2024

2024, quantified

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I did this last year, and found it interesting to look back at the various statistics of things that I have done over the year. So, here it is again for 2024. It helps that loads of web sites now offer their own version of Spotify Wrapped.

Countries and counties visited

In 2024, I didn’t visit any countries besides England where I live.

Over the course of the year, I have spent at least some time in the following English counties:

  • West Yorkshire
  • North Yorkshire
  • South Yorkshire
  • Lincolnshire
  • Greater Manchester
  • Lancashire
  • Cheshire
  • Norfolk
  • Northumberland
  • County Durham
  • Merseyside
  • Greater London
  • West Midlands

This doesn’t include any counties that I have passed through without stopping. Compared to last year, I didn’t go to Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Hertfordshire, Surrey or Hampshire, but I did go to Northumberland, County Durham, Merseyside, Greater London and the West Midlands which were all counties that I didn’t go to in 2023.

Most distant points

The furthest compass points I have been to are:

For context, I went as far east as 2023, but further north and (slightly) further west. However, as we didn’t go to France this year, I went significantly less far south.

Methods of transport used

Because we didn’t take our car to France, I didn’t drive as much this year – about 8000 miles, or 20% less than last year.

However, I have done more train travel. As well as my commute to work, we took the train to London in March. I have driven once in London and vowed never again; not least because our car is a diesel and therefore subject to additional charges inside the ULEZ. I also took our nine-year-old to Leeds last week on the train.

We’ve also been on trams a couple of times in Manchester – we tend to drive to Hollinwood tram stop and use Metrolink as a park and ride service. And whilst we didn’t cross the channel by ferry this year, we did cross the Mersey by ferry instead. Once again, no aeroplane flights in 2024.

My top 5 songs from Spotify Wrapped, which are 'React' by Switch Disco, 'Since U Been Gone' by Kelly Clarkson, 'Melodies of Hope' by Patty Gurdy, 'On The Floor' by Jennifer Lopez and 'What The Hell' by Avril Lavigne

Music listened to

Over the year, I scrobbled 12,671 tracks on last.fm, so slightly down on the 13,194 from 2023 (and 13,447 from 2022). That’s almost 35 songs per day, again down by about one a day from 2023. Assuming an average song is around three minutes, I listen to almost two hours of music every day on average. Spotify reckons that I listened to 436 minutes, or just over 7 hours of music on the 25 October.

Whilst I don’t exclusively listen to music on Spotify, on there, pop was my top genre, following by trance, rock, pop dance and Europop this year, according to my Spotify Wrapped. My most-listened to song was ‘React’ by Switch Disco featuring Ella Henderson and Robert Miles, which I listened to 14 times. Which is unsurprising as it’s one of our nine-year-old’s favourite songs, and samples Robert Miles’ ‘Children’.

My top artist was Armin van Buuren, which surprised me but there’s almost always one of his songs in my weekly Release Radar playlist. The rest of my top five were Patty Gurdy (blog post), Madam Misfit (blog post), David Guetta and Dua Lipa. I listened to 4,235 different bands and artists over the course of the year.

Books read and listened to

According to My Goodreads Year in Books for 2024, I read 77 books this year – 16 fewer than 2023. This amounts to 17,845 pages (although many of these were listened to as audiobooks).

The shortest book I read, at 32 pages long, was ‘The Giraffe, The Pelly and Me’ by Roald Dahl (sponsored link) – clearly, one of the books that I read to our nine-year-old this year. Meanwhile, I listened to 15 and a half hours of Nicola Coughlan reading ‘The Shadow Cabinet’ by Juno Dawson (sponsored link), which translates to 528 pages and the longest book. That’s longer in terms of pages than my longest book last year (‘What Just Happened?!’ by Marina Hyde (sponsored link) – 472 pages) but shorter in terms of listening time (17 hours).

Overall, the average length of book that I read was 231 pages, which is 11 more than 2023. Matt Haig’s ‘The Midnight Library’ (sponsored link) was the most popular book that I read last year.

