Natural arch at Camas Mòr, near Melvaig

Welcome! Here’s the annual round-up of my year in music, films and books that surely you’ve been waiting for. As always, let me know of your recommendations. The year’s been something - ups and downs but some fantastic memories in there, especially fantastic times travelling here and there with the family. You can meander through my past here: 2009 // 2012 // 2013 // 2014 // 2017 // 2018 // 2019 // 2020 // 2021 // 2022 // 2023 // 2024 // 2025 (and we’ll never know what happened in the gaps in between).

Music

This year again I’ve put out a post every month about the tunes I’ve been listening to:
J F M A M J J A S O N D

To sum the year up, here are my most loved new albums/tracks/artists:

  • BRUIT ≤ - The Intoxication Of Power from The Age Of Ephemerality
    Album of the year. 

  • Nine Inch Nails - As Alive As You Need Me To Be
    So on one hand it seemed Tron 2 sucked and the rest of the album was decent but not stunning… and on the other hand AAAYNMTB is one of NIN’s best ever tracks. 

  • Witch Bolt & Mountain Realm
    #dungeonsynth - 2025’s work soundtrack.

  • Big Thief
    Best new album of the year contender. Songwriting fire.

  • Colin Stetson - The Righteous Wrath of an Honorable Man
    A lush and unusual sound.

  • HAIM - I quit
    Listened to this album a lot over the summer.

  • Hayley Williams - Love Me Different
    Runner-up for my new album of the year. Love that it’s like an early Gwen sound.

  • Horsegirl - Phonetics On And On
    Brilliant album - Julie is the standout track.

  • Pacifica - In Your Face!
    Love this album a lot. So much energy!

  • Ghost - Cenotaph
    Guitar solo of the year!

  • Hamish Hawk - If It Makes You Happy
    Another brilliant little covers EP.

  • Low Tide, Former Champ and Pedalo
    Joint slot for these Scottish bands - I wish them all the best and hope that we get to hear some new material (and maybe even make it to a gig) in 2026.

  • Sir Chloe
    Forgiving and Michelle are fab tracks.

  • Sunn O))) - Frost (C)
    Massive sounds to work to.

And old stuff I’ve kept on with:

  • Radiohead
    I listened to a lot of rarities and b-sides and lost treasurers (thanks to my old uni hard drive and the Internet Archive).

  • Bleachers
    Mostly the live album from Radio City.

  • Queens of the Stone Age
    Craving that desert sound.

  • Boards of Canada
    Geogaddi is perfect to work to. 

  • LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER
    Sam’s a national treasure (and I don’t say such things lightly).

  • Vince Guaraldi Trio
    The Charlie Brown Christmas becoming a jazz standard is a thing of wonder. 

  • Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
    The sound to scream into the void with.

  • And… shared music with the kid - Lucy Dacus, boygenius, Muna, Phoebe Bridgers, Katie Gavin, etc.
  • And… Lawrence, Muse, Jurassic 5, blink-182, Jon Hopkins, Ludovico Einaudi, Green Day, John Coltrane (Blue Train), Oscar Peterson (Night Train).

Podcasts

  • Let’s just say that listening to the whole of The Rewatcher podcasting their rewatch of Buffy The Vampire Slayer has taken up most of my podcast listening time this year. It’s a weird thing to listen to people giving their insights, dissection, context, history and lore to a show that you’ve been watching. Nerdy? Yes. But also funny with an awful lot of real human stories and personality.

  • The Mystery Quest crew did an amazing job documenting their Discworld and Alien campaigns - winning with puns was a hoot.

  • Ill Advised by Bill Nighy - a legend. He’s smart, funny, and droll. A great presenter.

  • 99% Invisible - snackable.

  • Other than the old regulars, I also dropped in to listen to a bit of Making It with Jimmy Diresta and a few episodes of Cortex where they talked workflow and tools with Hank Green and Simone Giertz. I always love hearing about the tools and practices people have in their work. And it’s interesting to hear just how many barriers internet celebrities put between themselves and social media - something I can definitely learn from.

Top TV

  • Ludwig
    David Mitchell and Anna Maxwell Martin smashed it out of the park. This was a really great watch - thrilling, funny, tense, silly and smart.

  • The Residence
    We were on a detective spree - this required even more disbelief suspension than Ludwig but was still a lot of fun.

  • Pottery Throwdown
    Not everything needs to be a competition and I’d honestly be here for a pottery show that wasn’t, but the cast, crew and contestants really made this click.

  • Buffy The Vampire Slayer
    This was more than half of my watching this year as I started season 1 in December 2024 and was ready to shed a tear when I finished season 7 in August. Beloved characters, amazing actors, something that was unique at the time, and something that obviously had a lot of love from the cast. It’s aged badly in some places but it was still a good watch.

