2009 diversions
I've missed the last couple of months, but here's the year in things I did, read, watched and otherwise spent my time on:
Films: I haven't quite gotten around to updating 52filmchallenge yet, but I actually made it to 52 this year \o/
Pan's Labyrinth
Iron Man
Stardust
National Treasure: Book Of Secrets
Cleaverville
Rocknrolla
The Escapist
Bullitt
Surveillance
The International
The Oxford Murders
1408
Watchmen
Jumper
Breach
Duplicity
Monsters vs Aliens
State of Play
Deception
Sleuth (2007)
Cloverfield
Wolverine
Holes
Star Trek
Wanted
The Thomas Crown Affair
Terminator Salvation
Gone Baby Gone
21
Saving Private Ryan
The Black Windmill
Kung Fu Panda
Chinatown
Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince
Inglourious Basterds
The Quiller Memorandum
Three Days Of The Condor
The Happening
Hancock
Babylon AD
Eagle Eye
Taken
The Age of Stupid
The Men Who Stare At Goats
The Forbidden Kingdom
March of the Penguins
Yes Man
Butterfly On A Wheel
The Count of Monte Cristo
Sherlock Holmes
Avatar
An Inconvenient Truth
Of those, my faves of the year include Iron Man, Rocknrolla, Watchmen, Star Trek, Gone Baby Gone, and Kung Fu Panda.
Books: Far fewer books than usual this year, for a number of reasons:
Baby Doll and other plays, Tennessee Williams
Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman
The Great Stink, Clare Clark
Police At The Funeral, Margery Allingham
Crusaders, Richard Kelly (only half)
Sweet Danger, Margery Allingham
Death of a Ghost, Margery Allingham
Dancers in Mourning, Margery Allingham
The Fashion in Shrouds, Margery Allingham
Artist of the Floating World, Kazuo Ishiguro
The Suspicions Of Mr Whicher, Kate Summerscale
Traitor's Purse, Margery Allingham
Thicker Than Water, Mike Carey
The Naming Of The Beasts, MikeCarey
Anathem, Neal Stephenson
A Snowball In Hell, Christopher Brookmyre
The Third Pig Detective Agency, Bob Burke
Of those, I really liked Neverwhere, I was ambivalent about much of the Allingham, I very much liked The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, and although I felt it had flaws, I was much taken by Anathem (and many thanks to abrinsky and lamentables, without whom I would never had read it).
TV: A fair bit of TV this year, and thanks to some interesting scheduling we've been able to see more than one season of some of the American stuff.
Being Human
Whitechapel
The Wire S4
CSI
The Mentalist
Boston Legal
NCIS
Dexter
Big Bang Theory
Lie To Me
Testees
Life
House
True Blood
The Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Revolutionaries
Desperate Romantics
Stand-outs among that list have to include House, which has reached new heights of excellence, CSI for handling to loss of two major characters and the gain of a third, and The Wire (although still not seen S5 yet) for simply being one of the best television series ever made.
Music: We actually managed to see quite a bit of live music this year, including two city-based festivals.
Ray LaMontagne at Birmingham Symphony Hall - excellent
Frightened Rabbit - at The Glee Club, and they were great
The Great Escape, a Brighton-based festival for new(ish) music:Thomas Dybdahl - with a band, very good.
Planet Earth - not so good. Noisy audience, poor choice of songs, no stagecraft.
Miranda Lee Richards - pretty damn good; even better anonymous bloke accompanying on guitar.
Little Lost David - stunning. Awesome. Go see this kid.
Ohbijou - Canadian band, very good, lots of them crammed onto a tiny stage.
Luke Ducet - with Melissa McClelland (his wife) accompanying, pretty good folky rocky Canadian.
Jaakko & Jay - batshit insane Finns. Described as "acoustic folk punk". Several kinds of joyous awesome.
Thomas Dybdahl - solo this time, soulful and melancholy.
Neil Halstead - acoustic folkie with a woolly bobble hat. Really rather good.
Melissa McClelland - with Luke Ducet (her husband) accompanying, pretty good southern gothic soul, but the folky rock accompaniment doesn't really work.
Angel Pier - Dublin indie rockers (saw them a couple of years ago at Hard Working Class heroes), good at what they do.
Jaakko & Jay - again, batshit insane.
Kate Rogers Band - OK bit a bit bland.
Nerina Pallot
Hard Working Class Heroes, a Dublin-based festival for new and upcoming Irish music(the only list of acts I saw was on Twitter, so here's the line-up as tweeted): Giraffes @ Think Tank look like Indie boys, sound like 40's swing met 60's folk & listened to rock. Excellent :-)
Ian Whitty & The Exchange quite folk rock, emphasis on the rock
I must have missed something with Heathers; the crowd went wild, I thought they were competent but not much more
Star Department. Oh dear. Played solataire on my phone rather than listen :-(
More Tiny Giants supposed to be folk punk rock. No punk, no folk.
