My Year in 2023

To get the most important thing stated up-front: 2023 has been a vastly better year than 2022, 2021, or 2020. It was not without its challenges, but all-in-all it has been a good year.

My Year in... Blogging 

I've managed both 120 posts here and 55 on the Imaginarium, so that's good. My expectation is that next year will see much the same here, but will likely see The Imaginarium becoming fallow once the "Isles of Dread" campaign comes to an end.

My Year in... Work

Work has been mostly good this year, but not without its frustrations. There's not much more I can say here, so I'll leave it at that.

My Year in... Health

2023 was mostly a good year, up until October, and then I was suddenly struck down by some sort of nasty cold/flu/Covid type Bug. That basically incapacitated me for most of October and November. Surprise! has likewise had a recurrence of his vomiting bug, and Funsize has had some minor illnesses. All in all, it hasn't been terrible, but the recovery from my illness put a major dampener on that.

My Year in... Gaming

The "Isles of Dread" campaign remains ongoing, though it is now closer to the end than to the beginning. I have now definitively decided that this is the final campaign with this group, which also means it is my final campaign for a good long time, perhaps ever. I remain on the fence regarding the 2024 revision of D&D - if it were published in PDF I would buy it sight-unseen, but I'm really not sure I want another set of thick hardcovers taking up limited shelf space, especially as I'm unlikely ever to play it.

My Year in... Band

Band has been fine, if unspectacular.

My Year in... Resolutions

As always, the wrap-up of annual goals, and setting of goals for next year, are handled in another post. I set a very modest set of goals for the year, so unsurprisingly they have been largely achieved.

My Year in... Travel

We made it away for one overseas trip this year, introducing Surprise! to the joys of France. That was a pleasant holiday, and a good chance to get some Sun. We also enjoyed a short break in York at Easter, which was most notable for Surprise!'s amazed reaction to seeing the Railway Museum. The wee guy loves trains!

Perhaps most of note, LC and I also spent a little time away by ourselves. Which was nice, to say the least - I'd forgotten what a solid night's sleep felt like.

My Year in... Faith

As with many things, this has seen a small but meaningful improvement. This came in two main fronts: I actually managed to spend some time working on the church website, which has therefore alleviated a lot of the guilt I was facing - there's still quite a bit to do, but at least there's some movement.

The other is that in November I was made an elder in the church. Which is a big change, though I'm not yet quite certain of just what I've let myself in for.

My Year in... Love

2023 has mostly been a quiet year, which means that the only thing I really have to mention is the arrival of Lion in our family. She has settled in, and has gradually found her voice over the last several months. Unfortunately, much of that voice consists of her saying "I'm not going for a walk in that!", but never mind.

Otherwise, 2023 has been an in-between year - the children are another year older and another year further on, LC and I marked 11 years married, but 11 doesn't end with a '5' or a '0', so... Which is fine - some years are less momentous than others.

My Year in... Frustrations

For all that this year has been good, there has been one area where I've been trying to tell myself something doesn't matter and that it doesn't bother me. But the truth is that it does, and it does. I'm not going to go into it any further here for... reasons. Probably my biggest frustration here is that this could be quite a simple fix, but those who could make the fix seem absolutely determined not to acknowledge the problem (and, indeed, to insist on the opposite). Which is annoying, because I think it does need resolved, and the alternative resolution isn't the one I would choose.

Oh well.

My Year... Overall

As with last year, I find that my summary doesn't really capture my overall feelings for the year. Unlike last year, that's for a very different reason - I found 2022 to be extremely difficult on a number of fronts, and 2023 has been a vast improvement. It's just that it has been a smallish but noticeable improvement across the board, rather than one or two things that I can point to and say "it's that!". But that's no bad thing, and for the first time in a number of years I can go into the next year with some optimism that things might improve. Which is nice.

And with that, I'll sign off for the year. I hope you all have a very Happy New Year. See you in 2024!

End of Year Update on Goals

 As part of the end-of-year wrap-up, here is the closing update on my goals for the year:

• Books: The goal here was extremely minor, in that I wanted to finish The List. This was achieved with some time to spare. There will be a separate post with the full list of books for the year, but it's not a long one!
• Blogging: My end of year round-up will be post 120 on this blog for the year. The last month has been frantic, but this goal has been achieved. I have also managed just under the 60 posts on the Imaginarium that would have been my target had I set one, which is not bad for not having anything to say!
• Redecoration: The goal for this year was to tackle various bits and pieces... and was largely done by LC. The downstairs toilet was repainted, the carpet in the hallway was replaced, and some pictures were hung in the hallway. We have also replaced the blinds in the living room, which was not part of the goal, but had become overdue.

