It’s time for my annual round-up of the year just gone (you can read the previous year’s reports here).
My change in working circumstances has very much driven these stats as they did last year. Next year, well, this year now, I will be fully retired and therefore in theory all time will be my own. It will be interesting to see what difference that makes, if any.
As ever data for this report has as ever been taken from several sources including last.fm, Audible, Swarm, Fitness Stats and a couple of spreadsheets that I keep. And, as ever, “Lies, damned lies, and statistics” very much applies here.
Healthily
The data shows that for the last three years the number of steps that I have taken has remained pretty flat and I don’t see that changing in 2025 either.
I’m not one of life’s natural exercisers, but this year we have taken up Pilates as a way of getting some all-over exercise and in an effort to stave off problems later in life. Time will tell if that pays off.
Bookishly
A reasonable number of books were read this year, along with a small number of audiobooks. Interestingly, I read more physical books than eBooks.
I still struggle with finding time to sit down and read. This is partly because these days I have such a short attention span, and also because I have such a long list of other things I want to do; something has to give, and, regrettably, that seems to be reading.
The full list of books I read can be found here.
Musically
These stats are so meaningless these days as to not be worth reporting on, really. The issue is that the way I consume music has drastically changed since moving towards retirement. When I was working at a desk, I would constantly have music on in the background. These days, music is listened to on vinyl, and that can’t (currently) be scrobbled (logged).
This is shown all too well in the chart below which shows the number of tracks logged by year and that has fallen off a cliff face in the last three years. I still love music but, like books, it too has to be squeezed along side other listening such as podcasts and audio books.
You can see what I am playing and more listening stats over at last.fm.
Podcasts
The app I use to listen to podcasts used to allow me to see how many I’d listened to in a year broken down by podcast but that information has now been paywalled. Even so without that information I know what my top three are: The Rest is Entertainment, The Corona Diaries and The Album Years.
Gigs
I am looking at the list of gigs attended in 2024 and am amazed and slightly disappointed to see I only managed to get out to five. I actually went to the theatre more times than that and maybe that’s the point. As I get older I find it easier to go to the theatre than I do a gig.
That said, I do have three gigs already booked for 2025: Mike + the Mechanics, Steven Wilson and King King. I think that the Wilson concert at the RAH I saw in 2018 is probably the best I’ve ever seen so I have high hopes for this time round which is always a mistake!
The full list of gigs I’ve been to can be found here.
Moviely
Slightly down on the film front this year but 51 is not too shabby. Of the new films highlights were Wicked Little Letters, Civil War, Blink Twice and, of course, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl.
The full list of films I’ve been watching can be found here.
Productively
Having said last year that I was going to retire this section here it is still! I still use Remember The Milk to manage me but, as can be seen from the graph below, my home tasks are no match for my work ones.
Socially
I persist with Twitter mainly because I have built up a reasonable following there on my Williams fan account but I don’t love it or its owner.
Here’s a good example of the issues there. I posted this in what was meant to be a lighthearted way but received all sorts of vitriol from Argentinian Colapinto supporters who misunderstood the context and got all hot under the collar. Some responses were downright nasty but I ignored them and moved on.
Creatively
A new entry for 2024.
I found that work was stifling my creativity. I don’t mean that in a derogatory way but simply that with my mind concentrating on work I had no capacity for other creative endeavours. That’s changed now.
The image below shows the “contributions” I made via my GitHub account. GitHub is where I and millions of others store our development code. The lighter the green, the more contributions made. Seeing as I don’t make contributions to anyone else’s code, this is all projects of my own, and it is fairly obvious that from September onwards I got a lot more active. I really hope to continue this into 2025.
Similarly, I have written 61 blog posts on this site and a further 32 on my technology blog. Given that each one takes me quite a while to write and gets read by less than ten people, that’s quite the commitment. Why do I bother? Two reasons: I like to do it, and it’s great to look back upon.
Best Of
Time for the awards for 2024.
Of the things I would recommend from 2024, three of the four predate that year, in one case by 61 years! I’m not sure if that’s because it was a low point for books, music and gigs or I just chose badly. Either way here are my favourite selections:
Film: Civil War, Dir. Alex Garland. Very powerful and clearly well timed for a Trump election year. I have seen it twice already and am sure I will come back to it again in the future.
Gig: ABBA Voyage. We’ve seen it twice now and it is simply amazing. You will really believe that ABBA are there on stage in front of you.
Book: Pierre Boule’s Planet of the Apes. I don’t know why it took me so long to discover the source for all the films but this book really is a cracker.
Music: Producers, Self-Titled. There was a deluxe reissue of this in 2024, and I took both the CD and vinyl variants as it’s an album that I love. Predictably, I prefer the original version to the remixed one, but it’s still a fantastic album.
That’s it and I really hope the nine of you reading this enjoy it 🙂
Keep up the good work!