The Tearoom of Despair

Saturday, January 3, 2026

Friday, January 2, 2026

Say something once, why say it again?

Thursday, January 1, 2026

Wednesday, December 31, 2025

I don't ask much from this world, and am grateful for all I can get, but all I ever really wanted for much of my life was a new Empire magazine to read every month, and a new 2000ad to inhale on the walk home from work, and I've had to give up both of these things in the past year, mainly due to reasons of late stage capitalism. This is why we can't have nice things.

My big metaphor for the world is one of extreme first world privilege, but losing the small things in life is just the fucking limit.

The past year has been great on a personal level, I'm still more dad than human, but the kids are constantly entertaining and funny and make me feel some big, wonderful emotions on a daily basis.

But I can't ignore the people making the world a shittier place. World leaders continue to be a huge embarrassment, the hatred of immigrants all around the world is a bigoted abomination, and AI is making everything so much worse for no good reason other than problematic porn. Children are being murdered by states all over the world, and that's too fucking hard to fix, apparently. I am, as always, on the side of the people having the guns pointed at them.

My fellow humans still matter to me, and the treatment of our trans brothers and sisters has been particularly enraging this year, and I don't know why the world has to be this way.

I've seen friends and colleagues become their true selves through a transition process and it fills my heart with such joy and wonder to see them so happy, and it's inconceivable to me that this actually makes people angry. I just don't understand any motherfucker who sneers at that happiness, but I know I want nothing to do with them, because their hearts are rancid.

I dedicate every word in this blog this past year to my trans siblings. I admire your devotion to being your true selves, in the face of some bullshit bigotry, and I swear I'll always have your back.

All I can hold on to is the lessons of taking care of your parish, and just be kind on a local level. And I might not be able to have all the nice things we used to have and can't anymore, for some reason, but I can always help out other people, as much as I can. See you in the new year.

Tuesday, December 30, 2025

Another year in movies: Remember you must love

The best film of the year was 28 Years Later. The best time I had in the cinema was at Weapons. Seeing old films on the big screen was often a transcendental experience. I saw all three Evil Dead films at a triple feature at the cinema just down the road and it was fucking awesome.

After returning to the big city and an actual choice of movie theatres, I saw a lot more films at the cinema that in previous years - after doing the maths for this year's movies, 13.84 percent of the films I saw were as bright light in big dark rooms.

I've had more free time in the morning and think I have finally found my tribe - I keep seeing the same middle-aged guys who, for whatever reason, have free time during weekday mornings and go to see the dumbest action shit and weird arthouse nonsense at 10am on a Tuesday. I've also been seeing lots of classic films on the big screen this year: Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me and 28 Days Later still blew my mind.

Despite this, the number of films that were repeat viewings this year was much less than previous years at 13.07 percent, so I'm quite pleased with myself for not just relying on the old classics and trying something new. The amount of prequels, sequels and remakes - 16.9 percent - is also well down on the previous few years since I started taking notes on this sort of thing.

Overall I saw 265 films this year, which is about the same amount as always (I did lose a lot of time early in the year to 30 for 30 documentaries and a Lost re-watch). But the amount of films that were non-English language; made before I was born; or made in the country of my birth were all lamentably less than four percent this year, which I blame entirely on the addictive nature of straight-to streaming action nonsense.

The next year will be more of a television year, because there is a lot I need to catch up on, but I need to do something about those numbers of proper cinema. Those are rookie numbers. I can do better with less.