I’m ending the year, as I traditionally do, with some of my favourite photographs from that year. I’m no photographer, and it just didn’t turn out to be one of those years where I felt visually inspired (most of the time), but these I like anyway. Just why I take more photographs of staircases thanRead More
Normally at this time of year I would produce a series of blog posts on my cultural adventures over the past year, typically a post on favourite music, one on books, one on films, one on art exhibitions visited, and one on photographs I have taken over the year. I like reading the ones IRead More
Last in my reviews of the year comes books (I saw many films but time has run out for making a constructive narrative out of them). I read a lot in 2024, though it never feels like I have read enough, always with a book at my side to the point that I practically panicRead More
For the third in my series of reviews of 2024 we have images. These are some favourite photographs of mine taken over the year. Each one has a link to a higher resolution version on my Flickr site. My favourite photograph of the year is at the top.
Next up in my series of posts on cultural highlights for 2024 is works of art. I visited some very fine exhibitions over the year, notably a number in France, including David Hockney’s ‘Normandism’ show at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rouen and a recreation of the first Impressionists show at the Musée d’Orsay inRead More
It’s time for my regular December round-up of favourite cultural highlights from the year, broken up into different topics, the first of which is music. Much of the music I listened, or saw live, over 2024 was old favourites, but there was some exploring among favoured genres: jazz, experimental, guitar music. Here, then, are someRead More
Last among my short series of posts reviewing highlights from the year is a post of highlights. While music, reading and images were constants, everything else was bitty. The following gathers up a few standout things seen or experienced during 2023, for the memory. My favourite film of the year was the choice of manyRead More
For the third in this short series of reviews of 2023 we have images. Below is a selection of favourite photographs of mine from across the year. All have links to higher resolution copies on my Flickr pages. My favourite photograph of the year is at the top.
Next in my reviews of the cultural year past is reading. It was, as ever, a diverse year, in which I invariably had three or four books on the go at the same time (smaller books to be carried with me, weightier ones to be consumed at home). Given the number of them, I amRead More
Another year, another soundtrack. The first in this site’s regular summings-up of the cultural year from my perspective is music. Spotify’s annual account of your listening statistics informs me that I listened to 3,427 songs lasting 20,271 minutes in total (or fourteen days), representing 1,416 artist performing across sixty-three genres, headed by folk, avant-garde jazzRead More