A downloaded image from my Untappd Year in Beer, showing my average rating, checkins, and top rated beers.

Beers and ciders consumed

I log the beers and ciders that I drink using Untappd, and these stats are from my year in beer. However, I only logged 11 such drinks this year (compared to 58 in 2022). I just haven’t been particularly interested in drinking beer and cider this year, and it’s notable that my favourite style was ‘non-alcoholic’.

Steps taken

My total steps taken was very similar to 2023. Overall I took 3,526,369 steps, which is 5% less than 2023 and means that, on average, I walked just under 10,000 steps per day. Overall that’s almost 2,600 kilometres (again down by around 100 compared to 2023). These are all tracked using my Fitbit Versa 3.

A screenshot from my Duolingo Year in Review which states that I am a top 1% French learner

Time spent learning French

I started Duolingo’s French course on the 1st January 2022 (so I have a three year streak now), and in 2024, I spent 4,228 minutes learning – that’s 70 hours or an average of 12 minutes per day. Again, slightly down on 2023, but then we didn’t go to France this year. I also managed to remain in the Diamond League for the entire year, and successfully completed every friends quest and monthly challenge.

My Duolingo Score for French is 100, which means that I’m in the low B2 level (‘vantage’) of the CEFR for French. Currently Duolingo’s maximum score for French is 130, which is high B2 level and should be sufficient to study a university course taught in French. I’m hoping to achieve that by the end of 2025, although there’s a possibility of us going on holiday somewhere else which may see me switch languages for a bit.

A shareable image from Overcast showing my top 6 podcasts this year

Podcasts listened to

I listen to the majority of my podcasts through Overcast (with the remainder in BBC Sounds). My most listened to podcast was RHLSTP (RHLSTP!) with 78 hours over the year. The Guilty Feminist, The Comedian’s Comedian, The Bugle and The Infinite Monkey Cage make up the rest of my top 5. ‘Reasons Revisited’ is the now defunct podcast which was hosted by Ed Milliband and Geoff Lloyd; now that Ed is a government minister again, there are no more new episodes.

Tracking my podcast listening is a relatively new feature in Overcast and so this is a new statistic that I didn’t track in 2023.

Photos taken

Another new statistic that I didn’t track in 2023 was number of photos taken. It’s an estimate – basically it’s the total number of images backed up from my phone to Dropbox over the year. That could also include screenshots, memes and a few videos. Overall, it was 1,813 in 2024, compared to 1,417 in 2023. So whilst I may have been less active, listened to less music and not been abroad, I did take around 28% more photos in 2024.

So, that’s 2024 quantified, and a useful summary of the statistics from various web services that seem to spend their December telling me data they hold about me but in a nice way. I suppose I need to get a bit active in 2025 then.

2024: a year in review

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As is traditional at the end of each year, I review what I’ve been up to over the past 12 months.

You can read my previous posts from 2023, 2022, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010 and 2009.

January

January started with a trip to the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester, to have a look at their Operation Ouch exhibition about food and, um, poo. They have another exhibition about brains and bogeys in 2025 so I’m sure we’ll be back there soon. We also went to Eureka in Halifax; despite having an excellent children’s museum practically on our doorstep, we don’t go there that often. And there was also a brief trip to the Royal Armouries in Leeds.

On the blog, I wrote one of my perennially popular blog posts about installing Home Assistant Supervised on a Raspberry Pi and how I’d switched to using Simplenote for note-taking. I now take many more notes than I used to with Evernote. I also finally started regularly backing up my blog. January is my blogiversary month and 2024 marked 22 years.

February

After the Januariest January that ever Januaried, we made it to February. We had a bat in our cellar, which a kind volunteer rescued for us, and trips to the Trafford Centre and Beaumont Park in Huddersfield. Meanwhile, I cancelled Disney+ as we were no longer using it.

We ended February on our way down to London for a long weekend.

