Lists

End of year stuff innit. Officially I'm on annual leave all week from work but I said I'd come in and do extra shifts on Hogmanay and New Year's Day to help out and fill in some gaps on the rota. Got to be honest, I 'd rather be at home or out on me bike but they are paying me so can't complain. And it is all brownie points for this time next year...

Right, let's crack on. Films of the year. I'll limit this to stuff I saw at the cinema so that's Marriage Story out (loved it just for the record) and The Irishman (still, erm, only halfway through it anyway) and owt else that I watched on Amazon Prime, Netflix or Sky Cinema.

1. Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood
2. Joker
3. Mid 90s
4. Ray & Liz
5. Destroyer
6. The Favourite
7. Eighth Grade
8. Midsommar
9. If Beale Street Could Talk
10. Booksmart

Quentin's latest just dazzled, and I went to see it twice in its opening week so that's got to speak volumes. I remember coming out and just thinking "Now, *that* is what I call a proper movie". It had its critics but me, not so much. Mid 90s was wonderful and was hardly out at the cinemas at all but is currently on Netflix for those who want to seek it out - the directorial debut of Jonah Hill, rites of passage stuff with skateboarding, hip hop and a bunch of non-actors, a total gem. Ray & Liz is on Sky Cinema at the moment - the detail in this film about a 70s childhood in Birmingham is unbelievably good, autobiogrpahical, tenderness among the squalor. Oh, Destroyer is on Netflix too - one word, ooft!!!

'Albums Of The Year' is becoming ever meaningless to me as whole weeks seem to go by where I listen to old albums by members of The Wu-Tang Clan or am wowed completely by a collection of old Burial Tunes that is hardly current either. But, for what it's worth, here are 10 albums that I really enjoyed and that were released in 2019.

1. Paranoid London - PL
2. Carla Dal Forno - Look Up Sharp
3. Death & Vanilla - Are You A Dreamer
4. Karenn - Grapefruit
5. Stephen Mallinder - Um Dada
6. Pye Corner Audio - Hollow Earth
7. Weyes Blood - Titanic Rising
8. Sleaford Mods - Eton Alive
9. Floating Points - Crush
10. Jay Glass Dubs - Epitaph

If you're a man or woman of a certain age then you can't fail to be impressed by two similarly aged folk making squelchy acid house on old analogue synths, aided by guests such as A Certain Ratio's Simon Topping and Suicide's Alan Vega. That's Paranoid London for you. Elsewhere, I somewhat predictably loved the first solo album in decades from Stephen Mallinder AKA Mal from Cabaret Voltaire AKA The Cabs' Mal. Misterft on here tipped me off about Weyes Blood (cheers!) and I really got into her whole off-kilter Laurel Canyon vibe, Pariah and Blawan got together as Karenn and I quite impressed my oldest girl (well, she said "I *quite* like it" which equates to pretty much the same thing in my book) by playing her the likes of opening track 'Lemon Dribble'.

But.....as I said earlier, album of the year (and most years since its release in 1993) was really 'Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)' and I fully intend to keep on, in their words, bringing da ruckus in 2020, albeit in a sensible, family man, middle-aged kind of way.

Ruckus