So that's that: success on all three points!

My goals for 2024 are somewhat similar:

• Books: I would like to read more books in 2024 than in 2023, so I'm setting myself a target of 30 books - approximately 2.5 per month. In years past that would be ridiculously laughable, but with my free time being so constrained I'm really not sure.
• Blogging: Once again, I'd like to post 120 times in the year. I'm still not setting a goal for The Imaginarium.
• Redecoration: The goal for next year is to redecorate Surprise!'s bedroom - this has been the nursery for the last six years, but is now no longer required (or fitted) for that purpose. So we'll look to repaint the walls, replace the carpet (and possibly the curtains and/or blind), and hang some different pictures and other decorations. In particular, one of the pictures in that room was drawn for Funsize, so would probably be more appropriate moved to her bedroom. Additionally, we'll probably look to replace the lightshades in both the kids' bedrooms. Finally, I'd like to look into the possibility of improving the heating and/or insulation in Funsize's bedroom, which can get quite cold at times.
• Complete my Campaign: I'd like to finish the current D&D campaign, but I'd also like to finally finish the writing task associated with it - I've been painfully close for an age, and it would be good to get it actually done.
• Update the Church Website: The site suffered a mini-meltdown a while back, and while the backend has been mostly restored there are a couple of things still to do. But the world-facing side has needed something of a revision since before I arrived, and it would be good to get that done, too.

And that's that. Five goals, all of which have the feel of being nicely doable. I guess we'll see.

The Doctor Who Christmas Special

I've been somewhat negative about "Doctor Who" for several years now - sadly, much of Capaldi's run and all of Whittaker's did nothing for me, and the three most recent specials were something of a mixed bag at best. So I'm enormously happy, and relieved, to be able to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the Christmas special.

First things first: the cast. I never really had any doubt that Ncuti Gatwa would make for a fine Doctor (frankly, they've never had a bad actor in the role, and I didn't think they'd start now), but he was far better then I could have hoped - there's a freshness and a charm to his portrayal that is just fun. Then there's Millie Gibson as Ruby Sunday, who already has the makings of a favourite companion - an Amy Pond, Martha, or Ace.

I very much enjoyed the goblins, and the "Labyrinth"-esque plot (with only the slight disappointment that they didn't have Tilda Swinton as Jareth the Goblin King). And the ship was fantastic - especially the "language of knots". Oh, and "Spelljammer confirmed!" (for those who know...)

And it's really nice to have a happy Doctor for once. Hopefully that will stick.

Basically episodes like this are why I keep on watching the show, even when I'm not particularly enjoying it. Because when it's good, it can be really good. And RTD has excelled himself here.

Gatekeepers

I'm always rather bemused that whenever I call the GP to try to make an appointment, there then follows the dance of the gatekeepers - what seems an ever-increasing battle to avoid actually giving an appointment to see a doctor. I do understand that they're really busy, and that the service as a whole is under-funded. But when the difference between "not a problem" and "this needs medication" can be ascertained with a very quick visual inspection (but only by that inspection), I'm not sure how to deal with the offer of a telephone appointment.

I was particularly amused recently by the question of whether I had been to the pharmacy first, partly because I hadn't had any opportunity, but also partly because if I needed anything beyond over-the-counter medicines, then access to those is blocked (for very good reason) by another round of gatekeeping - in particular, I'd need a prescription from the very person I was trying to see in the first place!

The whole system seems increasingly structured to stop people from using it. But, actually, not all people - basically, the less likely you are to need the service, the harder you'll find it to access on those rare occasions when you do need it.

Oh well. Hopefully it's all nothing.

Christmas 2023

Christmas this year would have been great, but for one thing that blighted the whole.

As with last year, we decided to stay at home on the morning of the 25th. We had a fairly relaxed start, followed by the opening of our presents, then lunch, and then I took the children off to my parents' for a bit. LC remained at home to look after Lion.

