Annual Roundup

No prizes for guessing that ‘having a child’ is my dominant theme of 2025. Randi’s pregnancy already seems like a lifetime ago, but I’ll never forget our regular bus journeys to Denmark Hill for midwife visits, scans and movement checks. Thankfully, everything went smoothly and since October we’ve been happily getting to know our son.

Another massive highlight of the year was our two week holiday in China, which I’m so glad we did. In 2025 I was also lucky enough to become a German citizen, in a personal act of rejoining the EU. After many, many viewings Randi and I also successfully moved house… albeit staying on the very same road! And the end of the year I had some major changes at work, which will certainly keep me busy in 2026.

Finally, this year our family lost two of its enduring figures: Sabina and my grandma Doreen. We miss them both.

Travels

• Chicago (January) – We welcomed the new year at home with Catherine & AJ playing with Mr. Speaker Bear, counting to ridiculously high numbers and reading Green Eggs and Ham.
• China (April) – Our big trip of 2025! Heartfelt thanks to everyone who reassured us about going when we worried about the chance of food poisoning in early stage pregnancy. Instead, Randi and I had an amazing time together in Beijing and Chengdu, from high-speed trains to delicious food tours, crazy live music bars and my day trip to Chongqing.
• Edinburgh & Kirkcaldy (May) – The trip in which Katie & James introduced us to Jet Lag, while Lea and Abi showed us the very worst art in Kirkcaldy.

• Chicago (July) – A brief but jam-packed solo trip to Chicago over 4th July. With Toggolyn I struggled to get to the bottom of the Nygard mystery, at Catherine & AJ’s I had a very special first meeting, and with the Dietz family I appreciated a rooftop conversation about parenting while fireworks lit up the sky.
• Lutterworth (September) – Overnight stay at the very lovely Kilworth House for Ellie and Michael’s wedding!

• Chicago (December) – We knew baby’s first flight had to be somewhere special. So, we closed out the year at the same place we began by flying back to Chicago to spend New Year with Catherine & AJ. This meant our kids could hang out together for the very first time, and I am sure that this will be the first of many, many Chicago trips for our child! So far this one has had plenty of Bread and Jam for Frances, Eloise and My First Carcassonne.

Live!

I have a feeling that this category will basically disappear from next year’s roundup 😂

• The Merchant of Venice 1936 (January) – Shakespearian adaption starring Tracy Ann-Oberman in an electrifying portrayal of Shylock, which got me thinking a lot about the history of the character.
• Joshua Radin and Ellen Krauss (January) – A chilled-out night in Camden with some charming American stage presence.
• Lavender, Hyacinth, Violet, Yew (February) – Bush play which we should remember for its sensitive and nuanced handling of intergenerational differences and buried grief, but actually will forever be known to me and Randi as The One Where The Table Leg Broke.
• The Score (March) – Brian Cox is Johann Sebastian Bach, and Johann Sebastian Bach is very unhappy indeed to have to meet King Frederick II of Prussia. Impossible to take your eyes off the guy.
• Live music bars in China (April) – Two crazy fun evenings in Beijing and Chengdu, even though we had very little idea what was actually going on. Like, did the people on stage actually know each other?!
• Cockfosters (May) – Last year I totally forgot to include The Truth About Harry Beck in my annual roundup. Oops. But this year, I definitely won’t be forgetting this rowdy, zany, sketch comedy inspired show about finding love on the Underground, so thanks again to Steven and Sadie for organising this!
• The Gang of Three (May) – Ah, this was really, really good! 1970s Labour party titans Roy Jenkins, Anthony Crosland and Denis Healey battle it out for the leadership. (Spoiler: none of them win.)
• House of Games (June) – I think we all had questions about this adaption of David Mamet’s 1987 thriller about con-men and confidence scammers in Chicago. It seemed particularly odd to water down the original ending so much! But, an enjoyable night out if you can get past the accents.
• Nye (July) – Thanks so much to Melissa for taking us to the National to see whatever-the-theatre-equivalent-of-a-biopic is about Aneurin Bevan, brilliantly played by Michael Sheen. While it is somewhat hagiographic about the NHS, there was one particularly interesting scene in which – having achieved his dream – Bevan is suddenly overwhelmed by endless, conflicting demands on the Secretary of State for Health… which rather nicely illustrated the need for compromise and trade-off in any healthcare system.

