David Biddle

Frontend Web Developer

2024 end of year roundup

2024 highlights

2024 felt like a pretty good year for me personally - here are a few things I particularly enjoyed:

These came off the top of my head so I think I should probably get better at writing this stuff down throughout the year.

2025 forecast

When I started doing these I said I didn't believe in New Year's Resolutions. I stand by that (I enjoy New Year and I have no desire to turn it into a deadline).

What I will do here is mention a few things I'm looking forward to or hoping to do in 2025. Is this all just me skirting around doing any real self-reflection? Almost certainly.

I am planning to:

I am hoping to:

Film

This year I watched 188 films, of which:

I watched one film (Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl) twice.

My most visited cinemas were Showcase Avonmeads (37 visits), The Cube (25 visits), and the Watershed (22 visits).

This felt like a really strong year for film to me - I had a lot of trouble whittling this list down to 15!

Eligibility criteria: I've limited myself here to films that got a UK theatrical or streaming release in 2024.

The best 2024 short film I saw was Leos Carax's C'est pas moi.

There are still quite a few 2024 films I want to see so I reserve the right to update this list retroactively.

TV

I watched less TV this year, probably because I've watched more films, read more books, and generally got out more.

Eligibility criteria: here I've only included programmes which had at least 1 new episode in 2024.

Music

Anyone who knows me or has seen my Spotify Wrapped will be able to guess that my album of the year is Charli Xcx's Brat (I'm including all of the different versions on the list).

Eligibility criteria: albums or EPs listed as 2024 releases on Spotify or Bandcamp. I'm not including reissues, compilations, or rerecords (so Hosono House Revisited doesn't qualify).

Books

I read 37 books this year, which I think is a record for me, at least in recent years. This was partly helped by me buying an e-reader (I've read e-books before, but on phone or computer screens which are less pleasant).

I think next year I might try and tackle some of the bigger books on the shelf to free up some space (Ulysses, Our Share of Night and Gordon Brown's My Life, Our Times are particular space hogs), so I expect the count to drop in 2025.

Eligibility criteria: the best books of any age which I read for the first time in 2024.

Games

Video

Didn't play a lot of games this year, so I'll give a special mention to Venba, which is a really lovely indie game you can play through in a couple of hours, and asses.masses, an all-day hybrid live event/ game thing I played in March.

Board

Sport

I didn't really do any notable sport this year - I sprained(?) my back towards the end of 2023 which made it difficult and I think I made it worse by failing to take it seriously.

I was meant to do the Bristol Triathlon again this year but I didn't, due to the aforementioned back injury but also the company running it went bankrupt. A new company is running it in 2025 but I don't think I'll be up to it. 2026 maybe!

I did do some swimming (mostly at West Country Water Park).

I think I'm pretty much recovered now, so I'm easing myself back into running. If I feel up to it I'm hoping to have another go at the Bristol half and do some longer bike rides.