At my parents the children continued the Epic Unwrapping and spent a little time with some of their cousins. And then we went on to LC's parents', where LC joined us. We had a relatively relaxed Christmas dinner, then home, a quick watch of the final episode of "Ghosts" (which was great, but for my money wasn't the tear-jerker of last year; still a good way to end). And then bed.

Unfortunately, a bout of illness marred the whole thing - on Friday I started to come down with a sore throat, which just got worse on Saturday, worse again on Sunday, and then LC was hit hard on Monday, just in time for Christmas. Naturally, this kicked off just as the doctors and pharmacies were closed for four days.

We tried really hard not to let it impact on the day, but it wasn't without it's effect - hard to enjoy turkey dinner when anything you swallow feels like broken glass.

Oh well. It could all have been a lot worse - this year more than most I've been sorely troubled by the horror stories from people whose Christmases have been limited or non-existent. So, yeah.

Bad Boys For Life

This is a rather belated review, but I finally got around to watching this film. I consider "Bad Boys" to be one of Michael Bay's few decent films, and at the time I considered "Bad Boys 2" to be pretty much the last decent action film (though it has aged really badly, and there have been some better ones since).

"Bad Boys for Life" is one of the belated sequels that I tend not to like, but it's actually not all that bad - it mixes many of the things I liked about the previous two with some new stuff that is actually worthwhile, the action scenes are handled well (and the car chases rather better than BB2), so it's fine.

It's certainly not classic cinema, though! Basically, if you liked the first two, you'll probably like this one. If not, you won't. And if you're looking for something suitably brainless, this is a decent candidate.

And that's that. Hopefully, I'll watch a film that's genuinely good next!

Experimental Cookery 2023: Easy Sausage Carbonara

This one came from Jamie's "5 Ingredients" book, which I always ifnd interesting but never quite dip into as often as I feel I should. Unfortunately, on getting home from work yesterday I walked into a warzone, and so wasn't able to give this my full attention. One of the consequences of this was that I didn't sequence making this quite correctly, and so had everything else cooked before I even started the sausages.

Despite that, the meal turned out okay. No better than that, but just okay. That said, I now know where I went wrong, so if and when I do this again I know how to adjust it to make it better.

All in all, I'm calling this a success - we had gradually become disenchanted with Hugh's Chorizo Carbonara, so it's good to have an alternative to use for a while.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

I had been planning to see this for my birthday, but in the event we decided against due to some truly horrendous reviews. Now that the film has come to Disney+ we watched it over the course of a few nights.

It's not terribly, but it's not particularly good either.

The truth is, these belated sequels are generally poor - somehow Stallone managed to make a decent one with "Rocky Balboa", but it is very much the exception. "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" was terrible, and while "Dial of Destiny" is better, it's not a patch on the original three.

There are several problems, but the biggest of these is the use of CGI in the action scenes - the characters are very obviously weightless and made of rubber, which means there is no peril and no stakes.

There is also, I'm afraid, an issue caused by Indiana Jones' age - like Picard in the Next Generation movies, he's just not able to carry an action movie, which means the bulk of it is carried by Wombat, effectively making Indy no longer the protagonist in his own movie. Which wasn't good in "Mad Max: Fury Road", but at least the rest of that movie made up for it.

All that said, and despite my comment about CGI earlier, I did find the start of the film (with a de-aged Ford) extremely impressive. In fact, we're only a few years away from Disney being able to do an entire film as a WWII period piece, and with Ford providing just the voice (or even a synthesized voice as with Vader and Luke in recent Star Wars projects). Which on the one hand sounds really grim, but on the other probably represents the best way to do any new Indy film. And we know they're not going to just let it lie.

All in all, I'm glad we skipped this one at the cinema, but I also don't regret watching it now that it has become available. That said, I can't see myself ever watching is again - for me, "Indiana Jones" will remain a trilogy, just like "Toy Story", "Lethal Weapon", and others.

Doctor Who 60th Anniversary

I didn't really enjoy "The Star Beast". Frankly, I felt that it was a preposterous and convoluted plot that existed solely to get to the point where the Doctor had to trigger the metacrisis to win, only to immediately be followed by a terrible handwave to just wish the whole thing away. Throw in a bit of casual misandry, and I was all set to walk away at that point.

Fortunately, the second episode, "Wild Blue Yonder", was vastly superior. This one only had a couple of actors slipping back in to well-worn roles, some nice creepy villains, and a surprising amount of tension, and it all felt like a really well-done episode.

