Non-fishing Stuff of the Year 2020
As you know if you read this blog, I can yap fishing and fishing tackle until the proverbial cows come home, but I also love my music, films, good TV series, books, podcasts etc., and whilst my ideas on what is the best Stuff of the Year is no more valid than anybody else’s, I thought that sharing the non-fishing things that have floated my boat during this strangest of years might be a bit of fun. Please feel free to disagree with me entirely here, but better still, drop a comment down below and tell me what some of your non-fishing Stuff of the Year is………….
People of the year 2020 - Let’s start here because it needs to be said - Anybody who works in the NHS and care homes and in any other care or health related ways which causes them to be around this bastard virus as they help the thousands upon thousands of people who need them. Respect to you all because you deserve more credit and thanks and pay rises and holidays than you are ever going to get. Thank you, thank you, thank you. We are forever in your debt.
TV series of the year 2020 - Schitt’s Creek. I studiously avoided this comedy series until the noise of such positive reviews and copious awards became too much and I capitulated (it’s on Netflix). I love thrillers and horror and serial killers and all that sort of stuff, but I don’t do comedy sitcoms, and especially not from the US. Schitt’s Creek is a Canadian production though, and there’s a difference. My wife and I are three seasons into it, and I have to say that in a year when none of us quite know whether we are coming or going, Schitt’s Creek is absolutely perfect. You start off not even liking the main characters very much, but a few (nice and short) episodes in and you start to fall in love with the whole thing. There are so many laugh out loud moments that mix so well with just enough touching but never schmaltzy stuff. Genius if you ask me, but then Eugene Levy is a legend anyway, and judging by the other Levy family members involved in this comedy sitcom, that is one talented Canadian family.
Film of the year 2020 - 1917, but obviously not at the cinema and I am bloody kicking myself that I didn’t get to watch this technical marvel on a great big IMAX screen. The cinematographer Roger Deakins is insanely good and should have won about fifty Oscars by now, and as a spectacle here at home on my TV in 4K and with the surround sound shaking the doors on their hinges, it’s some experience. That sequence at night in the town with that insane lighting and choreography is worth the price of the disk alone. If and when the world gets back to normal, I am hoping that 1917 will be on some IMAX screens again.
Book of the year 2020 - Long Range by C.J.Box, book no.20 in the brilliant Joe Pickett series. I have loved every single one of the Joe Pickett books by the US author C.J.Box, and his latest is another great read. I could have easily gone with the equally brilliant Hard Cash Valley, the third book in Brian Panowich’s Bull Mountain series, but there is something about the Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett and what he gets up to that helps me lose myself in a world of vast open spaces that we don’t have here in the UK. My post disappointing book of the year was Devolution by Max Brooks. I thought his World War Z book was incredible and also highly original, but his latest book Devolution didn’t do it for me at all, and I had to force myself to finish it.
Podcast of the year 2020 - The Rewatchables. My youngest brother put me onto this podcast and if you love the sort of films I do then it’s bloody fantastic. When the lads talk about a film I know well and can really relate to, it’s about as good as podcasting gets to me. I have gone back and listened to many of their older episodes which talk and reminisce and laugh about films I know and love, and their recent episode about Rocky IV was outstanding (want to know how the cold war really ended?!). If you love films like these guys do then you’re in for a treat. I am also really enjoying the Seven Stripes Fishing podcast, and the new Night Shift Podcast from the Surfcaster’s Journal lot is a great addition to the fishing podcast world.
Album of the year 2020 - “Endarkenment” by the UK band Anaal Nathrakh, just pipping the utterly glorious “The Reckoning Dawn” by another mighty UK band, Winterfylleth. The new Anaal Nathrakh album is not gloriously uplifting like The Reckoning Dawn, and to ears which are not used to extreme metal and are unable to decipher what the hell is going on, Endarkenment is going to sound like an impenetrable wall of noise. I am here to tell you though that Endarkenment is just about the most insanely catchy and melodic and downright hummable slab of industrial tinged black metal you could ever hope to hear. I dread to think how many times I have played this album on Spotify. Every single song is perfect, and with each listen this monster of an album opens up even more, to the point that I am literally humming along to those wonderful melodies as they chainsaw their way into my brain.
Rather satisfying buy of the year 2020 - I don’t know about you but it pisses me off how ridiculously expensive spare blades are for Gillette razors, so a while back I told myself that enough was enough and I took a punt on the “Amazon Brand Solimo Male 5 Blade Men's Razor with 6 Refills” for well under £10. Brilliant, easily as good as the vastly more expensive Gillette stuff, and cheap as chips. Job done. Yep, this might be massively unexciting, but Gillette can rip me off no longer.
