Was That The Year That Was? 2024

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

This would normally be the fourteenth time I've recapped a year like this (for completists, here are the others) ... but here's the thing. As you'll remember from this, I've been on a blogging sabbatical, and every post you've read here in 2024 was actually written and scheduled during December of last year. So how can I recap the year, twelve months in advance?

Well, I can't, obviously. Instead, as 2023 draws to a close (This might get confusing - Ed.), I'm going to write about the things I'm maybe looking forward to for 2024 and then, when this actually gets published in twelve months time, maybe I'll drop into my own comments section and update with how reality compared with hope. Because there's always hope, right? Even for this desperate blog...

So enough prevarication - let's get the crystal ball out.

Best album?

Well, if the advance singles are anything to go by (especially Night of the Hunter), then the forthcoming Libertines album All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade might be alright, and certainly better than the health of its chief protagonists might have led us to hope. What else? Well, by the law of averages Paul Weller will probably have a new album at some point in the year, that I will inevitably buy and find something to like on. And this is in hope rather than expectation but I wouldn't mind another solo album from Graham Coxon, but I might be pissing in the wind on that score. Who knows?

Best song?

This looking forward lark is hard. Most of the new songs that have featured on this blog in recent years have been serendipitous finds, and how do you predict that? So I'm going to take an absolute punt and say that my best song of 2024 will be something I haven't heard even a snippet of yet, by some band that is completely new to me, and will probably be on Bandcamp. I know, brilliant insight, eh? Bet you're glad to be reading this...

Best gig?

Well, this might be a little easier to look forward to, because I've already started booking tickets and planning trips. For example, I already know that I will be seeing The Smyths and From The Jam, and I can confidently state that I will enjoy both very much. I hope to see Sea Power too, touring the anniversary of Do You Like Rock Music? (which is on the Every Home Should Have One masterlist, lest we forget), although the nearest they come to me is on Valentine's day, so that might prove challenging, let's say. There's a chance I may also get to the Suede and Manics double-header tour, which is bound to be something, plus I note Pixies are touring briefly, playing Bossanova and Trompe le Monde in full. Plus hopefully there will also be some festival action, either Latitude (with Duran Duran headlining one day, no less) or CarFest. So there's lots of potential here, basically. More good gigs to go to than I can realistically afford. And I haven't even mentioned the annual pilgrimage to see The Wedding Present, which is bound to happen at some point...

Best book?

Another one that's hard to predict. I know that Stephen King has a new collection of short stories coming out in May, because I've already pre-ordered You Like It Darker. And I already know that I will like most if not all of it, because I always do - even when he's not firing on all cylinders King keeps the pages turning like few other authors do for me. I'd also love it if there was also something new from the simply wonderful Sadie Jones and the criminally underrated Michelle Paver, because I love their respective bodies of work. It might be a bit soon after Amy & Lan for Sadie, but there hasn't been any new adult fiction from Michelle since Wakenhyrst, so fingers crossed there...

Best film?

I'm going to cheat a bit here because Wonka has just come out at the time of writing, but I haven't seen it yet. Based on trailers and the fact that the team behind it gave us the Paddington movies, I'm not really going out on much of a limb here when I predict it will be quite good. But what else? Well, novelist-turned-director Alex Garland's new film Civil War looks interesting (and hopefully not prescient), and stuntman-turned-director David Leitch is bringing The Fall Guy to the big screen, hopefully without dumping on our childhood memories (I'd like a Lee Majors cameo please, David). Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black will either be terrible or excellent, as will Beverley Hills Cop: Axel F (yes, really). Actually, 2024 looks like being the peak year of sequels, most of which, on paper, leave you scratching your head and wondering "why?" and "please don't be terrible", to whit: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Beetlejuice 2 (only 30 years too late), Joker: Folie a Deux, Gladiator 2 (yep, really), and an as yet untitled Alien franchise movie. Leave the horse alone, why don't you, it's dead already... And director Richard Eggers is remaking Nosferatu for 2024 ... really, what could go wrong? Oh, and spoiler alert from December 2023 - I don't actually get to the cinema very much any more, so I probably won't even see half of these. Boo.