Houses of Parliament

March

Whilst in London, we went to the Bank of England Museum, the Cute exhibition at Somerset House, the Young V&A and the Cartoon Museum. We also had dinner in Chinatown one night, and Christine stayed an extra night to see Book of Mormon in the West End.

As usual in March, we went to Sci-Fi Weekender in Great Yarmouth, although this time we had friends in the car with us. This made the eight hour round trip much more enjoyable. And over the Easter Weekend, we went to East Riddlesden Hall, and went on the Snooks trail around York.

On the blog, I replaced Automattic’s Jetpack plugin with the much lighter Toolbelt.

April

In April, we went to see Unfortunate at the Alhambra Theatre in Bradford, and I moaned about our car needing more work on it again. I had the car serviced again earlier this month and needed four new tyres, new brake pads and brake discs, and some additional work which was another four figure sum. We probably could have bought a new car for the amount we’ve spent on keeping this one on the road over the past 18 months.

Christine and I had a child-free day out shopping in Manchester, which was nice.

Anteater

May

May is my birthday month, and I turned 40 this year. For my birthday, we went to Dudley, and visited Dudley Zoo and the Black Country Living Museum. We also had a day out at Jodrell Bank to use our annual passes before they expired, and another visit to the Tropical Butterfly House near Sheffield.

I added a newsletter to the blog in May, which is a weekly list of new blog posts. So far, a grand total of four people are fully subscribed, although two were in December so maybe it’s picking up momentum?

I also switched my bank account, but didn’t write about it until October.

June

In 2023, my dad had some health issues which persisted for some time into 2024, ultimately resulting in him going back into hospital again in June this year. Thankfully, this time the doctors treating him seemed to get on top of the issue, and so he’s now much better than he’s been in a while.

Our eight-year-old had an overnight residential school trip, giving Christine and I a rare chance to have a date night towards the end of the month. Meanwhile, we were in the run up to a General Election, and I wrote about the candidates that I could vote for in our constituency.

Seahouses

July

The General Election happened, and for once, the bad guys didn’t win, which was nice. I also made some predictions for 2029, when the next General Election is likely to be.

I fitted my Raspberry Pi with a new case and fan, and started using an SSD with it rather than an SD card.

As usual in July, we went on holiday with my parents. Though my Dad made a good recovery, we decided to have a holiday in the UK, and spent a week in Northumberland. Amongst the places we visited were Bamburgh Castle, The Alnwick Garden, a boat trip to The Farne Islands to see the puffins and seals, Warkworth Castle, Lindisfarne, Cragside, and Beamish on the way home.

August

Writing about our holiday took me well into August, and I also noted all the places we’d considered but didn’t visit. Storm Lillian visited us, cutting off our power for a few hours, and I wrote about our four most-used cookbooks. We also had a day out at the National Coal Mining Museum for England. At the end of the month, we went to Gawthorpe Hall and Mr Fitzpatrick’s Temperance Bar.

August is always my busiest month at work, and this year was no exception.

September

In September, I made Bluesky my primary social media presence and made my Twitter/X account private. Whilst I’ve logged in to X from time to time, I’ve not posted anything since.

Apple announced that its AirPods Pro could be used as hearing aids, and I wrote about how this could be a game-changer for people with mild or moderate hearing loss.

We didn’t have any days out in September (bar a trip to the cinema to see Inside Out 2), but I did write about travel more generally in a blog post about furthest compass points.

A photo of the Royal Iris ferry on the River Mersey in Liverpool

October

Christine and I went back to the cinema to watch Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, having watched the first film that morning – in my case for the first time. I also got my Covid-19 and Flu vaccines. We went to visit the new Eureka museum for older kids in Wirral, and then took a ferry across the Mersey and visited the Museum of Liverpool.

I had a grumble about parking apps, and why we can’t just have one app that works everywhere, and I summarised my adult life using the various railcards we’ve had over the years. For Halloween, we went to Lotherton Hall, which was full of dressed up skeletons.

