This year’s challenge: take a photo a day, every day for January.
2 January: Advert breaks are only ever watched with family who won’t change the channel at Christmas time.
31 Day Challenge: Day Two
Category Archives: Uncategorized
31 Day Challenge: Day One
This year’s challenge: take a photo a day, every day for January.
1 January: The good old days.
Merry Christmas! (Andrew)
Film 2025 (Andrew)
A simple goal this year: go to the cinema as much as possible. Since the COVID years I’ve taken the easier option of watching all but the biggest films on TV once I knew if they were any good or not. This year I wanted to take a chance on more films and watch them the weekend they open. A goal which paid off spectacularly by a Saturday lunchtime trip to watch 28 Years Later before I knew anything about it, beyond it being the sequel to 28 Days Later. I loved it, despite it being messy and all over the place and with an ending that, if it had been on TV, it would have made me wonder if someone had changed the channel. I loved it for it’s wild swings and for Ralph Fiennes and the Bone Temple sequence. I can’t wait for the next one in January, in, if I’ve time this blog post correctly, 28 days!
The best hour in the cinema this year was easily Tom Cruise hanging off a plane in MI: Final Reckoning, pity the first hour failed to take off. While Brad Pitt in F1 was going to be my most fun film watched until a late challenge from Companion saw Brad almost lapped at the finish line. Almost…. of course, he wins in the end. He’s Brad Pitt!
Speaking of endings, I watched all for four hours of the Brutalist and couldn’t help admire an ending that did make me laugh as it appeared to not just cap the film but also, break the fourth wall, and speak directly to anyone who watched all four hours of architecture, frowning and bad accents in America. It may have been the ‘best’ film I watched this year, but it definitely wasn’t one of the most fun.
Another contender for best film, and one that was lot more ‘fun’ was One Battle After Another, but for most fun, I enjoyed the nonsense of Twisters, the men on a mission of The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Conduct, Hugh Grant being evil, or not, in the Heretic, the twists of Companion and, finally, A Real Pain, a film which turned out to be more ‘fun’ than a film about two brothers on a holocaust tour might have been.
TV 2025 (Andrew)
A comedian with an impossible task. A comedian with a secret agenda. And a final episode where no one could believe that he got away with lying in plain sight for episode after episode. No, I’m not talking about Alan Carr in The Celebrity Traitors final, which was one of the funniest things I watched all year, I’m talking about Nathan Fielder in the Rehersal, my favourite TV programme this year.
The first season was, in the end, almost incredibly moving as it tightroped between a reality TV show about a reality TV show and what might actually be something incredibly real and raw.
The second season was better because it had a purpose, even if it was one that was not as obvious as it may first have appeared. To say more would be to spoil the surprises but, in its own, the final episode was like watching the documentary Free Solo and, despite knowing that climber Alex Honnold didn’t fall off, you still worried that he might fail. The last episode of The Rehearsal had that same feeling of knowing everything was okay, while fully expecting the worst.
For another spectacular ending, Nathan Fielder faced the challenge of… Nathan Fielder in ‘The Curse’. A programme that was very cold and kept the characters at arms length until 20 minutes from the end when, well, a million monkeys with a million typewriters would never have written that ending.
For utter rubbish, I give you ‘Paradise’, with a twist so stupid I watched all of it anyway. And while I can’t say it was worth it in the end, in episode 7, set in the White House, they managed to create the tensest hour of TV I’ve watched in a long time.
For comfort TV, nothing beats Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman driving round on motorbikes in Long Way Home where the greatest peril is wondering if Ewan and Charley will find a nice bed & breakfast in Denmark.
And if you want comfort and utter rubbish then Department Q did a great job of making Scotland look like another country because, well, despite being set and filmed in Edinburgh it used a fictional island for a murder investigation. An island that appeared to be on the west coast of Scotland, because that’s where all the islands which are not Shetland or Orkney are! An island with a shinty team, so likely on the west coast of the Highland, perhaps near Skye. But was also once part of the north east oil boom in the 1970s! The only way the makers of Department Q can solve this mystery is by having an island here:
Books 2025 (Andrew)
It’s rare for me to read a book again. Once I’ve read it, I know what happened, and I want to read something else, something new. The last book I re-read was “Boy’s Life” by Robert R McCammon, a book I read as a teenager and loved, and then read again a couple of years ago and loved even more as I could now see it not just as a coming of age tale but also a coming off age tale told by a middle aged man looking back at the Stephen King like tales and mystery of a childhood murder.
My worry about re-reading something is that it will not be as good the second time. If you know the ending, where is the suspense? Despite this, this year I decided to take a risk again with another favourite book as a teenager, ’The Dragonbone Chair’, now considered a fantasy classic. And this time, I could see why it was a classic and why sometimes a classic is a classic because it’s a bit… dusty. Tropes which felt fresh 30 years ago are now well worn and some of the characters and writing lacks depth. But most of it still stood up and I’m keen now to read the next two books as my memory of the original trilogy was that the first book was great, but the sequels were better and paid off in completely unexpected ways, none of which I can now remember.
I read a few fantasy books this year and can recommend ‘The Tainted Cup’, if you like your fantasy with a good murder mystery, ‘A Night in the Lonesome October’, if you like your fantasy as a calendar to read a chapter a day in October, or ‘The Spear Cuts Through Water’, if you like your fantasy with experimental storytelling or stories within stories within sentences. You make a note to yourself to buy this book. [This is the funniest use of italics I have ever written if you are one of the few people reading this blog to have read The Spear Cuts Through Water].
