The end of an old year and the beginning of a new one is the occasion for the generation of lists of all manner of things and I for one find most of them unenlightening and tend to give them a miss. Fortunately these kinds of lists disappear after the first few days of the new year.
The most useless lists are those that try to predict what will happen in the coming year. They are just guesses based on the whims of the list creator. Retrospective tabulations of the major events of the past year are also not particularly enlightening, since I most likely knew about them anyway.
The only lists that I look at factual ones like those of people who died during the year, to see if there are some familiar names whose demise did not make big news when it happened.
The only non-factual lists that I look at are those of film critics whose views I respect that give the best films of the year, just in case I missed reading about some less-publicized but good film. If I find one, I add it to my ‘must see’ list.
The only thing worse than the lists are “New Year’s Resolutions”. My feeling on that is if something in your life needs to be changed, start now and don’t wait until New Year’s Day. I have not made a New Year’s Resolution in many decades. The last one was “I shall make no more New Year’s Resolutions”. I aim to see that one through.
The only resolution I have ever made seriously is to get the new joint paper calendar up with all of the things I know about on it, and I’ve managed that for many years now. It is a simple practical action twice a year (if you count the purchase as a separate action) that makes our lives more peaceful.
What is a joint paper calendar? A calendar printed on joint paper, or a collaborative calendar on paper, or a calendar derived from the contents of jointly authored papers, or…?
Traditionally, the end of a list is null.
I sometimes find lists of good books and other publications useful. There are a lot more of them than films and it can be difficult to find the good ones.
As an example, I like sci-fi and fantasy. If I see a book about vampires, I might be able to tell the difference between something with the quality of an Anne Rice novel (they seem to be classics -- they did a lot to spawn the modern fantasy genre) and some quick pulp fiction cash grab by a lazy author. The former uses language as an artistic tool. The latter… I’ve seen some of them do the type of laborious setup that can be seen in the pun cartoons Mano likes to share. But instead of puns it’s torturous conversational twists that allow for a witty comeback. Or what would be a witty comeback if only it had shown up organically instead of being forced.
As another example, I probably wouldn’t have given Lessons in Chemistry a second look but after seeing it on one of NPR’s book lists it turned out to be an excellent read.
Predictions:
The doings of the burning garbage pile that is the Tory government are surprisingly easy to predict: They never learn from mistakes, they live in a “bubble” and they always go for the worst, most base of options.
The unpredictable parts are when they choose sheer lunacy. Now we learn Sunak tried to get back Dominick Cummings -- the most destructive political operator in post-war Brit history- into the government.
Phil has a good record of predicting this craziness.
Major Tory Political Flashpoints in 2024
The Guardian sometimes has interesting lists of books or films.
And New Scientist sometimes list good new titles of science fiction.
No John, the end of lists is ‘s’.
Rob, 🙂