November

Another cinema trip, this time to bawl our eyes out at The Wild Robot which is as good as everyone says it is. Our (now) nine-year-old got one of the follow-on books as a birthday present. We also went to Bolling Hall Museum with friends, and had a return visit to the Askham Bryan Wildlife & Conservation Park (which I wrote about in 2017 when it first opened).

America voted for the bad guy again (seriously guys?), and I successfully migrated this blog to a new hosting company, seemingly without anyone noticing. Considering my track record with losing data when doing this sort of thing, I consider this to be a massive win. We did our first Costco visit; we haven’t been back yet but planning a trip in the new year, probably with friends. I also wrote about my home working setup, and how it’s evolved over the past (almost) five years.

December

And so to this month. I wrote a long post about step-free access on the Waterloo & City Line, which pleasingly got picked up by a couple of London blogs and resulted in a few click-throughs. Which I knew about thanks to using Koko Analytics with WordPress.

Throughout the year, I mostly stuck with my target of publishing a new blog post every other day, which I’m really pleased about. I don’t have the time to contribute something every day – I’ve tried that in the past and I just end up writing waffle to fill up space. And, as we’re a family of two full-time working parents, our ability to have fun days out is mostly limited to weekends and holidays. But we did have the opportunity to do a few fun things this year, and have some new experiences. Whilst we didn’t go abroad this year, we squeezed a lot into our summer holiday to Northumberland, and seeing thousands of puffins on the Farne Islands will be something I hope to remember for a long time.

Reviewing my 2024 predictions

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So, back in January, I made seven predictions about events that would take place in 2024. So, seeing as there’s just a few days left in 2024, let’s see how I did:

Twitter/X won’t become an ‘everything app’

Remember when Elon Musk took over Twitter in 2022 that it would become X, the ‘everything app’? I predicted that this wouldn’t happen in 2024, and, so far, it hasn’t. I don’t use X anymore, although I keep my account live, and upon logging in to write this, the only new things I could see were some kind of job search, and Grok, its AI ChatGPT competitor. This is a far cry from apps like WeChat.

One of the few things that Elon Musk is actually good at is over-promising and under-delivering, so this isn’t surprising. But X was supposed to be able to offer all sorts of new functionality, including financial services, if Musk were to be believed.

Labour will win the 2024 General Election

Yes, they did. But any other result was unlikely, to be fair. It has been a rocky ride since then, with Labour front-loading their time in power with unpopular policies like the limits on the Winter Fuel Payments. However, with the next general election not due until 2029, there’s time to re-build.

What I didn’t expect was how well the Liberal Democrats ended up doing in the election. Their tactics of concentrating on seats mainly in the south west massively paid off, with one of their best ever results.

There will be a ceasefire in Palestine

Nope, sadly. We’re over a year in now, and fighting continues. The recent regime change in Syria is a potential bright spot though.

But the war in Ukraine will continue

Yes, sadly. But it’s notable that things are not going well for Russia, with forces being drafted in from North Korea. That’s because Russia is rapidly running out of people fit to fight on the front in Ukraine, as shown by its massive fall in unemployment.

Energy prices in the UK will start to fall again

They did, and then they started going back up again in October, by around 10%. Overall, Brits are still paying significantly more for energy than we were a few years ago, although there are at least a wider range of tariffs available now.

The UK will do okay at Eurovision this year

No, we didn’t really. We came 18th out of 25th, with all the points coming from professional juries and none from the voting public. I was hoping we would do better, with Olly Alexander representing us, but I don’t think it was the best song.

Trump won’t win the US Presidential Election

Oh dear, a big no. Honestly, in the run-up to the election I though Kamala Harris had it in the bag, so I was surprised and disappointed that she didn’t win.

So, overall, half of my predictions were (mostly) correct. Which isn’t bad, although clearly there were some that I wanted to be correct but weren’t. Oh well.

My best children’s fiction books of 2024

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Between now and Christmas Eve, I’ll be posting about the best books that I’ve read (or the best audiobooks that I have listened to), just in case you need any last minute present ideas. On Thursday, I wrote about my favourite non-fiction books, and yesterday, my favourite adult fiction books. Today, I’m focussing on the fiction books that I’ve read to our soon-to-be nine year old this year. All of these are books that I have awarded five stars on Goodreads.

