2025 roundup

We're back again. Typing up a viral sensation - this website still has no analytics, still no evidence and is still deeply committed to plausible deniability. Putting down the cultural breadcrumbs that distracts me from the slow, constant realisation that adulthood is mostly just admin and going for walks.

This year has felt like a genuine "progress year" the kind people on LinkedIn describe with alarming, bright-eyed fervour, beginning with the tedious phrase “Here’s what I learned from X” and ending with some heroic metaphor that collapses under even the gentlest scrutiny. Still: progress all the same.

Outside the 9-5, most of my energy has been poured into the ongoing project of improving bricks and mortar in south-east London. Last year I wrote this sitting beside a half opened toilet; this year I’m writing from a study, looking out over south-east London, smug as someone who casually mentions cold plunges, a person I once mocked and have now become. Over the course of the year, we said goodbye to the pebble dashing, survived the loft extension and now have a completed kitchen and bathroom - luxuries after 12 months of an airfryer and a camping stove with 1 working hob. We're still living amid lingering chaos in the living and dining room and a first floor that looks like the scene of heinous crimes but honestly at this point I'm emotionally attached to having at least one room in a constant state of 'nearly there'.

Work also had a year. edyn.care grew 70% and won a Care Award, which sounds impressive — and it is — but the credit belongs to the team. I’m mostly just hovering nearby, keeping the wheels vaguely attached, occasionally asking annoying questions in meetings, and trying not to break anything important.

And then there’s the wider world, still beautifully complex and, frankly, unhinged. But our individual lives, when you strip away the noise, remain remarkably simple. Don’t be a dick. Be there for family and friends. Don’t get hypnotised by the macro when the micro is right there in front of you. Focus on what you can touch, fix, and love.

Anyways. Here’s the 2025 cultural roundup. Same format as before: deeply personal, borderline unnecessary, and offered with the full knowledge that nobody asked for it. Bring on 2026. 💪

Music:

I’m happy to report that music listening continues to be central to day-to-day existence. In 2025, 45,438 minutes of the good stuff was consumed - a 23% increase on last year. I organised and logged my records like the organised adult I sometimes pretend to be, added a few new bits to the collection, and even spent some time in Logic making electronic music of my own. None of it is suitable for public consumption - not because it's avant-garde but because it's pretty awful - but it’s given me an enormous amount of joy, which is basically the whole point. There’s been a shift in my morning routine too: NTS Radio has become the default wake-up companion, which means Radio 4 has been banished to the bin. (I still love you, Amol Rajan — this isn’t personal, it’s just not working anymore).

Anyways. Here’s what I’ve been listening to.

Spotify playlists: Music for dancing: Disco | House | Afro 🪩 / - If you have any dance floor belters, lmk.

Standout tracks/bands/albums are:

• Annahstasia - Tether. A debut album that arrives feeling like it's been around for years. Her voice is a middle ground between Nina Simone and Grace Jones. Listen to the whole thing. Don't skip. Let the end of Believer take you away.

• Olivia Dean - The Art of Loving. I've found this album quietly addictive. A smash hit pop album which isn't overproduced and lets her voice act as the anchor.

• Lightnin' Hopkins - Mojo Hand. Music at its true essence from the 60s - put a genius in a room and press record!

• Dave - The Boy Who Played the Harp. an honest album in which Dave interrogates his identity, his success and the pressures that come with it. "Chapter 16" with Kano feels like a torch being handed over.

• Everything is Recorded ft Sampha, Laura Groves - My and Me. A gem from XL Recordings label boss Richard Russell.

• Svanebord Kardyb - Cycles. 2 mates making beautiful music.

• Lucrecia Dalt, David Sylvian - cosa rara. Any fans of Tom Waits will enjoy.

• Milton Nascimento - Francisco. No words are actually spoken but so much said in this truly overwhelming song.

• MF DOOM - Licorice. I can’t leave DOOM off this list. I've spent some time digging into his Special herbs production volumes. Any DOOM fans who haven’t read Ta-Nehisi Coates article spending a few days with DOOM need to check it out here. ALL CAPS. I also read the biography by S.H Fernando Jr this year, more on this below.

Restaurants/5:

• The French House: 4.6/5 - A favourite this year! I highly recommend getting the chocolate & rum mousse it's sensational.
• Dory's 4.6/5 - A Margate must for seafood by the beach.
• St John: 4.5/5 - Nuff said.
• Kinneuchar Inn 4.3/5 - The fried chicken sandwich is worth the Monday queue.
• Chubby Dumplings 4.5/5 - A Brockley market staple which acts as a comforting Sat am treat.
• Fallow 4/5 - A bday treat. I can't remember much but was good.
• A Wong 2.5/5 - It's obviously good but is it worth the outlay? I'm not sure.

Podcasts:

• The Go to Food Podcast - Great foodie gossip and restaurant recommendations from London's best chefs. A good place to start is Phil Howard's ep - the chef who worked under Marco Pierre White and opened The Square which went on to garner 2 Michelin Stars and now runs Elystan Street.

• Test Match Special - A long comforting audio blanket. Test cricket serves as a good reminder to slow down and appreciate small things like did a small circular item flying through the air swing more in the am or pm.

• Adrift - How a family survived being stranded in the Pacific for 38 days with amazing sound design woven in.

• The A to Z of David Bowie - Obviously.

• The Screen Rot Podcast - The romance from 2023/24 continues. Up the rotters!

Top TV:

• The Traitors Celebrity
• Adolescence
• White lotus
• Motherland
• Slow Horses

Top Movies:

• One Battle After Another
• Joy
• A Real Pain
• North of the Sun
• Being John Malkovich
• Will and Harper

Books:

• S.H Fernando Jr - The Chronicles of DOOM: Unraveling Rap's Masked Iconoclast. A meticulously reasearched book demonstrates the mask wasn’t just an aesthetic flex - it was a philosophy and the freedom to create without being consumed by celebrity. Part biography, part love letter. A must for any DOOM fan.
• George Eliot - Middlemarch. I haven't finished it yet but I've fallen in love with it. It's as good as everyone says. It’s a 900-page psychological X-ray of human behaviour as relevant as it was then as it is today.
• Henry Blofeld - Sharing My Love of Cricket: Playing the Game and Spreading the Word
• Adam Buxton - I love you bye
• Spike Milligan - Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall
• Ken Smith - The Way of the Hermit: My 40 years in the Scottish Wilderness
• Yuval Noah Harari - Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI

Comedy/Gigs:

• Theo Croker
• Van Morrison
• Neil Young
• Oasis
• Radiohead
• Glenn Moore

Board games:

• Linky

Places

Here are a few of the places that brought joy to my year:

• NC500 - what a trip. Anyone thinking of doing the route, go anti-clockwise, give yourselves 10 days and stop at all the seafood shacks.
• Mexico - 2 weeks on a 'raid trip'.
• Deal - the Rose Hotel is a winner.
• Portobello beach - A beautiful spot for those who visit Edinburgh.
• Les Misérables - I cried a lot!

Youtubers

• Wild Homestead
• Amoeba
• Dwarkesh Patel
• Fernwee

If you made it this far, thank you. See you in 2027!