Things of the year!

David Blackwood's January Visit Home

I have a "love, hate, kiss, marry, kill" relationship with all the year-end lists, like "Best Movies of the Year" or "Best Albums of the Year". I enjoy them and to a certain point, depend on them to fill me in on what I missed out on while I was busy doing other things like, I don't know, buying groceries, talking to friends, or looking at trees and trying to guess their height. It gets in my craw (wherever that might be) when many different dictionaries announce their "word of the year" that aren't even a word but "words". They're often phrases like, "brain rot", "rage bait" or "TACO" or some other faff. I wasn't surprised that Merriam-Webster chose "slop" as their Word of the Year. I'm still amazed by how quickly AI agents and their use became mainstream. What was strange was just how bad some AI-generated content by "professionals" was (looking at you Coca-Cola and McDonald's). This crap output was dubbed "slop" and it only goes to show you can fool some of the people some of the time, and the rest will call you out on your slop. An even worse type of year-end list is "Pantone's Color of the Year". This year's colour, "Cloud Dancer", appears to be wisps of white, which is even more underwhelming than last year's "Mocha Mousse". It had the heart of chocolate pudding but the soul of a neglected rural outhouse. What I'm saying is I expect more from The Oxford English Dictionary or The Economist. That being said, I expect a lot less from myself, so here's my list of lists of some conventional, some idiosyncratic, "things of the year".

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Seen in November

Two greats of British cinema don't always see eye to eye in Slow Horses.

It's been a busy month or so, when not much was watched or seen and finding time to post was difficult. Before the year ends, here's what was seen last month.

Slow Horses S05
Apple TV+
If this was the only show worth watching on Apple TV+, the subscription would still be worth it. It's a plot that feels ripped from our own conspiracy laced multimedia drenched world in which a few malevolent characters wreck havoc on a society preoccupied with its own reflection. Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) and his team of fallen MI5 agents are still in fine form, even if their form is never really that fine. In this season, a group of disaffected terrorists (which I guess is redundant to say) concoct a scheme using MI5 tactics against MI5. This season, Roddy Ho (Christopher Chung) comes to the foreground as the honey-trapped agent, as does the eerily quiet Coe (Tom Brooke), who is the first to discern the strategy in play. Meanwhile, the most MI5-iest of the Slow Horses, River Cartwright (Jack Lowden) is at his worst. He makes mistake after mistake while still believing he's above the rest of the rabble. Despite some critics saying the show has lost a step, I disagree. I'm particularly fond of the agent Shirley (Aimee-Ffion Edwards), who is still the most effective Slow Horse while struggling with addiction, and the indomitable Diana Taverner, played with such confidence by Kristin Scott-Thomas.

Only Murders in the Building S05
Disney+
This unlikely murder mystery comedy starring Selena Gomez, Steve Martin, and Martin Short returns like a comfy old cardigan you don a few times a year. It's a little old, a bit musty and predictable, but you can rest easy knowing it's there for you. There are the usual outrageously underused cameos, a series of misdirections and red herrings, but it all works out in the end. What I find odd is that the comedy in the show is so much safer than Martin and Short's live shows, but that's fine.

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