The Big End Of Year Roundup Post: 2021

Hello and welcome to my annual end of the year roundup post!

I'm sticking to the format I used last year as it seemed to work well and seemed a good structure to use when trying to sum up what had been a mind boggling year. 

Needless to say, 2021 has been similarly mind boggling, hence clinging to the security blanket provided by my 2020 end of year roundup post structure.

Hopefully you will discover in these lists some interesting reads and listens, and some food for thought. 

As has been the case in previous years, I will be running a countdown of my favourite songs of the year on a one track per day basis, starting on the 2nd of December and continuing until the 31st of December. For those of you who use Spotify, a playlist of my Top 30 songs will also be compiled in real time. As usual, a disclaimer: For me, when it comes to compiling the Songs of the Year list, the year runs from November to November. This means I can include any songs I just missed out on including on the previous years list.

Albums of the year

12) Delilah Bon, Delilah Bon

11) Courtney Barnett, Things Take Time Take Time

10) Lana Del Rey, Blue Bannisters

9) Self Esteem, Prioritise Pleasure

8) Noga Erez, KIDS

7) Ruby Fields, Been Doin' It For A Bit

6) Sleater-Kinney, Path of Wellness

5) Olivia Rodrigo, SOUR

4) Billie Eilish, Happier Than Ever

3) Penfriend, Exotic Monsters

2) Albertine Sarges, The Sticky Fingers

1) Pom Pom Squad, Death of a Cheerleader

12 books I've read and loved this year 

Philip Pullman, La Belle Sauvage (Book of Dust vol 1)

Elizabeth Gilbert, City of Girls

Emma Glass, Rest and be thankful

Anthony Horowitz, The House of Silk

Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff, Mother Country: Real stories of the Windrush children

Dr. Phil Hammond, Dr Hammond's Covid Casebook

Helen Reddington, She's At The Controls

Elif Shafak, 10 minutes 38 seconds in this strange world

Kiley Reid, Such a fun age

Sosuke Natsukawa, The Cat Who Saved Books

Ellis Peters, A Morbid Taste For Bones

Adam MacQueen, The Prime Minister's Ironing Board

Podcasts and Radio from 2021

To be honest, I haven't listened to as many podcasts this year as I have in the past. Over in radio land, the highlight of the year was definitely the ninth series of John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme, which treated the restrictions of lockdown as a chance to experiment with form and, in doing so, created something very special indeed. 

Long term film podcast Best Pick reached the end of its initial odyssey and, having survived both the project itself and the confines of lockdown, elected to carry on with a different and evolving film related mission. The exit interview episode is worth a listen, as is the (fairly) recent episode on The Taking of Pelham 123.

I hadn't expected to enjoy (and 'enjoy' is perhaps the wrong word anyway for this podcast...) Pandora Sykes' most recent project Pieces of Britney, but I found myself getting sucked in despite myself. The final episode raises some intelligent and thought provoking points about the nature of fame in the late 90s and early 2000's, and now, and has the advantage of being less reliant on the dramatised scenes used in earlier episodes. 

One of the highlights of the Private Eye calendar is the magazines annual Paul Foot Award, which is awarded for high quality investigative journalism work. Every year the Private Eye Podcast, Page 94, introduces listeners to the journalists nominated and their investigations before announcing the winner. It's always a really interesting, inspiring and thought provoking listen that leaves you feeling positive about the future of investigative journalism. You can listen to this years episode here. 

12 articles I've found interesting/enjoyable this year [Non Covid articles] 

The Masked Vigilantes Coming for Your Horrible Boss (Alessio Perrone, Narratively)

Writers are scared. How could they not be? (Eleanor Halls, Pass The Aux)

The country rejecting throwaway culture (Peter Yeung, BBC)

Meet the womxn bus driver baddies of TikTok (Ashley Tan, ID)

Young, male and anti-feminist - The Gen-Z Boys Who Hate Women (Hannah Ewens, Vice)

Bristol bus stop to nowhere installed as a joke 15 years ago is still there (Tristan Cork, Bristol Live)

John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme might just be a work of radio genius (Jonn Elledge, The Big Issue)

This will end with President Tucker Carlson (Helen Lewis, The Atlantic)

What I learned working in a public library (Sam Parker, Penguin Books blog)

A place to sit down (Tom Taylor, Salt)

Life after the bomb (Susan Griffin, The Big Issue North)

How two BBC journalists risked their jobs to reveal the truth about Jimmy Savile (Poppy Sebag-Montefiore, The Guardian)

8 articles I've found interesting/enjoyable this year [Covid articles]

Would you climb a mountain for internet access? (Alizah Kohari, Rest of World)

Dr Feel Good? The NHS DJ helping lift Covid gloom for millions (Jessica Murray, The Guardian)

Pandemic lessons from the North (Jennifer Williams, Manchester Evening News)

'I've learned the importance of hope' - how North Manchester General's Victorian infirmary got through a 21st Century pandemic (Jennifer Williams, Manchester Evening News)

The Argument for Everyone Taking This Entire Summer Off (Amelia Tait, Vice)

Life on the door (Jack Dulhanty, The Mill)

London council worker's bus odyssey sparks Twitter storm (Sam Francis, BBC)

She was studying during lockdown. Then she fell into a virtual world (Jack Dulhanty, The Mill)

Image one by engin akyurt on Unsplash

Image two by Shunya Koide on Unsplash

Image three by Catalin Pop on Unsplash

Image four by Museums Victoria on Unsplash

Image five by CDC on Unsplash

Helen Reddington at Louder Than Words festival

Today I went to see Helen Reddington (neé McCookerybook) being interviewed by the excellent Roisin Dwyer about her new book, She's At The Controls, at Louder Than Words festival. She was on fine form: Articulate, intelligent, funny and self-depreciating. After the Q&A she played a few songs on her guitar ('A Good Life With A Bad Apple', 'Mad Bicycle Song' and one about Barcelona I'm not 100% sure of the title of), which seemed to go down well. It wasn't a huge crowd but, given that she was scheduled against a bloke from Dire Straits and his memoir, it was a respectable number of attendees and the audience seemed to be a nice variety of people who listened and asked intelligent questions. Helen was considerate enough to ask the audience to applaud Roisin and the sound engineer at the end too, which doesn't happen enough.