For biographies, I discovered Brett Anderson had written a second book, though technically his first. I really enjoyed his account of Suede’s success a couple of years ago but hadn’t realised it was the sequel to his first book: his childhood and first attempts at forming a band. The first book (second read) was just as good and offered an interesting look at how he found a voice when songwriting including, for someone who was training as a town & country planner when starting out, how important it was for him to know the place a song was set, even if location was never mentioned in the lyrics.
Best biography though was easily Trevor Noah’s ‘Born A Crime’ about growing up in South Africa, both the funniest book I read but also the one with an unbelievable but true ending.
Other factual books I enjoyed include ‘The Political Diaries of a Chief Whip’ by Simon Hart (including the revelation that Rishi Sunak would tidy up the number 10 boardroom when people left); ‘Hits, Flops and Other Illusions’ by film director Ed Zwick and ‘Coffee First, Then The World’ by Jenny Graham about her world record attempt to be the fastest women to cycle around the world.
Book of the year was also last year’s almost book of the year – see here – and it was ‘Lonesome Dove’. Every sentence perfect. Every paragraph perfect. Every step across America with a herd of a thousand cattle perfect. But the surprise was that, despite starting this last year and realising how good it was going to be, there was also another contender for book of the year: Hyperion by Dan Simmons, a vivid and imaginative sci-fi with one hundred and 10 ideas on every page. The book contains several short stories told by the characters and two of the stories – the monk’s tale and the father’s tale were stunning. Almost as good as Lonesome Dove, but not quite. Occassionaly Hyperion had a duff sentence. Lonesome Dove didn’t have a wrong word in 1,000 pages. I have never missed a book as much as I missed that one when I finished it. I might even re-read it, but not until I forget what happens in it…
Yearly target: Read 50 books
Books read: 50!
Race Report: The Jimmy Irvine 10K 2025 (Andrew)
I found a pound coin in a trouser pocket this week and I have no idea what to do with it. I can’t remember the last time I used cash, instead of a card, or a phone, or even a watch to pay for something.
“You mean to say I used to give this money to a shopkeeper and the shopkeeper then gave me more money but less money in response?!? I would hand over a single coin and the shopkeeper would hand back several lesser coins as, what did you call it, ‘change’? And I would then use that change to add it to other coins to pay for something else until I had no change left? But if I got it wrong I would have to take out some paper from a wall and start the whole process over again and again??!?? This is madness!”
Change (coins) can be bad but sometimes change (progress) can be good too – just like with the Jimmy Irvine 10K.
This year the Jimmy Irvine 10K promised a new flatter course. For the last few years, it has used a route that can only be described as Alpine, with one hill appearing three times as part of the route, including a tough start to the race where you’re expected to run up it to begin.
This year, the race started at the top of the hill, and that was the last we saw it. The route descended to the flat parts of Bellahouston Park and then snaked twice round the park with barely a bump, never mind a hill appearing.
I have to admit though that I missed the old route. The climb up and across the hill was interesting and had the benefit of a nice fast drop to make up for the suffering to get there. The flat route was largely featureless and had an extended leg on a pavement running around the park and next to a road. The hill may have been tough but at least it was more scenic, and with far more trees, than plodding along a pavement watching a Honda Civic approach a busy junction.
But I also must admit the change was welcome. I had Covid and a throat infection in September and had missed several weeks of running. I had only started running again four weeks ago and this was going to be my longest run yet. Missing a few hill climbs was a welcome bonus for my not yet recovered legs.
Iain TwinBikeRun comfortably won the award or fastest Todd, and I finished in 49 minutes, four slower than last year but 1 minute faster than I was aiming for so I was as happy as a man who found cash in his pocket that he didn’t know he had (even if he doesn’t know now how to spend it).
M80 Fishing (Andrew)
I’m not going mad but…
I was driving on the M80 this morning and, near to Cumbernauld, a woman with an Indian accent started repeating a phrase along the lines of “Take the fishing rod. Take the fishing boat. Go to the hotel. Repeat.” This was a surprise as I was listing to a football podcast on Apple CarPlay at the time. Her voice was superimposed on the podcast.
I tried changing podcasts. Same voice. Same message. Like an angling version of the broadcast numbers from Lost.
I switched to Spotify and played music. Same voice. Same message. Just played over a song this time.
I switched the music off and the voice stopped. I switched it back on and it kept going.
I switched to Radio 1 on DAB. Same woman. This time she’s speaking at the same time as Greg James.
“Take the fishing rod. Take the fishing boat! And now yesterday’s quiz!”
I switched it off. The voice stopped. I switched it back on and she’s back again.
This continued for five minutes.
And when I left Cumbernauld, the voice stopped and everything returned to normal.
And all I can think is that I can’t be mad because I can turn the voice off!
Also I don’t like fishing.
The Relentless (Andrew)
The Restless has published its ‘official’ images of the race and Iain TwinBikeRun and I are featured prominently. Or at least our bums are!
Will we be Rear of the Year next?
England v India Third Test Day Two (Andrew)
Twin brothers swimming, cycling and running in Scotland 