Consumption 2014
Some of my favourite pieces of content that I have consumed this year.
Best Book
There’s only really one choice for my book of the year — and that’s not because I’ve only read one book. And if you follow me on Twitter it won’t come as a surprise, but my book of the year is Political Order and Political Decay by Francis Fukuyama — his second volume of his masterwork tracing the evolution of political institutions from pre-history to the present day.
PO/PD, as the cool kids aren’t calling it, builds on the first volume and cuts across large swathes of history, drawing out the similarities and differences between different states and different times to figure out exactly what makes modern liberal democracy inevitable. To accomplish this, Fukuyama considers issues like how state can grow to be effective (such as Prussia), and why some states end up corrupt and clientelistic (like Southern Italy and Greece). Not only this but Fukuyama then goes on to talk about a phenomenon he calls political decay — how institutions, when outpaced by changes in technology and culture can become gridlocked and ineffective. It sheds particular light on the current US gridlock — which he attributes to 19th century “courts & parties” style government, rather than modern, European style government with a strong bureaucracy.
My explanation isn’t doing it justice — but basically it was fucking brilliant, with a new mindblowing truthbomb dropped on every other page. Go read it — you’ll never have guessed that 19th century civil service reform could be so much of a page-turner.
An admirable runner-up to this would be Flash Boys by Michael Lewis — a comparatively quick read on how high frequency traders rigged the US financial markets, and how a plucky band of traders managed to beat them at their own game. If you were sceptical about the stock market before reading the book, you’ll be wanting to keep your money under a mattress after.
This year I also read Beyond The Wall by Elizabeth Pond. It was published in 1993 so isn’t new, but is a brilliantly detailed history of exactly how the two Germanys were patched back together after the Cold War. Reading it 21 years on perhaps isn’t ideal — but it doesn’t feel hugely dated, at least until you reach the last chapter when it idly wonders about some sort of European Monetary Union…
Finally, I also read Hard Choices by Hillary Clinton this year. As you might expect it is all about positioning her for her run in 2016. Basically its “Look, I’m mates with all of the important people already, look how tough I am with various international bastards and look how close I am with Aung San Suu Kyi”. It also takes a lot of time retreading Benghazi to stop that being an issue on the campaign trail. The only two big takeaways from it for me were that Hillary sounds uneasy being folksy and that despite writing the book, Hillary still doesn’t have a good line to take on Edward Snowden, so I dare predict that could hurt her from the left (or the Rand Paul right) in the election.
I actually went to a book signing she did at Waterstones so got to shake her hand (though the book was pre-signed), and exchange a few words. Obviously in the queue I was full of bravado when trying to answer the question “What is the most succinct form of words I can utter to the probable next leader of the free world, that can effect the most change in a direction I would like?”, so was planning to say something about how she should pardon Snowden to rebuild trust, or maybe get her arse into gear on climate change.
In the end, I shook her hand (we had to present our empty palms to the secret service guy watching the queue) and feebly mumbled something like “I thought the ‘smart power’ you talk about in the book was a really interesting idea”. And that was that.
Worse still, I don’t even think that ‘smart power’ is an interesting idea — it seems to me to be more of a rhetorical convenience to explain away the inconsistencies in American foreign policy between alignments made for reasons of morality/values and alignments made out of strategic pragmaticism, rather than anything substansively meaningful. Ah well.
Best Film
I don’t think I have a singular best film this year, though I have seen lots that I’ve enjoyed. I don’t have particularly sophisticated taste in films — but I did like The Raid 2, Captain America 2, Guardians of the Galaxy and — surprisingly — Edge of Tomorrow. The latter was genuinely great fun, and the premise and time travel nonsense all seemed to mostly make sense. Perhaps the biggest surprise was The Lego Movie on the basis that it wasn’t just not terrible, but it was actively great. I didn’t think it would be possible to pack so many complex themes (capitalism vs socialism, communitarianism vs cosmopolitanism, free will, etc etc) into a kids film, of all things.
Amazing Spider-Man 2 felt more like an obligation as someone who is a fan of superhero films, and Expendables 3 was nowhere near as fun as the first two.
Godzilla was also pretty good — but I felt like they’d filmed the wrong bit. Why not have a film about Bryan Cranston solving the Godzilla conspiracy, rather than some tedious generic solider man protecting his generic family? Interstellar was almost great too — it looked astonishing, it was really gripping and full of big ideas… and then it all falls apart in the last 15 minutes. As I said to Liz leaving the cinema, like the characters in the film, I think my love for her transcends time and space… but then I also know that this is a neurological delusion.
Best Play
I’ve been to see quite a lot of plays this year, because I’m like totally cultured. The best though, by a long way, was Darrow at the Old Vic. It was a one man show starring Kevin Spacey, in his last production before leaving the theatre as its… main theatre guy. And it was everything I wanted in a play. In other words, it was just one bloke, talking about politics for an hour and a half with minimal focus on talking about feelings or any of that nonsense. And it was great.
Clarence Darrow was an American lawyer, best known for fighting a landmark civil rights battle before winning the Scopes monkey trial, and Spacey acted the hell out of it.
This year I also saw an adaption of 1984 at the Playhouse, which was fun — but initially confusing as rather than stick with the structure of the book, the play was instead framed by Winston having been in Room 101 the whole time — and the rest of the play being made up of memories/flashbacks. If you hadn’t read the book, it would have made for confusing viewing.
