For the last six months I've been posting a weekly Facebook link to my highlights of the week in popular culture. Or maybe unpopular culture would be better? You know me.
On balance it is worth doing this as well though. I like trying to work out what was the best of the year, especially last year which didn't have many bests in it.
Music
My favourite individual tunes of 2020 are on this link to Spotify. It seems to have been a year when my spirits were raised by three chords and jangly guitars. Nowt wrong with that.
For album of the year I often struggle. New music is simply music you haven't heard before. As I do not listen to much radio I quite often 'discover' music that's been around a bit. Which meant it was great to find the Billy Franks' back catalogue and Man Alive by The 4 of Us (which I had on cassette in the car in the 1990s) make their way onto Spotify. But that said I enjoyed:
EOB - Earth
Foals - Collected Remixes
HAIM - Women in Music Pt. III
Khruangbin - Mordecai
Surprise Chef - All News is Good News
Westerman - Your Hero is Not Dead
Zapatilla - Zapatilla
Reading
I read more books in 2020 than any year since records began (1988). But how many were written in 2020? Not many. Plaudits to:
Fiction
Andrew Hunter Murray - The Last Day
Daisy Johnson - Sisters
Catherine Lacey - Pew
Fact
Adam Rutherford - How to Argue with a Racist
Screen
In TV/Film I caught up with many box-sets during lock-down using a Prime subscription and latterly Netflix. Like many others our favourite film of the year was Armando Iannucci's spirit-lifting The Personal History of David Copperfield.
But I found the year much-improved by Better Call Saul, Peaky Blinders, Bones (plots become increasingly improbable by Season 5), The Good Fight and Brokenwood.
Food
Wapping Wharf |
I missed my couple of times a year at the Pony and Trap at Chew but found the yurt version at Breaking Bread on the Downs very acceptable for a wedding anniversary. In April the Pony and Trap at Chew is changing its focus to a foraging and training centre with meals for volunteers on the estate. But they are opening a restaurant in Bedminster. Hooray.
Clifton Downs Yurts |
Here's to better things to review away from home in 2021.
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