The links below to buy the books are all sponsored links to Amazon, but you’re welcome to borrow these from your local library, or buy them from an independent book shop.

Luna Wolf: Animal Wizard by Alesha Dixon

The cover of Luna Wolf: Animal Wizard by Alesha Dixon

Our eight-year-old picked this out of the school library, and wasn’t aware that I used to listen to Alesha Dixon’s music as a teenager, from when she was part of the girl band Mis-teeq.

Luna Wolf: Animal Wizard is co-written by Dixon in collaboration with Katy Birchall, and is about a girl called Luna who has recently moved to London with her father, following her mother’s death. Through her volunteering at a local animal rescue centre, and her bond with one of the rescue dogs, she begins to uncover her mother’s exciting past, and a plot to capture some very special animals that her mother worked with.

The Day My Dog Got Famous by Jen Carney

The cover of 'The Day My Dog Got Famous' by Jen Carney

We picked up The Day My Dog Got Famous from our local library, and it’s written and illustrated by Jen Carney. It follows the story of Ferris, who lives with his two mums, his dog Aldo, and a revolving door of foster brothers and sisters. Alas, despite Ferris’s attempts to make Aldo appear amazing, by drawing comics, Aldo is anything but, and this presents a problem when his next-door neighbour Destiny challenges him to a video contest.

I’ve read many books to our nine-year-old over the years, and this stood out because it’s a bit more inclusive than others. It’s nice to see families represented that don’t fit the standard 2.4 children pattern.

Rainbow Grey by Lauren Ellen Anderson

The cover of Rainbow Grey by Lauren Ellen Anderson

Another book which is written and illustrated by the author. Lauren Ellen Anderson is probably better known as the writer of the Amelia Fang books, which we haven’t yet started.

Rainbow Grey follows the character of Ray Grey, who is a ‘weatherling’ and lives high up in the clouds. But whilst every other weatherling has powers to control the weather, she doesn’t. Until one day, when she ventures down to earth, and encounters a mysterious artefact.

There are now three books in the Rainbow Grey series and we’ll be on the lookout for the others.

Honourable mentions

Whilst the above books were deserving of five stars, these are the four star children’s fiction books that I also read this year:

That’s the end of my 2024 lists of best books; hopefully, if you were stuck for ideas for Christmas presents, these will have helped you. Obviously, it’s cutting it a bit tight to order anything in time for Christmas now…

My best adult fiction books of 2024

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Between now and Christmas Eve, I’ll be posting about the best books that I’ve read (or the best audiobooks that I have listened to), just in case you need any last minute present ideas. On Thursday, I wrote about my favourite non-fiction books, and today, I’m focussing on the fiction books aimed at grown-ups that I’ve read or listened to this year. All of these are books that I have awarded five stars on Goodreads.

The links below to buy the books are all sponsored links to Amazon, but you’re welcome to borrow these from your local library, or buy them from an independent book shop.

Baby Does A Runner by Anita Rani

Cover of 'Baby Does A Runner' by Anita Rani. It's mostly pink at the top and green at the bottom.

Okay, slight conflict of interest time: Anita Rani is our chancellor at work, although it’s a largely ceremonial role and no, I haven’t actually met her in person yet. In 2021, she published her memoirs, The Right Sort of Girl, which were great – having spent some of my formative years in Bradford, I related to a lot of Rani’s experiences. Baby Does A Runner is fiction, and is about a young British-Asian woman who sets off to her family’s ancestral home in India to uncover a family secret. Whilst it’s not a true story, there’s a lot about topics like the Partition of India which certainly wasn’t taught to me in history lessons at school. It does well to tackle colonial-era views of India.

Rani reads the audiobook herself, and does an excellent job of it, giving each character a unique voice and accent.