Best television?

Well, I'm going to need something new to fill the holes in my televisual life left by Ghosts and, since I've just given up my Disney+ subscription because of ridiculous price hikes, Only Murders In The Building. I don't yet know what that something will be. The final series of Stranger Things is coming, and had better arrive in 2024, else the young cast will all be too grown to pass for teenagers. The second series of Wednesday is coming too - so far, so Netflix. In the interests of balance, apparently Blade Runner 2099 is coming to the small screen courtesy of Amazon Prime, with Ridley Scott involved, so hopefully that will be good. Oh, and there's a live action version of Avatar: The Last Airbender coming too (Netflix again) that will be a must-watch for Amusements Minor (and, by extension, me), so hopefully that is better than the famously awful film adaptation from 2010. On terrestrial TV (do people still say that?), the BBC brings us series two of The Tourist, which I plan to watch, and the intriguing premise of Nightsleeper, a six-part real-time thriller set on a sleeper train from Glasgow to London. I have high hopes for that.

Best sport?

Well, I'm going to go out on another limb here and predict that the best sport of the year will also, in a way, be the worst, as England threaten to win the Euros but ultimately fall agonisingly short, probably on penalties. Staying with football, I'm hoping for a Liverpool title in the Premier League, but won't mind if it's Arsenal, not least because my old man's a Gooner. Moving down the pyramid, I'm also hoping that Norwich City will somehow (and despite themselves) sneak into the play-offs, but if so they'll undoubtedly revert to form and miss out, whilst watching their noisy neighbours from down the road get promoted as champions. Sigh. In other sport, I hope that Ronnie O'Sullivan prevails at the snooker world championships in May, to stand alone on eight titles in the modern era. And I'm praying for some kind of comeback from Emma Raducanu - such talent, such promise, hopefully to re-emerge in 2024. And of course it's an Olympic year, so I'm hoping that Katarina Johnson-Thompson scoops the heptathlon gold her career so richly deserves. Oh, and is one more title for Lewis Hamilton too much to ask? Probably, but it doesn't hurt to hope.

Person of the year?

Well, it's Keir Starmer, hopefully. Since the next general election must take place on or before the 28th of January 2025 at the very latest, I really need Keir to have a good year, because we need the Tories out more than ever. I know Starmer is not perfect, occasionally misses open goals, and perhaps lacks some charisma ... but I also think he is, at a fundamental level, a decent man, and that's what we need right now. So here's to a year of no gaffes, no own goals and no scandal, a year of side-stepping the offensives the right-wing press will inevitably launch against him, a year of Labour by-election victories and Conservative implosion, and a year that ultimately culminates in a landslide electoral triumph, with a compassionate party of the people back in government, where they remain for a generation. Fingers crossed. Meanwhile, internationally, I'm also desperately hoping Joe Biden has a good year because otherwise...

Tool of the year?

As I type this post, at the tail-end of 2023, I have an awful and inescapable fear that repugnant man-child and morality-vacuum Orange Don will somehow evade all attempts to rein him in, whether in the courts or in the Republican party, and that not only will he contest the 2024 presidential election as a free man but that he will also win it. It chills my heart to think of him back in power, but I can see it happening, I really can. I just pray that in the twelve months that elapse between me writing this and you reading it, something legal, conclusive and incontrovertilbe happens to prevent him: either he is convicted of something, or the Republican party realise they don't have to remain in his thrall, or the Democrats find a way to beat him, or the US electorate come to their senses. I can't think of too many things more dangerous for the world than a stupid, immoral, entitled person with ultimate power but little accountability and even less care. It is a hideous, but very real, prospect for us all.

Well, that's the future foretold. Hardly a cheery note to end on, but really, what else did you expect from me? I wonder what you'll make of all this in December '24? Blimey, I wonder what I'll even make of it...