2023 end of year roundup
This year has gone pretty well, especially compared to last year which was a bad one. Good things that happened to me include:
- a promotion (I'm now a 'senior frontend developer')
- the product I'm working on went into Early Access
- holidays in Edinburgh and Warsaw
- I spent more time at the Cube
I don't do resolutions but as usual I'll express a vague intention to do more posts here in 2024.
Film
This year I watched 122 films, of which:
- 61 were 2023 releases
- 117 were films I'd never seen before
- 110 were feature films
Eligibility criteria: I've limited myself here to works that got a UK theatrical or streaming release in 2023.
- Anatomy of a Fall
- Barbie
- Beau is Afraid
- Bottoms
- The Eight Mountains
- Godzilla Minus One
- How to Blow Up a Pipeline
- Killers of the Flower Moon
- Past Lives
- Pearl
- Reality
- Rotting in the Sun
- Rye Lane
- Sick of Myself
- Smoking Causes Coughing
- Tar
My short of the year was Pedro Almodovar's Strange Way of Life.
TV
Watched less TV than usual this, year, which might be a good thing.
I still need to finish The Curse, so I might add it to this list retrospectively once I'm finished.
Eligibility criteria: here I've only included programmes which had at least 1 new episode in 2023.
- The Bear
- Beef
- Ghosts
- The Last of Us
- Starstruck
- Succession
- Taskmaster
- Jury Duty
- Poker Face
- Time
Music
Eligibility criteria: albums or EPs listed as 2023 releases on Spotify or Bandcamp. I'm not including reissues, compilations, or rerecords, so Shifted Phases's The Cosmic Memoirs of the Late Great Rupert J Rosinthrope doesn't qualify.
- Choose Mortality - Flesh & The Dream
- Desire, I Want To Turn Into You - Caroline Polachek
- Dismantled into Juice - Blawan
- Dolphin - Greg Foat & Gigi Masin
- False Lankum - Lankum
- Gentle Confrontation - Lorraine James
- Heavy Heavy - Young Fathers
- Jarak Qaribak - Dudu Tassa & Jonny Greenwood
- Jester/Prod1 - Martyn Bootyspoon
- Laugh Track - The National
- Love Hallucination - Jessy Lanza
- LXXXVIII - Actress
- My Back Was a Bridge For You to Cross - ANOHNI
- PARANOIA, ANGELS, TRUE LOVE - Christine and the Queens
- Polygon - Galya Bisengalieva
- Praise a Lord Who Chews but Which Does Not Consume... - Yves Tumor
- Radical Romantics - Fever Ray
- SCARING THE HOES - JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown
- Selvutsletter - Lost Girls
- Souvenir - Olof Dreijer
- The Ones Ahead - Beverly Glenn-Copeland
Books
Eligibility criteria: the best books of any age which I read for the first time in 2023.
- Black Leopard, Red Wolf - Marlon James
- Crook Manifesto - Colson Whitehead
- The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century - olga Ravn
- Harlem Shuffle - Colson Whitehead
- Piranesi - Susanna Clarke
- This is How You Lose The Time War - Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
- Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow - Gabrielle Zevin
- A universal History of Iniquity - Jorge Luis Borges
- A Legacy of Spies - John le Carré
- Seven Empty Houses - Samantha Schweblin
Games
Video
Earlier this year we went to the British Library's Digital Storytelling exhibition and as a result I've spent a lot of time this year playing more story-focused games. I've really enjoyed Inkle Studios's games in articular and I'm looking forward to playing their newest one, A Highland Song.
- 80 days
- Detention
- Disco Elysium
- Firewatch
- Heaven's Vault
- I Was a Teenage Exocolonist
- Overboard
- What Remains of Edith Finch
Board
- Dobble
- Herd Mentality
- Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza
Sport
This year I:
- Did the Bristol Half again(02:05:05) 👟 - this was a bit slower than I'd hoped for, but there's always next year.
- Completed the Bristol Triathlon (2:49:39) - a PR.
- Swim: 35:50
- T1: 5:33
- Bike: 1:10:42
- T2: 2:22
- Run: 55:09
- Did some bike riding with Newtown Park Cycling Club
- Sprained my back so have done less than I'd like in the second half of the year.