2015 Abridged

So that was a year. I fitted quite a lot in. Where do we start?

Travelling? Okay, go on then, ten foreign countries; ten UK cities. Which is respectable for a year. Although two of the countries were tiny and one of the cities shouldn't count. Fave foreign city? Not Zurich, despite the hype; I'm gonna go with Marseille - how comes I haven't been to France more? Fave country?  Not Myanmar, despite it having been top of my list for who knows how long, obviously nowhere near as expensive as Zurich, but I still felt like I was getting ripped off at all turns.  I'm gonna go with Uganda instead.  What a humdinger of a country.

Music? Well there's not been albums that I've liked as much as last year - although I've probably not listened to as many either, but I actually went to gigs this year. Five of them. Although none especially cutting edge - two retro tours; two middle aged men who have been around for ages; one young polymath who has been getting regular mentions on this blog since it began. What was the best?  The one that made me feel the youngest, obviously.

Theatre? I saw some pretty big shows this year - the new Tom Stoppard; Bradley Cooper in Elephant Man; Nicole Kidman in Photograph 51; Rob Brydon in Future Conditional; David Morrissey in Hangmen - and still the best thing was improv.  Improv should be rubbish. This wasn't. I saw it three times.  That's how un-rubbish it was. It even made me go and see other improv. That was rubbish. And all was well in the universe. Despite me doing a fair amount of research, Lights... was probably better than any stand up I saw this year too, although honorable mentions to Jenny Collier.

Books? I made the bold statement on the third of January that Station Eleven was the best thing I read all year. I was correct.  Although I did really enjoy Smart, I'm looking forward to sucking the rest of Teri Terry's back catalog dry and I'm never gonna turn my nose up at a Parlabane novel (although you wait seven years for one and two turn up at once).

Art?  I had an Art Fund membership this year and barely used it, which was slack of me. I got to the two biggest shows of the year: Carsetn Holler and Ai Wei Wei and sort of enjoyed both of them.  The only thing that Art Fund really did was get me to the suburban nowhere to see Michelangelos. Which was unexpected.

Big Fat Bucketlist Moments? Northern lights. Gorillas. Getting my neck cut open. Tick, tick and tick.