My favourite movie was Pride, which I thought I’d hate, but which managed to overcome the feelgood Brit movie genre, a few crap Welsh accents and lots of cliché to be compelling, moving and hilarious, adding a new hero to my personal pantheon in Mark Ashton. Calvary was excellent, I thought, and Under the Skin was weird but not very wonderful (Is that erotica? I must have missed something). Guilty Pleasure: Guardians of the Galaxy: ‘Dance off!’
Telly that we have rushed home or stayed in for this year includes Y Gwyll (Hinterland – but why did they make it in English too, we cope with subtitles on all the Scandiwegan noire, don’t we?) Also, in the latter part of the year, The Fall and Babylon have been keeping us glued on Thursday nights. Second series of Peaky Blinders sort of passed us by, while Orphan Black hooked us in for a bit, Agents of Shield is watchable too. Moan: They’ve killed the excellent Ripper Street for me by selling it to Amazon! On DVD we’re working our way through Series one of Battlestar Galactica – getting into it slowly. Looking forward to True Detective.
Not much live music, theatre, dance or comedy this year L I was keen to see Ross Noble but the price of tickets was prohibitive. My most played album of the year, not unusually in recent years, was by The National: Trouble will find me. Also from 2013, I’m still getting into the mellow beauty of Nepenthe by Juliana Barwick.
Next year, I want to read a few newish sci-fi books, if I can find time: Ancillary Justice (Ann Leckie), Annihilation (Jeff VanderMeer) and Europe in Autumn (Dave Hutchinson). Looking forward to David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks too. If I ever get around to it, I want to read Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being. And in non-fiction, Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot.