Boxing Day has passed and we’re into the odd twilight that is the time between Christmas and Hogmanay and seeing as everyone else spends this time in the pub avoiding the sales, or even madder, actually in the sales, I’m going to take this quiet time to do a little rundown of the year for my best and worst of the year…
So cracking on let’s leap into this…
Best Overdue Death-Margaret Thatcher.
Without her incredibly overdue death I’d not have written the first post in my blog, or even finally felt a sense of release though at the time I don’t think I would have predicted her becoming such a martyr figure to fucked up sociopathic Tory scum as she has become.
As you can see, there’s still a little bit of my heart blackened with hate for her and especially her spawn.
Best Flounce–The EDL’s Tommy Robinson
Tommy Robinson came into his own after the senseless murder of Lee Rigby which he used as a dragnet to get every snide wee fucked up racist in the country to quietly agree with the EDL’s obvious bigotry. During the summer he hosted an hilarious Q & A session on Twitter, which saw me being blocked by him.
However just as the EDL were at a peak, Robinson flounced off saying they were becoming ‘too extreme’ for him. This set people’s Spidey Sense tingling as frankly. the EDL had been ‘too extreme’ from the fucking off! Still, it’s now hilarious to see the EDL crack and fracture.
Most Annoying Americanism of 2013–Calling TV programmes ”shows”.
There was a time when Telly programmes were called programmes. They would be called dramas, serials, kids telly, documentaries, anything. You’d have entertainment programmes that would be called shows. They’d normally be things like Seaside Special which normally featured a paedophile or a Tory (sometimes both) presenting the worst of British Light Entertainment in a tent in the pissing rain during the summer. It was clearly a term relating to certain types of programmes.
Now everything is a ‘show’. Breaking Bad, Football Focus, Doctor Who, Panorama, and I bet if someone did a 12 hour documentary about Auschwitz someone would give it the jolly title of ‘show’. Stop it! It’s lazy.
The Iain Duncan Smith ‘Cunt of the Year’ award–Iain Duncan Smith.
In decades to come history will look back at this man and write a terrible history of what he’s done. Sadly too many people will have suffered by them
The Ed Millband Useless Bastard award–Ed Milliband
You’re opposition leader against a coalition people hate. You should be leaping ahead in the poll. No, you’re not because you’re as useful as a Vatican approved condom.
The Jack Whitehall Middle Class Comedian award–Jack Whitehall/Everyone on BBC Three/Channel 4
Back in the day comedians came from all walks of life. You’d have a mix of people and this would mean something may have a broad appeal, which meant much of British comedy came from pointing out class divisions, the inequalities of it and we could laugh at it. Something like Dad’s Army is full of this. Politics was the lifeblood of British comedy along with satire, slapstick and
Now comedy in the UK is dominated by graduates talking about being at university without spotting the irony in doing so. Comedy is dominated by comedians speaking in the same accent, making crap gags about the same things and it’s boring.
The Michael Bay Award For Film of the Year–Man of Steel.
Ever wondered how it would be possible to make a worse film than Superman IV: The Quest for Peace? Man of Steel provided the answer to that question.We need an edgy murdering Superman because that’s what hope is about.
The Rupert Murdoch Award for Journalistic Integrity–The Guardian’s treatment of Dev Hynes
In a year when Julie Burchill still writes for newspapers, this managed the amazing task of the worst piece of vile attack hackery disguising itself as journalism I’ve seen. Well, today The Guardian decided to go ahead and print the interview without any mention of the previous article or Hynes saying on Twitter he wants nothing to do with the paper again.
There is however a suitably feeble excuse…
The Heroes Reborn Award for Cocking Up Superheroes–DC Comics
Many years ago, Marvel Comics decided to turn their like into Image Comics with the disaster which was Heroes Reborn. This gave us this.
DC Comics gave us the New 52 a while back. It gave us this.
Nuff said.
The Jamie Theakston Award for Worst TV Festival Coverage–BBC Three
I love festivals as anyone who’s read through my blogs will have worked out but TV coverage of festivals is always all over the place, but this year BBC Three’s coverage ploughed new depth as they managed to take what was a good year for festivals and concentrate on the same dreary tedious student Indie bands at every festival they covered.
Then there’s presenters so completely lacking in joy, charisma or talent telling us of these bands without joy, charisma or talent that they love.
The Jamie Redknapp Award for Pointless Footballing Punditry–Michael Owen.
In the event of a nuclear war all that’s left is the roaches and Michael Owen endlessly talking in a dull monotone to any roach who’d listen about how they all need to do to win football matches is to put the ball in the net.
That’s the future of the human race: Michael Owen endless talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking….
The Ray Winstone MassiveTool Award–Alex Ferguson
For decades we’ve had to put up with Ferguson telling us he never held grudges or vendettas. The minute he retires he releases a book outlining the grudges and vendettas he’s held for years.
Tool.
The Partick Thistle Award for The Film Which Should Have Done Better in 2013–The World’s End
This was a year of actually some decent films. I saw the splendid Excision which is a lovely mix of Cronenberg and Lynch. Lord of Salem is a ridiculously fun horror film. Pacific Rim is the most fun I’ve had at the cinema in ages but they all have something in common in that they didn’t do as well as they really should have.
The film that should have been fucking enormous is Edgar Wright’s The World’s End.
It did ok, It ticked over but it never hit the heights of success Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead did. That’s a shame because it’s a better film than the other two, and those other two are very good films indeed but without getting too much into spoiler territory here The World’s End isn’t the big obvious fist punching end that many expected it to be.
It’s actually more than that. It’s also a more adult film than I was expecting with the alien plot being something that works well within the main plot of the story of five middle aged men. It’s also very British so that a lot of this will skim over an overseas audience; the wee smile that slips on Paddy Considine’s face when his character hears I’m Free by the Soup Dragons for the first time in decades is something only people who remember a certain time in British popular culture will get, while for everyone else they’ll lose the nuance in that scene which comes early in the film.
See, this is a film for people roughly aged between 40-50. The references in the first 20 minutes or so are things that were unique parts of our youth so that when the film gets to it’s ending it can read as a tragic ending, but I’ll leave plot discussion there. Search the film out or buy it. It’s a fantastic film. It might have helped if it wasn’t released in the middle of summer when we actually had a glorious summer. Ah well…
And finally...
2013 was pretty crap. Sure, some things were fun but it’s been a hard year for not only me, but many people I know and things don’t that much better in 2014. However I’m going to carry on blogging in 2014.
That means my 20 favourite comic book films. My top 20 pop songs. More stuff about politics. A football blog about Scotland’s World Cup send off in 1978. The history of Neptune Comic Distributors. The return of my personal history of Glastonbury Festival. More about the Glasgow comics and SF scene of the 1980’s, and of course porn!
Happy new year!