Her Majesty’s Royal Coven and The Shadow Cabinet by Juno Dawson

The cover of Her Majesty's Royal Coven by Juno Dawson

I’ve grouped these books together as they form the first two books in a trilogy; book three, Human Rites, is due out in summer 2025. Book one, Her Majesty’s Royal Coven, follows four witches, Niamh, Leonie, Elle and Helena who knew each other from school, and now each have their own professional working lives. Only Helena remains part of the secretive government department, Her Majesty’s Royal Coven, and there are rumours that a ‘sullied child’ will bring forth Leviathan and a terrible disaster.

The Shadow Cabinet picks up from the same cliff-hanger scene at the end of the first book, and sees Leonie take off on a wild goose chase around Europe. Meanwhile, we find out about The Shadow Cabinet, a board consisting of witches, warlocks and so-called ‘mundanes’ (non-magic users) in government. Again, there’s a cliff-hanger at the end of this book, and I’ll have to wait several more months to find out how it ends.

The cover of The Shadow Cabinet by Juno Dawson

In the meantime, there’s a prequel, Queen B, set in Tudor times, which I’ve yet to read.

Both books come highly recommended. Again, I relate to the settings, as many scenes take place just up the road from us in Hebden Bridge, and Hardcastle Crags in particular. They’re also the first fiction books that I’ve read/listened to by Juno Dawson; I’ve previously enjoyed her non-fiction books, The Gender Games and What’s The T?

Both audiobooks are read by Nicola Coughlan, known for her roles in Derry Girls and the later series of Bridgerton, and her narration is excellent.

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

The cover of 'The Midnight Library' by Matt Haig

Another author for which I’ve only really read their non-fiction before. I believe I picked up The Midnight Library cheaply in an Audible daily deal, and my only regret is that I didn’t listen to it sooner. It goes to some dark places; consider this a trigger warning for suicide, and a subject that Matt Haig has written extensively about in his non-fiction books.

The story follows Nora, who’s reached rock bottom and sees no way out. Except, she ends up in a mysterious library, seemingly staffed by the librarian from her school days, and each book shows her a possible life that she could have lived, had she made different decisions. The ending wasn’t quite as predictable as it could have been, which kept the book interesting, and it is very well written.

The actress Carey Mulligan narrates the audiobook and does a decent job of it.

Honourable mentions

Whilst the above books were deserving of five stars, these are the four star fiction books that I also read this year:

Tomorrow, I’ll focus on the best kid’s books that I read this year with our eight-year-old.

My best non-fiction books of 2024

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Between now and Christmas Eve, I’ll be posting about the best books that I’ve read (or the best audiobooks that I have listened to), just in case you need any last minute present ideas. Today, I’m focussing on the non-fiction books that I’ve read or listened to this year. All of these are books that I have awarded five stars on Goodreads.

The links below to buy the books are all sponsored links to Amazon, but you’re welcome to borrow these from your local library, or buy them from an independent book shop.

‘Period. It’s About Bloody Time’ by Emma Barnett

The cover of the book 'Period. It's About Bloody Time' by Emma Barnett.

I don’t get periods, being a cisgender man, but my wife Christine does. Whilst this isn’t the first period book I’ve read (that would be Maisie Hill’s Period Power), I really enjoyed Period. It’s About Bloody Time by Emma Barnett. It’s funny, but also a very important book about how periods are perceived, and what society can do to better accommodate those who menstruate.

I like how it goes through lots of the euphemisms that people use instead of the word ‘period’ (it’s called ‘Shark Week‘ in our house).

The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read by Philippa Perry

The cover to Philippa Perry's book 'The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and Your Children Will Be Glad That You Did)'

Or to give it its full title, ‘The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and Your Children Will Be Glad That You Did)’. If you only ever buy one parenting book, make it this one, as it was full of useful advice. It’s taught me to be more patient as a parent, and to focus on being present and nurturing with our child.

I also read Perry’s follow-up book, The Book You Want Everyone You Love To Read (and maybe a few you don’t) this year, which was still good but not as good as her first.