Whilst not a play, it took place in a (sort of) theatre, so I’m going to mention it here, but the event of the year was undoubtedly Robin & Brian’s Compendium of Reason, this year’s instalment of their annual Christmas variety show, which took place just last night as I’m writing this. And it was spectacular. There was Festival of the Spoken Nerd blowing giant smoke rings, Grace Petrie singing about her dog, and who knew that live, on-stage calculus could be so gripping? Whilst there was no commander Chris Hadfield this year, the rest of the line-up more than made up for it — with too many names to mention and recall. And I never thought I’d see The Cure on the same bill as Eric Idle.
Best TV Show
This year my show of the year surely has to be The Newsroom. A controversial choice, but as it had its third and final series the show became some of the greatest hours of television I’ve ever seen.
People complain that the series is basically Aaron Sorkin having a rant through the mouths of characters, but that is what makes it so great. Similarly, on their own each individual strand of the show would make for a densely plotted, nuanced discussion of some big ideas — so to see Sorkin masterly weave it all together is nothing short of a masterpiece. Yeah, thats right, I said it.
A very honourable mention must also go to The Colbert Report. Whilst perhaps not the show’s best year (that would have been 2012), it ended this year with the sad realisation that “Stephen Colbert”, the greatest comedy character of 21st century, is essentially no more. The last show aired this week, so there’ll be fifty million other thinkpieces celebrating it, so you don’t need me to explain — but to have watched Colbert Super PAC unfold in real time, and to see the sheer quality that it and The Daily Show could turn out night after night is enough to make you sick with envy that anything you do will never be a one hundredth as good or relevant.
The sad fact is that going to CBS as regular old Stephen Colbert rather than as conservative archetype “Stephen Colbert” is going to be tremendously depressing for fans of the Report. Whilst Colbert was never truly anti-establishment in the, y’know, Che Guevara sense of the word, the real Colbert is going to go mainstream and non-political, just when America needs him most.
One small respite might be Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, which as another fifty think-pieces have already pointed out, has also added another tool to the late night comedy toolkit: Investigative journalism. I hope it continues on forever.
Also, points must be allocated as ever to The West Wing, which I watched through again in full. Sometimes I wonder if everything else should just give up, but then I also enjoyed season 2 of House of Cards.
And finally, don’t laugh, but an honourable mention to the mainstream BBC One sitcom Not Going Out, which despite every indication being that someone like me (someone who will deliberately write about moderately high-brow books and relatively obscure American TV shows in a bid to sound moderately clever) should hate it, but hey, it turns out that its great. So many puns packed in, there’s a punch at the end of pretty much every line — and some of the episodes make for superbly constructed farce. Take that, comedy snobs.
Best Music
There’s been a few albums I’ve listened to on a loop this year. The year started for me with folky-punk northerners Onsind, whose earnest politics really appeals to an increasingly cynical me. I think technically Anaesthesiology was released in the middle of 2013, but it was new to me, so I’m declaring that it counts.
I’ve also really enjoyed Marmozets The Weird and Wonderful — think punky “maths rock”, or something. Whatever it is, its great. Annoyingly just weeks after I bought their first EP on Bandcamp, they appear to have sold out to major label and pulled their back catalogue from the service, rending it useless.
Another band who were new to me was Interrobang!?, formed by Dunstan Bruce, previously of Chumbawumba. I’ve been listening to Forge On and Just Regression on a loop.
Finally, I can’t remember if I discovered it this year or last, but From Darkness Into Light by Jenn Fiorentino is great. She calls it “organic punk”, and it is just as angry as the likes of Propagandhi, but a bit easier on the ears in the early hours of the morning. She also has a tonne of superb acoustic covers on YouTube.
Best Game
Now you’d think that being someone who works as a tech journalist and writes about games for a living, this is one area I’d have some very sophisticated tastes in. I mean, relatively to how sophisticated games are. But no, I don’t really play many indie titles and my tastes are decidedly mainstream. Which is why my game of the year is probably Far Cry 4.
I could try and deconstruct its themes or its narrative — which is essentially you taking part in a terrorist campaign to liberate a mountain country from a charismatic dictator, but really what I enjoyed about it is that it took Far Cry 3 and basically didn’t change anything. The game incentivizes exploration — linking upgrades to the completion of side missions, and there’s plenty of choice in how you, say, liberate each fort (stealth or bombs? etc). The hunting and environment really adds a lot of character to the experience and essentially it is really good fun to play.
This year I’ve also really enjoyed GTA5 (again), and despite warnings against it, Watch Dogs. Whilst the latter wasn’t perfect, it showed the same sort of promise that the first Assassin’s Creed did. The inevitable sequel has the potential to be one of the best games of this generation.
One smaller game I very much enjoyed was Valiant Hearts — a 2D cartoon puzzler set during the First World War. Whilst you don’t fire a single shot, it teaches you more about the nature of war than Call of Duty ever could hope to. And it has a surprisingly affecting ending.
Best Adventure
Whilst this isn’t some media I consumed, it is definitely worth a mention as it was one of the big themes of the year — given that I surprisingly spent about 9.6% of the year in Canada. We went twice — once in February to Northern Ontario and Toronto to see Liz’s family, and then again in September after the Canadian Tourist Board saw our holiday video had gone viral (!) and invited us back to see some more (!!!).
Needless to say, both trips were absolutely astonishing given I’d never encountered a winter quite like it in February, and had the full North American roadtrip experience second time around, travelling from Halifax to Wasaga Beach. But I’ve probably already told you enough about all that, right?