Watching @Goatboymusic play in Chapters bookshop. Good stuff :-)
Just caught the end of Ali & The DT's set at Music Maker. So good I bought a CD :-)
Ollie Cole (I think) at The Button Factory. Rather good Folky Indie Pop-Rock :-)
Land Lovers v good folky rock
Brianna Corrigan (ex Beautiful South) sweet and soulful. Excellent :-)
Ali & The DT's - blend Motown, Rock'n'Roll, Soul & 10 people having a buttload of fun. Stunningly brilliant
Fionn Reagan has a roadie to plug him in every time he changes guitar 0_0 very very good :-)
Fiona Melady at Road Records, soulful stuff. Felt sorry for her, she couldn't stop coughing through most of the last two songs
Pearse McGloughlin good, but slow songs a bit weak, & mandolin accomp poor choice, esp with ebow(!)
Ultan Conlon lots of oomph, good songs.
Fiona Melady with band more edgy & powerful than sweetly soulful. Oddly, same bassist as Ollie Cole yesterday.
Brad Pitt Light Orchestra - 9 people, 13 instruments (inc xylophone & glockenspiel), hi energy dirty bluesy rock, stunning :-)
Killer Chloe looked about sixteen, played almost indie rock noisily.
202s actually rather good (not indie) rockers
Super Extra Bonus Party - fewer members than previously, and weren't so wild, but still very very good - esp given how ill they were
Travel: This year we've been away to Chester for a long weekend (and it was lovely), Brighton for The Great Escape (and it was pretty nice), London also for a long weekend (it was a good as ever), Portugal for a week (sunny and chilled and just what was needed), and Dublin for Hard Working Class Heroes (every time I visit Dublin I fall in love with it all over again).
Miscellanea: Just two plays this year (note to self: more theatre next year), All's Well That Ends Well, and Waiting For Godot. I was unimpressed by the former, enthralled by the latter. We saw Eddie Izzard at the NIA in Birmingham, and he was as good as ever (and is hott in boy mode).
And that was 2009...
(ETA: found a list of acts I saw at HWCH in Dublin :-)
Films: I haven't quite gotten around to updating 52filmchallenge yet, but I actually made it to 52 this year \o/
Pan's Labyrinth
Iron Man
Stardust
National Treasure: Book Of Secrets
Cleaverville
Rocknrolla
The Escapist
Bullitt
Surveillance
The International
The Oxford Murders
1408
Watchmen
Jumper
Breach
Duplicity
Monsters vs Aliens
State of Play
Deception
Sleuth (2007)
Cloverfield
Wolverine
Holes
Star Trek
Wanted
The Thomas Crown Affair
Terminator Salvation
Gone Baby Gone
21
Saving Private Ryan
The Black Windmill
Kung Fu Panda
Chinatown
Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince
Inglourious Basterds
The Quiller Memorandum
Three Days Of The Condor
The Happening
Hancock
Babylon AD
Eagle Eye
Taken
The Age of Stupid
The Men Who Stare At Goats
The Forbidden Kingdom
March of the Penguins
Yes Man
Butterfly On A Wheel
The Count of Monte Cristo
Sherlock Holmes
Avatar
An Inconvenient Truth
Of those, my faves of the year include Iron Man, Rocknrolla, Watchmen, Star Trek, Gone Baby Gone, and Kung Fu Panda.
Books: Far fewer books than usual this year, for a number of reasons:
Baby Doll and other plays, Tennessee Williams
Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman
The Great Stink, Clare Clark
Police At The Funeral, Margery Allingham
Crusaders, Richard Kelly (only half)
Sweet Danger, Margery Allingham
Death of a Ghost, Margery Allingham
Dancers in Mourning, Margery Allingham
The Fashion in Shrouds, Margery Allingham
Artist of the Floating World, Kazuo Ishiguro
The Suspicions Of Mr Whicher, Kate Summerscale
Traitor's Purse, Margery Allingham
Thicker Than Water, Mike Carey
The Naming Of The Beasts, MikeCarey
Anathem, Neal Stephenson
A Snowball In Hell, Christopher Brookmyre
The Third Pig Detective Agency, Bob Burke
Of those, I really liked Neverwhere, I was ambivalent about much of the Allingham, I very much liked The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, and although I felt it had flaws, I was much taken by Anathem (and many thanks to abrinsky and lamentables, without whom I would never had read it).