Barry Cryer: Same Time Tomorrow? by Bob Cryer

The cover of the book 'Barry Cryer: Same Time Tomorrow?' by Bob Cryer.

I’ve been to a couple of recordings of I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue, which is now into its 82nd series, and Barry Cryer was a regular contestant for over 50 years before his death in 2022, aged 86. Barry Cryer: Same Time Tomorrow? is a biography of him written by his son, Bob, along with many anecdotes contributed by Barry’s friends and colleagues. It’s a lovely tribute to someone who carried on working in comedy well into his senior years, and was loved and respected by comedians both new and old. As with Rob Wilkins’ biography of Terry Pratchett, it’s written with warmth and admiration.

A Girlhood: A Letter to My Transgender Daughter by Carolyn Hays

The cover to the book 'A Letter to my Transgender Daughter' by Carolyn Hays

Right now, the issue of care for young transgender people is very much in the news, and I would urge anyone wanting to have an informed opinion on the topic to read A Girlhood: A Letter to My Transgender Daughter by Carolyn Hays.

Published under a pseudonym, it’s written as a letter over several chapters, about a family who is doing their best to provide gender-affirming care for their child. There’s a lot of bravery on show, especially as the book starts in an American state which isn’t particularly trans-friendly.

Fix the System, Not the Women by Laura Bates

The cover of the book 'Fix the System, Not the Women' by Laura Bates

Laura Bates was the founder of the Everyday Sexism project, and wrote a 2014 book of the same name. This follow-up, Fix the System, Not the Women, is about how society’s systems and structures work against women and other marginalised people. But it also has positive recommendations for how society can change to be more equal.

It’s an important book for anyone committed to gender equality and inclusion.

“No Offence, But…” by Gina Martin

The cover to the book 'No Offence, But' by Gina Martin

Gina Martin is probably best known as a campaigner who pushed for the Voyeurism (Offences) Act 2019, which made upskirting a specific criminal offence. “No Offence, But” is a useful handbook for responding to claims such as ‘not all men’ and ‘playing devil’s advocate’. Whilst Gina herself has written around half the chapters, there are also contributions from other authors and activists who write in their area of expertise. Again, it’s a positive book that offers useful talking points to respond to lazy stereotypes.

Next time, I’ll be writing about the fiction books that I’ve most enjoyed this year.

Some predictions for 2024

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An AI-generated image of some felt art of a fortune teller with a crystal ball that says 2024 on it

Now that the year has started, I’m going to make some predictions for the rest of 2024. If only because it’ll be interesting to look back in a year’s time to see what actually happens.

Twitter/X won’t become an ‘everything app’

When the overly impulsive billionaire took over Twitter, he announced that it would become an ‘everything app’, like WeChat is in China. Essentially, he’s using his Twitter acquisition to realise his late 1990s dream for x.com, which would offer a huge variety of financial services.

But Musk also has a track record for over-promising and under-delivering. Look at the ‘full self driving’ mode offered on his Tesla cars, which, well, isn’t. His other firms, like The Boring Company, have also scaled down their lofty plans. So I don’t expect X/Twitter to offer much more than it does now by the end of the year.

I expect the core social media aspect of X/Twitter to continue to whither away over the year, thanks to declining user interest and lower advertising revenue. However, I still expect it to be around by the end of 2024 – I don’t think Musk is ready to throw in the towel and shut it down, or sell it at a massive loss.

Labour will win the 2024 General Election

We know that there will be a General Election in the UK this year, although not precisely when it’ll happen. Labour consistently leads in the polls, and has had some unprecedented by-election victories. I don’t think we’re looking at a repeat of 1997, when Labour won by a landslide, but I would expect a comfortable majority. How much change a new Labour government would be able to make partly depends on when the election is, but I’m not expecting the state of the country to massively improve by the end of the year.

Oh, and Sadiq Khan will win a third term as Mayor of London.