  • Wednesday
    Season 2 Part 1 wasn’t great and honestly I wonder what’s going on in the script room but Part 2 was decent. And they included a body swap episode which is always fun.

  • Alien Earth
    How this fits in with an Earth that didn’t know about the aliens in Alien just 2 years later is a mystery still but it was a good watch and a few moments were super powerful.

  • Derry Girls
    Rewatched with the family (when they weren’t sneaking in episodes without me!) and was reminded how truly amazing this show was - funny, silly, bleak, powerful, honest… love it.

  • Celebrity Traitors
    I was not anticipating this being my TV highlight of the year but there we go. BBC entertainment at its best.

  • Race Across The World Celebrity
    Nowhere near as “celebrity” as Traitors but that was never the point - this format works so well and it’s always a thrill to see just how close teams can be after days of travel in isolation.

I also watched this year’s Bake Off (not amazing), Stranger Things final season part 1 (passable), and Only Murders In The Building (I wanted so much to love this and yet…).

Top New Movies

What was once the biggest section of my end-year blog is disappointingly empty this year. It was a busy year in so many ways (good and bad) which meant the old cinema trips haven’t happened… and so many great series’ filling up my viewing.

  • Wake Up Dead Man
    Film of the year. Twisty, political and smart… but it’s the camera shots that get me most - loved this.

  • Freakier Friday
    The A9 was closed for another crash - which is awful. We managed to pull into Inverness cinema and grab a screening. The kid and I watched Freakier Friday and it was class.  

  • Sisu
    Was exactly as described. And relentless at it.

  • The Phoenician Scheme
    A few scenes stood out but overall the script let this one down.

  • Frozen: The Hit Broadway Musical
    A family watch - we all got sucked in and loved seeing how they’d managed to turn the movie into a stage show.

  • Back In Action
    Yeah it was cheesy but I think it hit a lot of good notes for a cheesy teen action spy movie.

Top Movie Rewatches

  • Paddington 2
    Hugh Grant’s best work.

  • Shock Treatment
    I was in a better place watching it this time and thought it was worthy of a 7/10 after only giving it a 1 or a 2 last time.

  • Moulin Rouge
    Not sure our rating system got this quite right in retrospect - a few strands of really dark plot are less “fun” than they were in 2001. 

  • Alien and Aliens
    Rewatched to coincide with Alien Earth and loved as always.

  • The Muppet Christmas Carol
    … with a full orchestra! 

  • The Grinch
    The animated version. Cumberbatch’s best work. The world is so amazing - I swear there’s a PHD paper on the transportation and architecture of the town. Triple-decker bus with no internal stairs but 3 storey bus stops with no railings? Yes please! Also that rotating shopfront in the first scene gets me thinking every time. 

  • Elf
    It’s becoming an annual thing, which is weird given it’s full of nostalgia for a time and place that aren’t mine. 

  • Arthur Christmas
    Christmas Eve evening tradition. Best Christmas movie.

Worst Movies

I’ve been more discerning this year so this isn’t a long list (thankfully):

  • Scream VI
    I know I’m not this franchise’s target audience but I’d have thought that the movie making any kind of sense might still have been in their sights. Still - 5/10 ish.

  • Rock And Rule
    A “cult” 80s animation Ben Elton in no way watched before writing We Will Rock You. Stunned that they managed to get Cheap Trick, Debbie Harry, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop on board for this. Loved the concept but the actual watch was about a 4/10.

  • Citizen Kane
    I know, I know. I’m sorry that I don’t love this. Pace is okay, a few scenes are very memorable, I just don’t think that the characters chimed well. 5/10

  • Thursday Murder Club
    As someone who was a huge Pierce Brosnan fan I think his casting in this sucked. Even given that I love the stories and was excited to see them on screen, I gave this a 3/10. Gutted for the IP of this story to have been given such poor treatment and fully expect the sequels to be canned.

  • Thunderbolts
    Take some quality actors and a crappy script and you get 3/10.

  • Argylle
    To be fair I knew going in to this that it was a “suspend belief”+ situation but it missed being goofy enough. 2/10.

YouTubers

Dave Fogler is my new must watch recommendation. The man puts his Industrial Light & Magic skills to use in his home and studio.  

I’ve continued to love Colin Furze, Jonny Smith’s The Late Brake Show, Look Mum No Computer, Grind Hard Plumbing, Beau Miles, Adam Savage, Simone Giertz.

And added in Felix Schelhasse and Evan Monsma. 