And then there was "The Giggle". I felt that this one was fine. It's not the greatest episode ever, but far from the worst. There were some things I really liked, and for once it was a pre-regeneration episode that didn't consist of just waiting to actually get to that regeneration, which was nice. And Ncuti Gatwa was immediately impressive in the role. The only thing I didn't like was them keeping David Tennant around as an active Doctor - that feels like a way to bring him back if ratings dip again.

All that said, while I thought this amounted to some good episodes, I didn't really feel that any of them, or even the collective of them, made for good anniversary episodes - there's nothing like "The Three Doctors", "The Five Doctors", or "Day of the Doctor" there. Indeed, even the generally-terrible "Dimensions in Time" represented a better anniversary piece for the show, and that was a crossover with "Eastenders" of all things! (As fas as I know there wasn't any anniversary special for the 40th.) In fact, last year's "Power of the Doctor" was a vastly better anniversary special than these episodes, despite coming right at the end of what was, sadly, a rather poor run.

Anyway, that's that. I now find myself more or less looking forward to the Christmas special (and, indeed, it's really good that we're back to actually having Christmas specials!), where after "The Star Beast" I had thought there might be a good change it would be my final episode. So that's a good thing.

Oh, also... I really enjoyed the BBC's Musical Celebration. There has been some really good stuff written for the revival series, and it would good to hear some of those pieces in isolation. And Surprise! enjoyed them too - he loves music of all sorts.

And... Relax

At the weekend I hit an important threshold: unless I've forgotten someone (which remains a horrible possibility), I have now bought all of my Christmas presents. There is still one out for delivery, and three needing to be wrapped, but basically that is the job done.

And that means I've reached one of my favourite milestones: this is the point where I can actually start to enjoy Christmas, rather than it being a source of hassle and stress.

Huzzah!

Made A Mistake

Earlier in the year I decided to give something a go for three months and then make a decision. I did, made a decision. And, I'm afraid it was the wrong one.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

I'm on the verge of cancelling Paramount+, but in a piece of remarkably good timing they've just got the most recent Transformers movie. These have ranged from mediocre to abysmal (though "Bumblebee" was okay-ish), but I've watched all the others so I figured I'd try this one.

And, surprisingly, it's okay. It's not a good film by any stretch, and frankly it's nothing we haven't seen half a dozen times before, but it's not a cinematic abomination like some of the others.

Which isn't exactly high praise. But it's still much better than I expected.

Makes a Mockery

I finished reading "The Fall of Númenor" over the weekend. Like a lot of the recent "Tolkien" books, it struggles to put together a coherent narrative from a great many disparate writings. This one was largely successful, however, filling in a lot of the blanks about the Second Age. (I daresay if you had read all of "The History of Middle Earth" and other books, there probably isn't anything new here for you. I hadn't, so I enjoyed it.)

But my biggest takeaway from the book is a reinforcement of just how weak "The Rings of Power" really is. This is true on three main fronts. The first is the timeline - in the book events play out over centuries and even millennia, while in the show, even if it runs for the mooted ten seasons, it will cover a decade at most. This means, for instance, that there are a scant few years between the founding of Barad-dur and the Last Alliance, instead of the half an age in the book.

The second is the handling of Galadriel, who in "The Rings of Power" just isn't the character Tolkien wrote.

The third is thematic. Númenor, as presented in the book, is as close as possible to paradise on Earth. The Men of that realm are rewarded by the Valar for their aid against Morgoth in the First Age. They are also given one instruction: don't try to travel further West. And, partly due to the nature of mortal pride, and partly due to the influence of Sauron (although the latter only towards the end), people gradually fall away from that ideal and rebel, at first in small ways and finally in calculated defiance of that one edict. And so, they bring their doom on themselves.

In "The Rings of Power", Númenor is presented as being close to that worldly paradise, and being populated by essentially good people being led by essentially good rulers. Númenor, in the show, is set to be destroyed by a natural disaster, just because.

I guess much of this is inherent to the source material that RoP is working with - they have access to only key, small parts of Tolkien's work, notably not including the work here, and so they have to make do. But given that, I can't help but feel that they'd have been better just... not?

#21: "The Fall of Númenor", by J.R.R. Tolkien (edited by Brian Sibley)