On Screen

• Severance – Catherine and AJ introduced us to the meticulously crafted world of Lumon Industries at the very beginning of 2025, and watching the first two seasons was easily our prestige TV highlight this year. In particular, the finale of the first season was phenomenal. (Just don’t skip the intro!)
• Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes – Silly, fun, low-budget Japanese time-travelling comedy, as recommended by Katie.
• Conclave – My last visit to the cinema, at least at time of writing. I enjoyed this backstabbing story of Vatican intrigue, although it’s pretty superficial and the people you’re ‘supposed’ to root for are still deeply eye-rolly.
• 12 Monkeys – This 1995 Terry Gilliam film is a clever take on the “send tough guy back into the past after a catastrophe” genre of sci-fi. But my god, the romance is tough to swallow. (Mental note: I still need to watch Brazil…)
• Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl – Featuring the job-killing robot gardener Norbot, and the return of Feathers McGraw!
• Thames Water: Inside the Crisis – Wry satirical comedy, set in a world in which England’s water supply was privatised but without any competitive market pressures whatsoever. Some performances slightly over-the-top.
• Doctor Who – This was a difficult year for Doctor Who. While new companion Belinda showed a lot of promise, Ncuti Gatwa’s second season never hit the same great stride as last year, and ended with a sadly premature regeneration. On the other hand, watching the finale with an enthusiastic audience of fellow fans in a central London cinema was a lot of fun, especially for the scene with Jodie’s surprise appearance.

• Jet Lag – OK, so when I said Severance was our ‘TV’ highlight of the year, Jet Lag was the thing we actually loved the most, especially during Randi’s pregnancy. We even bought a Nebula subscription to watch without ads. If you don’t enjoy watching Sam, Ben and Adam racing around on public transport and doing challenges, there’s something wrong with you.
• Landman – Wry satirical comedy, set in a world in which Men are Real Men. (Technically I only watched the first episode of this with Todd, but that was enough.)
• Highland Cops – Another favourite watch during the evenings of Randi’s pregnancy. You definitely get the feeling that the Highlands of Scotland are policed by a team of about seven people, but they’re all very nice, and there doesn’t seem to be much crime about anyway.
• Location Location Location Australia – The show we started watching once our supply of fresh UK episodes started to look dangerously depleted. Literally everyone says they’re looking for “open-plan living” like there might be some other kind, but we never see any alternatives.
• The Bear – Currently we’re midway through the fourth season, and sadly this already feels like a show which has past its peak, stuck retreading the same ground already covered. Episodes which focus on Sydney remain the most watchable.
• The War Between the Land and the Sea – December’s five-part Doctor Who spin-off, pitting humanity against the Sea Devils homo aqua. This was very uneven. The scenes of the human baddies were easily the worst part, but there were some good moments with both ‘ordinary guy’ Barclay Pierre-Dupont (unexpectedly called upon to negotiate on behalf of all humanity) and UNIT’s Kate Lethbridge-Stewart. The ending, much like the original Doctor Who episodes which inspired this series, is also just incredibly bleak. There should have been another way…

That Moment When…

• …at Pizza Arte, we finally got my sisters on a call together at the same time to break the big news.
• …a hospital managed to lose my blood by somehow couriering it to a completely different hospital, even though it only had to move from the 7th to the 4th floor of the building. (And this was not even the first time my blood had been lost this year…)
• …the National Grid media team belatedly responded to my email, signing off with “hopefully […] your friend group’s harmony can be restored”. It was. Thanks, Anna!
• …one of the Fantastic Stories I bought home from my mum’s – a favourite collection from my childhood – gave Randi genuine nightmares.
• …I chatted to Geoff Marshall on a bench at Penge East station while waiting for the delayed Southeastern service to Brixton.
• …after realising that our local corner shop sold blue Fanta (aka Lilt) I started popping in often enough that a fellow shopper, in the process of buying a can of beer, felt moved to stage a gentle intervention by saying that he “sees me in here buying this a lot”.
• …we danced to the 8-bit themes from Word Rescue, Mixed-Up Mother Goose, Worms Blast and Sim City 2000. Gotta start ’em young.
• …Randi just couldn’t stop humming the Snack Zone theme.
• …our wonderful midwife, Liv, stopped by the ward after the birth at the same time of our previously-scheduled antenatal appointment, just for a chat. My hero of 2025.

Has it been a great year for the world? No, definitely not. But 2025 was a wonderful year for my little corner of it. Wishing everyone a relaxed and peaceful New Year.

« A family Chrismukkah special |