TV: A fair bit of TV this year, and thanks to some interesting scheduling we've been able to see more than one season of some of the American stuff.
Being Human
Whitechapel
The Wire S4
CSI
The Mentalist
Boston Legal
NCIS
Dexter
Big Bang Theory
Lie To Me
Testees
Life
House
True Blood
The Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Revolutionaries
Desperate Romantics
Stand-outs among that list have to include House, which has reached new heights of excellence, CSI for handling to loss of two major characters and the gain of a third, and The Wire (although still not seen S5 yet) for simply being one of the best television series ever made.
Music: We actually managed to see quite a bit of live music this year, including two city-based festivals.
Ray LaMontagne at Birmingham Symphony Hall - excellent
Frightened Rabbit - at The Glee Club, and they were great
The Great Escape, a Brighton-based festival for new(ish) music:Thomas Dybdahl - with a band, very good.
Planet Earth - not so good. Noisy audience, poor choice of songs, no stagecraft.
Miranda Lee Richards - pretty damn good; even better anonymous bloke accompanying on guitar.
Little Lost David - stunning. Awesome. Go see this kid.
Ohbijou - Canadian band, very good, lots of them crammed onto a tiny stage.
Luke Ducet - with Melissa McClelland (his wife) accompanying, pretty good folky rocky Canadian.
Jaakko & Jay - batshit insane Finns. Described as "acoustic folk punk". Several kinds of joyous awesome.
Thomas Dybdahl - solo this time, soulful and melancholy.
Neil Halstead - acoustic folkie with a woolly bobble hat. Really rather good.
Melissa McClelland - with Luke Ducet (her husband) accompanying, pretty good southern gothic soul, but the folky rock accompaniment doesn't really work.
Angel Pier - Dublin indie rockers (saw them a couple of years ago at Hard Working Class heroes), good at what they do.
Jaakko & Jay - again, batshit insane.
Kate Rogers Band - OK bit a bit bland.
Nerina Pallot
Hard Working Class Heroes, a Dublin-based festival for new and upcoming Irish music(the only list of acts I saw was on Twitter, so here's the line-up as tweeted): Giraffes @ Think Tank look like Indie boys, sound like 40's swing met 60's folk & listened to rock. Excellent :-)
Ian Whitty & The Exchange quite folk rock, emphasis on the rock
I must have missed something with Heathers; the crowd went wild, I thought they were competent but not much more
Star Department. Oh dear. Played solataire on my phone rather than listen :-(
More Tiny Giants supposed to be folk punk rock. No punk, no folk.
Watching @Goatboymusic play in Chapters bookshop. Good stuff :-)
Just caught the end of Ali & The DT's set at Music Maker. So good I bought a CD :-)
Ollie Cole (I think) at The Button Factory. Rather good Folky Indie Pop-Rock :-)
Land Lovers v good folky rock
Brianna Corrigan (ex Beautiful South) sweet and soulful. Excellent :-)
Ali & The DT's - blend Motown, Rock'n'Roll, Soul & 10 people having a buttload of fun. Stunningly brilliant
Fionn Reagan has a roadie to plug him in every time he changes guitar 0_0 very very good :-)
Fiona Melady at Road Records, soulful stuff. Felt sorry for her, she couldn't stop coughing through most of the last two songs
Pearse McGloughlin good, but slow songs a bit weak, & mandolin accomp poor choice, esp with ebow(!)
Ultan Conlon lots of oomph, good songs.
Fiona Melady with band more edgy & powerful than sweetly soulful. Oddly, same bassist as Ollie Cole yesterday.
Brad Pitt Light Orchestra - 9 people, 13 instruments (inc xylophone & glockenspiel), hi energy dirty bluesy rock, stunning :-)
Killer Chloe looked about sixteen, played almost indie rock noisily.
202s actually rather good (not indie) rockers
Super Extra Bonus Party - fewer members than previously, and weren't so wild, but still very very good - esp given how ill they were
Travel: This year we've been away to Chester for a long weekend (and it was lovely), Brighton for The Great Escape (and it was pretty nice), London also for a long weekend (it was a good as ever), Portugal for a week (sunny and chilled and just what was needed), and Dublin for Hard Working Class Heroes (every time I visit Dublin I fall in love with it all over again).
Miscellanea: Just two plays this year (note to self: more theatre next year), All's Well That Ends Well, and Waiting For Godot. I was unimpressed by the former, enthralled by the latter. We saw Eddie Izzard at the NIA in Birmingham, and he was as good as ever (and is hott in boy mode).
And that was 2009...
(ETA: found a list of acts I saw at HWCH in Dublin :-)