December wrap-up

A new tradition?

The temperature has firmly dropped, I am wearing at least three woollen items every day and I’m dragging my body over the line to Christmas: it can only be December baby!

I did this last year and it was a good opportunity to sit back and reflect on some of the pieces of the culture that had most moved and affected me that year, so without further ado, here are my top/best/most memorable Things from 2024.

Detail from one of The Black Paintings by Wes Lang

Meals out

• Livingston, Marseille

• Jolene

• The Plimsoll

• Ankerklause, Berlin

Albums

• Imaginal Disk by Magdalena Bay

• BRAT by Charli XCX obvs

• Alligator Bites Never Heal by Doechii

• Never For Ever by Kate Bush

• Amplified Heart by Everything But The Girl

• Suntub by ML Buch

• Catching Chickens by Nourished by Time

• Diamond Jubilee by Cindy Lee

• Silence Is Loud by Nia Archives

• Drop 7 by Little Simz

Films (not bragging, this has been a huge year of watching films for me. I have watched more films than I have ever watched at any other point in my life. I have refined my Letterboxd to a point. I only want to watch films until I die. My job is getting in the way of my film watching.)

• Jubilee (1978)

• The Kitchen (2023)

• The Zone of Interest (2023)

• Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962)

• Paris, Texas (1984)

• Perfect Days (2023)

• Challengers (2024)

• Love Lies Bleeding (2024)

• La Chimera (2024)

• All of the Mad Max films, prompted by Furiosa (2024)

• Bad Lieutenant (1992)

• The Exorcist (1973)

• Kneecap (2024)

• Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)

• Grizzly Man (2005)

• A Different Man (2024)

• Papillon (1973)

Recipes

• Marcella Hazan’s roast chicken

• This broccoli salad but would recommend steaming the broccoli rather than having raw as it suggests

• Fazool as soon as the cold weather gets unbearable

• Roast tomato orzo salad for the summer

Books

• Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood

• The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir

• Elmet by Fiona Mozley

• Crooked Plow by Itamar Vieira Junior

• Modern Nature by Derek Jarman

• The Door by Magda Szabo

• The Seers by Sulaiman Addonia

• Pleasure Beach by Helen Palmer

• Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

• Another Country by James Baldwin

• Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments by Saidiya Hartman

• Yr Dead by Sam Sax

Audiobooks

• Big Swiss by Jen Beagin

• Shy by Max Porter

• The Bee Sting by Paul Murray

• The Trees by Percival Everett

• Party Lines by Ed Gillett

• All Fours by Miranda July

• Down the Drain by Julia Fox

Gigs

• Sampha, Alexandra Palace

• Pixies and LCD Soundsystem, All Points East

• End of the Road 2024: Molly Lewis, Lankum, Floating Points, Casisdead, Cornelius, Jellyskin, Richard Dawson, Mermaid Chunky

• Nourished by Time, ICA

• Mk.gee, EartH

• Charli XCX, O2 Arena

• ML Buch and Astrid Sonne, ICA

Live performances/theatre

• Bluets, Royal Court

• Slave Play, Noël Coward Theatre

• Blue Now, Queen Elizabeth Hall

• Nelken, Tanztheater Wuppertal, Sadler’s Wells

• The Rite of Spring, Pina Bausch Foundation / École des Sables, Sadler’s Wells

I’ll be taking a break from here for the rest of December and will be back in the new year. Thanks for this year, have a lovely end of 2024.