The year is almost over, and so it's time to reflect on all the content consumed. Let's go!
Music
I mainly listened to the same stuff again and again this year, as I always tend to do. And it's getting worse - the older I get, the more nostalgic fun it is to me to listen to something from my youth, despite that I am trying to be conscious about that and not to overindulge.
Nevertheless I came across a few new albums from this year that I really enjoyed.
Atmosphere - Jestures
Atmosphere has that consistent quality meaning all albums are similar to each other, but also they are similarly good. It's like one long album that is being extended every so often, and if you are an old fan you'll be able to draw parallels with the older ones and enjoy the evolution, but also if you listen it for the first time you can still start anywhere (even though I'd recommend When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold from 2008 or Whenever from 2019 as starters).
It is also 'hip-hop that people that don't usually like hip-hop often like'.
Listening to Jestures as an old fan is like meeting an old friend after a while and discovering he didn't change a lot. He is still trying to make sense of some things you though have already been settled, but that's what you love about him after all.
Florence + the Machine - Everybody Scream
Only learned about it in December, but it is really good, and it isn't about just one or two songs with the rest of them being stuffed under the same cover for volume. Almost every track is good. And as always with this performer, it is very emotional with a lot of instrumental 'waves' hitting you one after another.
This particular one should be absolutely wild to listen to live, while I wouldn't call the official video great.
Wet Leg - moisturizer
A younger British band. Second album. Don't think it has a broad appeal, you have to love the genre - but if you do, you'll love it! A lot of energy and a feel that this music just comes out organically.
Theatre
I've been to only three major shows this year so it is easy to rank them. You'll also see that me being a rube, I usually choose my shows by whether I recognise the leads from cinema or TV, and I am certainly missing a lot of great ones by relying mainly on that. Have to say this rule still works well for me more often than not.
End (National Theatre)
The most recent one, and it's still running till mid-January. Easily the best one out of those three. It's just two good actors (Clive Owen and Saskia Reeves) talking, and because the theatre is small you can see them very well regardless of where you sit.
End of life, family, relationship - as it often happens with good art, the foundation is very simple so that everyone can relate.
It also stings you when you see that 'a popular house DJ' is now a character background in a play about someone aging and even facing death. I still had that mentally coded as something young people do!
Also a few well pointed London references. Go see it if you still can.
Oedipus (Old Vic)
Both Rami Malek and Indira Varma were predictably good. Stage design was absolutely great, it's like every piece of decor worked for director's idea. The part where Oedipus was addressing the (invisible) crowd was fantastic. But the ending was weak and I didn't feel stepping away from the original story there was justified. Also a bit too heavy on choreography.
My Master Builder (Wyndham's Theatre)
I've been warned by a more experienced friend that Ibsen's plays are difficult for directors to work with, and now I indeed don't think they exactly managed it this time. Plus, Ewan McGregor's performance was bland.
And why would you cast the (brilliant) Elizabeth Debicki if you'd be always trying to work around her height (by making her walk barefoot for some reason and ensuring McGregor is on the elevated platform when he's talking to her)? Just feels wrong.
My Master Builder wasn't that bad though, just worse than the other two. If it was the only show I had seen this year I'd probably liked it much more, and friends who also went enjoyed it.
Books
My shorter and less frequent commutes continue to be brutal for my reading performance, so I once again wasn't reading a lot in 2025. I still have a few recommendations, although here I am relaxing my self-imposed rules not limiting it to books published this year.
Among the Mosques: A Journey Across Muslim Britain by Ed Husain
Broadly it is a criticism of many tendencies in British Islam from a socially liberal Muslim perspective. But outside of that it is also an interesting story of different British regions and how Muslim life is different between them as the author travels the country and meets different people (for example, Scotland, Wales and London are described as more commonly liberal in comparison to Midlands or Yorkshire). If you don't know a lot about Islam you'll also learn quite a few facts about its different movements and divisions, and that it isn't monolithic.
Must admit it resonated with me a bit because I can also be critical of certain common traits of my own original culture, so the angle of the book is something I definitely recognise. Must also mention though that the social feed of Ed Husain seems to have become far closer towards the deep end in comparison to this book published in 2021, at it happened in the last few years with many right leaning commentators, and the same demand for liberalism and tolerance doesn't seem to be evenly applied to all.
Some People Need Killing by Patricia Evangelista
A great account of the campaign of extrajudicial killings inspired and organised by Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, and it doesn't just shows how bad it was but also explains how it became possible and remained popular propelling Duterte to presidency.
If I had to distill it to a single major point, it would be that when liberals talk about terror campaigns like this they (us) imagine they predominantly or even exclusively affect innocent people, and it will be enough to point that out for the nation to reject that. The problem is that they don't, and especially so at the start when they just gather the momentum. They start to crack down on people who are difficult to defend first, and the rest of the nation really likes that, and when it starts to loop in obviously innocent people, it is already too late.
And Philippines did have a huge problem with drugs. It wasn't possible to say it should have been ignored, and arguing that some methods against it would be even worse was really not an easy task (and so that failed).
I used to work for a company with a large office in Manila, and we used to travel there regularly from London. I remember the year Duterte got elected we were in a restaurant, our London and Manila engineering teams, i.e. people of the same social class but from different parts of the world, and Londoners went "don't worry, you'll get through, you will vote him out next time, don't be too upset" - only to be met with confused looks because pretty much everyone in Manila team voted for him.
So, this book explains very well how it happened! And must say, the ongoing events in the US give it an extra depth (the book was published in 2023).
Central Europe: The Death of a Civilization and the Life of an Idea by Luka Ivan Jukic
The first book I read written by an online mutual!
An exploration of what Central Europe meant for people living in and outside of it, and how the idea of Central Europe itself changed through history along with the political borders. Very densely packed with historical facts and it's easy to get lost in them, so be prepared - but it you manage, it gives you great insight into an underappreciated and underresearched part of the best continent on the planet.
Bonus - films and videogames
I only really liked one film this year, and it was Neflix's Ballad of Small Player. It's like if Uncut Gems was shot by Wes Anderson, and I use both comparison very positively. An explosion of colour, some respectfully deep allegories and great performances.
Similarly, I have only played one new game this year, and it was Hades II, which is great but also extremely similar to original Hades so I don't even know if it counts as a new one.
Here is to more experiences in 2026!
