of several categories

The categories are:

Poetry
Classics
Philosophy
Graphic novel
Art/exhibition book
Anthony Burgess
Robert Silverberg
William Shakespeare

The last category includes seeing the play performed as well, and as such constitutes a resumption of my 2014–2015 Shakespeare challenge.

2. Listen to 10 specific albums

Tubeway Army: Tubeway Army (1978)
Tubeway Army: Replicas (1979)
Gary Numan: The Pleasure Principle (1979)
Gary Numan: Telekon (1980)
The Stooges: Raw Power (1973)
Bruce Springsteen: Nebraska (1982)
Sleeper: Pleased to Meet You (1997)
White Stripes: Icky Thump (2007)
Radiohead: A Moon Shaped Pool (2016)
Pulp: More (2025)

The choice of the first four albums means this is essentially an attempt to get into early Numan as well. The others are by artists or bands that I already love, and are big or recent albums that I’ve somehow passed over until now.

3. Watch 10 specific films

A Trip to the Moon (1902)
Un Chien Andalou (1929) / Land Without Bread (1933)
Freaks (1932)
Strangers on a Train (1951)
Blow-up (1966)
Cool Hand Luke (1967)
Badlands (1973)
Dark Star (1974)
Dazed and Confused (1993)
The Rubber-Keyed Wonder (2024)

4. Complete Pokémon Blue

Carried over from 2025.

5. Start writing a diary, and publish two blog posts

I want to get back into writing more, and I think the discipline of keeping a diary will be good for me.

6. Establish a routine of exercising four times a week, run a half marathon, and maintain a 10% parkrun volunteer ratio

I’m signed up for the Manchester Half in October.

My parkrun volunteer ratio is already close to 10% after what was with hindsight an over-ambitious volunteering target in 2025. I should be able to maintain it there with about 4-5 volunteer roles in 2026.

7. Give blood 4 times

Another crack at this one as a resolution, before hopefully converting it to a habit thereafter.

New Year’s resolutions 2025: end of year review

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2025 is over, and another round of New Year’s resolutions are due for review.

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

Status: complete

I finished the remaining John Wyndhams (see 2024 resolutions) and did manage to read 30 books – but only just. I didn’t read The Mirror & The Light.

2. Get into Talking Heads

Status: complete

I finished the target list of media which was my plan to “get into” Talking Heads. That was: Remain in Light, Speaking in Tongues, Little Creatures, Stop Making Sense, David Byrne’s American Utopia and the This Must Be Talking Heads podcast (the episodes relevant to the albums I was listening to).

I struggled with Remain in Light, and I think that was the reason that my progress stalled in 2024. However, this year I cracked it. Stop Making Sense and American Utopia were both delightful. I also completed a stretch goal of watching the music videos for all of Talking Heads’ singles up to Little Creatures.

3. Watch 12 specific films

Status: almost complete

This was the list:

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)

I watched all of these except the King Crimson documentary.

The problem is, because we don’t watch a lot of TV or films, it’s not worth subscribing to any streaming services. I’ve found it’s far more cost effective, if I want to watch specific films, to buy cheap second hand copies on physical media. DVDs are considered obsolete by most people now, so there are tonnes of them floating around: you can get almost any film on DVD for £2-3 online or even less in a charity shop.

However, this only applies to films released up to about the year 2020. That was when covid lockdowns accelerated the adoption of streaming services and crashed the demand for DVDs. After that, I suspect that DVDs were produced in much smaller quantities, and are therefore not as readily and cheaply available.

Moonage Daydream was on Channel 4 earlier in the year, and we found The Velvet Underground on a streaming service in a rented cottage we stayed in for a weekend. Zappa and The Sparks Brothers cost me around £11 each on Ebay, but I couldn’t find In the Court of the Crimson King for anything less than £20, and I didn’t want to watch it that desperately.

4. Complete Pokémon Blue

Status: incomplete

Despite being about halfway through the game at the start of the year, I still failed to achieve this one. I played a couple of sessions and made a bit of progress, but gaming still feels too frivolous and time-wasting for me to prioritise it over other tasks. This is despite the recognition – manifested in these repeated resolutions! – that it’s something I’d like to do more of, as a means of ring-fencing time for myself to relax and enjoy without feeling guilt for not doing something else.

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

Status: complete

OK, technically only partially complete, as I didn’t run a 10k distance in April due to illness. However, I did at least one (and sometimes more) every other month. I also built my distance up to 16k by the end of the year.

As for parkruns, I got a PB early, then improved on it further, getting a sub 22 minute run. I also reached my 100 milestone. But more importantly, I got into a regular routine of exercising three times a week, something I’ve not done since about 2005.

I volunteered at parkrun 10 times and ran 30 times, hitting my 1 in 4 target exactly. However, with hindsight, this target was way too high. Volunteering is quite disruptive, especially when successfully maintaining an exercise regime depends on fitting it into established routines. So I will continue volunteering, but at a much lower 1 in 10 ratio (which is the ratio that parkrun organisers ask parkrunners to do, and is still significantly above average).

6. Give blood 4 times

Status: 50% complete

I only managed twice, due to a combination of lack of available slots and poor personal admin.

7. Publish 3 blog posts

Status: 67% complete.

I published Population peaks, random walks and Catalan numbers and Goodbye, Xitter!, but the third one is still sitting in my drafts.

8. Learn how to pronounce Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch

Status: complete but unverified

I think I’ve got it, but I need to try it on my Welsh-speaking relatives to confirm.

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.

The Barsoom series, reviewed

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Edgar Rice Burroughs‘s Barsoom series, beginning with A Princess of Mars, is a seminal work of early 20th century pulp science fiction. Like many works which spawned their own genres, it has been eclipsed by the works which followed it and were influenced by it, in particular those of the Golden Age of Science Fiction.

It isn’t widely read these days, and for good reason: it isn’t very good. Even its fans tend to admit that the first three books are the best, and the rest rapidly drop off in quality. But I decided to read them all anyway, in succession, to get a feel for the series as a whole.

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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!

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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Cultural Highlights of 2015

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I know it’s a bit late, but here’s the best stuff I read/saw/etc in 2015.

BOOKS

Railsea by China Miéville

By the same author as the superb The City And The City, Railsea is a post-apocalyptic riff on Moby-Dick. A young cabin boy joins a train crew rattling about on a vast dried sea-bed covered in criss-crossing railway tracks and inhabited by ferocious burrowing monsters, while the captain obsessively hunts her great yellow mole. Ripping stuff.

23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang

Since the era of Thatcher and Reagan, mainstream economics has been dominated by the ideology of the free market, championed by the right wing as the driver of economic success. Meanwhile the left wing has either opposed it on moral grounds of fairness and compassion, or accepted it while trying to mitigate its worst effects. The basic economic argument has never been challenged in public debate: the free market creates a prosperous economy. However, in academic economics, this truism is widely known to be false, and the contradictions and failings of the free market are well understood. Ha-Joon Chang is one of the leading voices attempting to bust the free market myths of public consciousness, and this book is a perfect primer.

One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

One of the hallmarks of a great book for me is how much is lingers in your consciousness after you’ve read it, and for weeks after finishing One Day In The LIfe Of Ivan Denisovich, I often found myself thinking, ridiculously, “this is just like in the Gulag.”

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