I noted last year that the long-term projects (or at least multi-video pieces) seem to suit a lot of creative YouTubers better than trying to come up with the next big bang 20 mins on a similar topic every Sunday at 4pm… so I guess it’s interesting that I’ve been watching an underground garage build, a Summer “camp”/cabin restoration, a monster trike build, the building of a museum, the restoration of The Big Bogey Mini, an Austin Allegro Sleeper conversion, a 2 CV restoration… and it’s also notable that the parasocial nature of spending time with YouTubers in a way that’s way more natural than set TV pieces seem, means that road-tripping with Grind Hard or Look Mum No Computer also captures a take on places that’s really unlike anything on TV.

Books

In order that I read them, they’re all 10 out of 10:

  • Fern Brady - Strong Female Character
    Absolutely loved listening to the audiobook of this. Fern’s a great storyteller. Overlapped time-wise with her in Edinburgh (but living a different life). Funny, harrowing, dark… and the most honest discussion of mental health I’ve heard in a while.

  • Richard Osman - The Last Devil To Die
    The Saga saga continues with a particularly heavy topic covered in a sensitive way.

  • Terry Pratchett - A Blink Of The Screen
    Some great stories but also a wonderful reminder that good writers only get to being good writers. 

  • Kat Dunn - Hungerstone
    My book of the year. Dark, weird, sexy… a wonderful homage. 

  • Owen D. Pomery - The Hard Switch
    Graphic novel of the year. A world that is so interesting and expansive that it deserves continuation. And I really want the L-shaped tablet to exist in real life!

  • Terry Pratchett - Carpe Jugulum
    A Classic.

  • Edgar Camacho - Onion Skin
    A magic-infused food-truck romantic crime caper. Loved it!

  • Kristen Kiesling/Rye Hickman - The Harrowing
    Somehow equally readable and offputting - an odd mix that nails the topic and vibe of pre-crime cognition.

  • Tony Cliff - Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant
    A present bought 8 years ago and not given. Not perfect but a fun read.

  • Uketsu - Strange Houses
    A few hours reading together is one of my favourite Christmas Eve traditions… this book might not quite have been the right tone but it was a great one to romp through.

Read but wouldn’t recommend: Broken Homes (Ben Aaronovitch - drifting), Cabin (Will Jones - dull), Days at the Morisaki Bookshop (Satoshi Yagisawa - duller), and Thrilling Cities (Ian Flemming - dated).

Games

Last year I wrote: “Arkham Horror - so many fab evenings spent with Kev and Dan this year. After 2 years of playing not quite monthly I feel like we’re beginning to get the grip of the game! The game is all-consuming, and we’re here for it.” so you can probably just change the 2 to a 3 and we’re good. We’ve also dipped into a couple of other games including Barbecubes but really it’s all about Arkham for me. TableTop Scotland was great fun again too.

Websites, Newsletters & Apps

I can’t even put these in to any kind of order so here’s a braindump: 

Gigs

Not even a patch on the list of gigs I’d like to have made it to, but still some real quality here:

  • Lawrence
    The level of performance from this band is off the scale - loved finally being able to see them live.

  • Kae Tempest
    Ooft! One of the most powerful gigs I’ve ever been to.

  • Katie Gregson-MacLeod
    A wonderful gig with the kid. The whole audience sitting down cross-legged in between support and main was a wholesome moment. 

  • Yama Warashi at The Hug and Pint
    100% a friend night.

  • Spaelimenninir
    A random addition to the year: some Faroese folk. 

  • Stereolab
    Hanging with friends is always a win.

New Places

You can look back at past posts for my go-to places but we’ve added some gems to our travels this year and I deeply wanted to stay longer and explore these places more - in no order:

  • Jodrell Bank

  • La Piscine gallery in Lille

  • The views from the castle in Namur

  • The Paolozzi sculpture in Köln

  • Atomium in Brussels

  • The Sea stacks on the north east coast

  • The Burrell Collection

  • The natural arch beach at the end of the Melvaig road

  • Ancient Robot Games

  • Zip World Llechwedd

Creative hobbies

Improving the house took the front seat this year… which wasn’t fun but it was a cost saving and a time to learn new skills. So close to finishing it and yet it’s rolling into 2026. Gah! And of course the Corr Cabin #cabin turned out to have yet more fundamental build issues which required more time and money to remediate. Double Gah! I had a fun few days helping my parents build out a logshed that I originally helped my Papa build when I was about 14 years old. I don’t know how much help I was then but it was nice to know that I was 100% able to do it myself now. Then there were fun times socialising, travelling, repairing axes rescued from the dump, making impractical arty lamps, painting a halloween suit, working on a couple of board game ideas (I made a Stars Hollow Gilmore Girls game prototype as a gift and I’m working on a whisky game), and writing. I’ve progressed two main bits of writing this year - a cosy murder mystery and my movie merch book. Neither are even close to completion. And I’ve tried to stay healthy with regular gym trips. It’s a struggle!

End

Thank you for your time and the time I spent with you.

Grafitti in Aachen, Germany