It’s that time of year again! To celebrate our many failures across 2024, a year marked by more rambling, genius ideas, and yet we weren’t elected for any political positions. Despite being ideally suited to some lofty position where we could screw it up with our total incompetence.

Never mind. For your Christmas Day embezzlement, you can check out our review of what we got up to in 2024. Yes. It’s a highlights reel. Deal with it.

Blogging Mishaps From January to December 2024

We’d like to say it was a year of firsts for us, but it really wasn’t. But what we did find, come the tailed of 2024, is our love for blogging remains forever strong.

TikTok and whatever else may be trendier these days, but there’s still a strong blogging community and we’re going to continue plaguing it with nonsense like this.

Those were just some of the highlights. All of them written by us, by the way. We’re not lazy. No AI was used at all.

Personal highlights? Our podcast on autism, masking, and good mental health is up there. If you ever wonder WHY we write so many posts (4,000+ and counting), it’s because ASD. Hurray! But the podcasts are cathartic enough and we’ll be expanding on a few more themes in 2025 and beyond.

Contradictorily, our Ultimate List of Everything Woke was one of the year’s commercial highlights and triggered off many, many SNOWFLAKES.

But asides from the usual satirical stuff, we did delve deeper into a certain new cultural world. One we’d not paid too much attention to before. Until now!

Our Fave Short Stories We Did

Before we started a new job in June 2024, we were doing weekly short stories. Hoping to get back to that sporadically next year as it’s a fun writer’s challenge. Or we may save the effort to focus on entering a few writing competitions. We shall sea shells.

Anyway, one of our favourites was from February with Fennec the Fox Chooses the Moon. We just liked that one

Plus, that other story about the monster Desmond and his love for cupcakes. A bit of dark sci-fi silliness, with the Desmond monster loosely based on a Desmond we knew online who was rather lacking in his capacity for wider existence considerations.

Our Fave Art Stuff

This year we’ve not done a huge amount of reading, mainly as we’ve been too busy with a new job. All whilst balancing that with writing this site all year round, watching films, and playing video games.

Truly, it’s a careful balancing act.

One that allows for staring at paintings. Much easier than reading a book, we assure you, and increasingly rewarding for us. A highlight being with a beautiful artbook called Hokusai’s Fuji that gather’s the iconic artist’s work together.

Cultural Highlights of 2024

Okay, so it’s not all about us! Culture is the other half of this website (the other bit is satire, duh!) as you probably spotted with the art bit above.

BUT! As it’s that month for Best of the Year stuff, we’re covering our favourites of 2024 because you just have to know because.

TV Show of the Year

Don’t even have to think about this. The Shōgun TV show adaptation of James Clavell’s 1975 masterpiece is something else.

With an outstanding cast, score, and magnificent setting, you really are transported 400 years into the past. All to see swashbuckling, bumbling Englishman John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) trying to adapt to feudal Japanese way of life.

Some slight spoilers in the clip below, but this is the level of quality it brought to 2024.

If you’ve not seen it yet, the thing is on Disney+ and is a must. Apparently, there’s a sequel on the way, too. As Clavell didn’t write one, it’ll be interesting to see the narrative arc this one takes.

Film of the Year

This isn’t a film from 2024, the best from this year we’ve see is probably Dune: Part Two, but our favourite one we’ve watched is from 2022.

And it was a low budget psychological dark humour horror number called Pearl. Anyone who thinks actors aren’t talented and it’s easy needs to see Mia Goth in this performance, as she really is a force of bloody nature. Quite incredible.

It’s a character study of a severely mentally ill young lady whose dreams of stardom are scuppered. The result? Bloodbath! All completed with a brilliant script, some excellent set pieces, and Mia Goth at the centre of it all as a shining light in modern cinema.

Song of the Year

Tears for Fears’ iconic track Everybody Wants to Rule the World… feels kinda more apt than ever before. What struck us when researching the band was how bloody good they were live. Very impressive.

It’s a multi-layered, deceptively simple song with some powerful lyrics. Nothing ever last forever, indeed, but for now the band is still touring and have a gig in Las Vegas next month.

Dance Moves of the Year

The incredible former gymnast Katelyn Ohashi bags this one (easily). Above is her hugely popular routine from 2019 that, five years on, continues to draw praise.

We just love her energy and positivity. She may have retired from the sport (those involved do so in their early 20s), but now she’s engaged in touring as a dance performer, is an author, and all around positive force online.

Oh, yes, and despite looking like that… she was bodyshamed by a bunch of dimwit, obnoxious trolls. And she came out the other side smiling and happier than ever, too. Another bloody force of nature. 💪

Game of the Year

From out of the murky depths we have the excellent Metroidvania title Animal Well. This indie game by Billy Basso has incredible range.

Players control a blob-like character and explore a well populated by mysterious animals. Despite its cut back graphics, there’s a lurking sense of uncertainty, dread, and the joys of exploration.

The brilliance of this is you’re never quite sure which animals are going to be friendly. Always on guard, always exploring, it’s a masterclass in platforming perfection.

Special Mention for the Playdate and Mars After Midnight

We were also lucky enough to get a Playdate handheld earlier this year (🟨). It’s a nifty little thing offering oddity games ideal for busy adults.

One of the highlights is Lucas Pope’s Mars After Midnight (2023), an amusing oddball space community management sim. You host nightly sessions and pre-screen entrants to the likes of cyclops anger management classes.

When not busy letting aliens in and out, you need to pick snacks for them to eat, and they rate the experience at the end of it all. Weird? Yes! Unique and fun? Certainly!

Books of the Year

Two books stood out for us, one in the form of This is Caravaggio (2016). It takes an almost graphical novel take on the artist’s dramatic life, from punching people in the face to painting masterpieces.

Cats in Art (2020) is the other work we love, with its fluffy back cover (akin to a cat!), historical notes on felines, and some fabulous pictures of the beasts in action.

We intend to read a bit more in 2025, returning to novellas and the like. Just a bit easier to read when on a busy schedule! Let us know any suggestions you’ve got there in the comments bit.

Word of the Year

This year we’ve found ourselves using “the” a lot. Therefore, it’s the word of the year.

Our 2025 Predictions

Wrapping stuff up now, let’s take our customary stare at the impending 12 months and see what we can predict:

• Tinned sardine prices shall remain stable
  • See our pompous editor year in review for more on the international tinned sardines crisis
• Baked beans prices set to rise, sparking more nationwide British rioting
• England’s right-wingers set to storm the capital in frenzy over the Labour government, all because they can’t spend three minutes online researching what socialism is and how it’d actually benefit their lives (like the NHS, a socialist system, did until the Tories almost destroyed it with underfunding and other capitalist ventures over 14 years)
• CATS!
• Hot air balloon trips will see a roaring trade in Q1 and Q2 of 2025, until the usual batch of greedy tossers latch onto the concept and ruin it all for everyone in pursuit of wealth
• The Nintendo Switch 2 will launch, just in time with a perfect escapist overload to block out increasingly depressing global activities from the usual batch of alpha male wankers

That’s our set of predictions! Join us on the journey as we do this silly stuff, hopefully to add a slight spring in your step for 2025 and beyond. 🟡