Normally I'd pay to attend all three days of Louder Than Words but the ticket price has gone up this year and my finances haven't sufficiently recovered from last year to take the hit. Similarly, I couldn't find enough events on the schedule that I wanted to attend to justify paying the ticket price. 

Last year Louder Than Words did go ahead, but as an online only event that attempted to make the best of things during the second Covid lockdown. I didn't attend because I was even poorer then than I am now, plus I doubted that the event would go ahead given that it was announced either just before or during the Greater Manchester local lockdown. 

It was odd being in Manchester for the first time in a year. I haven't needed to go into the city since last November when I was doing exam invigilation work for Manchester College and you forget how enclosed and claustrophobic the ever increasing density of really tall buildings makes you feel. We don't have that in Stockport because we have less tall buildings and those that we do have tend to be both shorter and more generously spaced, meaning the sky gets more of a chance and you don't feel hemmed in in the same way.

After Helen's event a gentleman called Darren from Bolton, who Helen knows through an online art club they both attend, and I adjourned with Helen to HOME next door where we had hot drinks and pizza and talked about music, art, Louder Than Words, work and lots of other things. It was nice though I do feel guilty that I didn't get a round of hot drinks in. 

It was a bit of a day for old friends actually as I'm sure I saw Pascale from Better Buses For Greater Manchester sitting outside Trove with a friend as I went past on the bus into Manchester. On the way home one of my sixth formers from last year said hello to me before heading for the back of the top deck where he proceeded to do the gangster thing with one of his mates.

I was a little apprehensive about travelling into Manchester on the 192 but, if anything, more people are wearing masks at weekends and keeping the bus windows open than they are during the rush hour to work in Stockport during the week. I suspect that weekend bus users may not be commuting to work by bus during the week whereas many weekday bus commuters have quite probably been commuting in large numbers into Stockport throughout all the lockdowns and have become fatalistic and nihilistic re Covid, hence over 90% of them not wearing masks on every bus I catch during the week.

Today was also a day for arsey bus drivers: There was the driver of the 201 outside Piccadilly train station, who shouted at the man who asked him if the bus was going to Stockport 'DOES IT SAY STOCKPORT ON THE FRONT OF THE BUS? NO IT SAYS HATTERSLEY!'. I think he must have felt guilty afterwards because when he had to re-open the door to let someone else on, he did at least shout that the hapless gentleman who'd made this mildly voice enquiry should be getting on the 203 though, in the end, he got on the 192 with me instead. The driver on that bus nearly missed my stop on the basis that he felt I was taking too long to come down the stairs, conveniently forgetting how close the bus stops are together on that part of the route and that it takes a finite amount of time to get from nearly the back of the top deck and down the stairs. I see that the recent pay rise after threat of strike action hasn't improved the temperament of Stagecoach Manchester drivers. Mind you, the driver shortage seems to be getting worse so I expect the remaining drivers are probably wishing they were on strike, increased pay offer or not.

Thank God It's Bandcamp Friday!

The pandemic has laid bare the extent to which artists have become dependent on touring and merchandise deals for income. It's also assisted in highlighting the pitiful royalties artists receive from streaming. It was perhaps with this in mind that the "online record store and community" Bandcamp, which provides streaming, downloading and physical sales services direct from artists to fans, decided to launch Bandcamp Friday in March 2020.

As they say on their website, every sale on Bandcamp generates "an average of 82% of the money" for the artist in question. Which compares very favourably to streaming services, and to the average royalty payment received via record companies for physical sales of music. With Bandcamp Fridays, the idea was to have one day of the month where Bandcamp would waive their "revenue share" of sales on the site, meaning "an average of 93% of the money" would go to artists on sales made on Bandcamp Friday.

Originally only intended as a short term aid to help musicians during the pandemic, Bandcamp extended the scheme a number of times during 2020 and, in August, announced that they would be continuing Bandcamp Fridays until the end of 2021.

Today is Bandcamp Friday, and it's very reassuring for me to know that by buying downloads on Bandcamp today I will be directly contributing in a meaningful way to the incomes of artists. What's also nice is that the availability on Bandcamp of tracks I wish to buy has increased over the past year, meaning I can buy a wider range of music from a greater number of artists than I could in 2020.

For those of you in the UK, it's worth bearing in mind that Bandcamp Friday runs from midnight to midnight, Pacific Time, and that the UK is 7 hours ahead of the US (I've allowed for the clocks going back at the end of October in this calculation) but, even if you do miscalculate by a couple of hours, the artists you buy from will still see a good return on the sale.

Today I intend to purchase downloads by Lydmor (two tracks in her case), Jacknife Lee, Blue Hawaii, Jess Williamson, Cults, Molchat Doma, Noga Erez and Lucky Iris. 

Photo by FPVmat A on Unsplash