There will be a ceasefire in Palestine

Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel on the 8th October has to be condemned, but Israel’s response has been despicable with thousands of innocent civilians losing their lives. I expect Israel to find itself increasingly isolated on the world stage and a ceasefire will be inevitable by the spring of 2024. Unfortunately, I can’t see it being a route to lasting peace in the region, but any reduction in hostilities has to be better than this.

But the war in Ukraine will continue

I’m less optimistic about the war in Ukraine, which has been largely at a stalemate for the whole of 2023. Russia still intends to hang on to the territory that it has seized, including Crimea, whilst Ukraine hasn’t been able to make major advances. Meanwhile political issues in the USA mean that funding for Ukraine to carry on fighting isn’t guaranteed.

Energy prices in the UK will start to fall again

It will be a few days before we get official confirmation from the National Grid, but I’m calling it now: 2023 was the year renewables overtook fossil fuels as the largest contributor to British electricity generation. In the 12 years I’ve been running National Grid: Live at grid.iamkate.com electricity generation from fossil fuels has fallen from an average of 25.1GW to 10.2GW, while renewables have risen from 2.5GW to 10.8GW.

— Kate Morley (@kate) 2023-12-31T12:14:09.211Z

In 2023, the UK generated more electricity from renewable sources than from fossil fuels, for the first time. Whilst UK consumer energy prices went up by 5% on Monday, I anticipate that the cost of electricity will start to fall as more renewable power sources come online. The newly-operational Viking Link Interconnector means that we can trade electricity with Denmark, and the biggest wind farm in Scotland is now online.

That being said, there’s an imbalance in the UK as most wind power is generated in the north of England and Scotland, but the highest demand is in the south of England. And our energy grid doesn’t have capacity to move this, which means that some northern wind turbines have to be turned off and gas-fired power stations turned on – costing money and contributing to climate change. However, there’s been a big up-tick in home solar installations like ours which may help, albeit on a small scale.

The UK will do okay at Eurovision this year

In 2023, the Eurovision song contest was hosted in Liverpool. The 2022 winners Ukraine couldn’t host it safely due to the ongoing war, and the UK came second – our best result for over 20 years. And then despite what I thought was a good song from Mae Muller, we came second-from-bottom.

For 2024, Olly Alexander is representing the UK. As lead singer of Years & Years, I have some high expectations. I doubt we’ll win, but I would disappointed if we’re not mid-table. Of course, we haven’t actually heard the song yet.

Trump won’t win the US Presidential Election

Trump will almost certainly become the Republican Party’s candidate for president, but with two states banning him from their ballots, his campaign isn’t going well. I know Biden isn’t terribly popular, and wish he had stepped aside for someone younger like Kamala Harris, but Trump has made it pretty clear that if he wins (and manages to get a decent Republican Senate and House majority) then he will take the US down a path of authoritarianism that will take a lot of time to unpick. And whilst millions of Americans seem to be okay with this, I doubt it’s the majority.

We also don’t yet know what impact Trump’s legal issues will have, or whether the Federal Supreme Court will overrule Colorado and Maine’s bans. I didn’t think Trump would get elected in 2016, and so I have been wrong about this before, but I hope people’s experiences of 2017-2021 will guide them to vote against him again.

So these are my predictions for 2024. We’ll see at the end of the year whether they happen or not. Meanwhile, have a look at some other predictions from Terence Eden and Diamond Geezer.

Happy New Year!

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An AI-generated illustration of a family watching new year's eve fireworks

Welcome to 2024! I hope you had a good new year’s eve if you chose to celebrate – we didn’t stay up, as my wife Christine is working today. As very few places are open on New Year’s Day, I’ll be having a quiet day with our eight-year-old.

I’m hoping 2024 will be a good year for us. It’ll be a longer year if nothing else, as it’s a leap year. The 29th February falls midweek, so I’ll most likely be working that day.

I’m off work this week, as our eight-year-old isn’t back at school until next week. I have a few tentative plans for things to do. This month will also mark 22 years since I started blogging. Later in January, we’re planning another friends-from-university meet-up, although we haven’t quite worked out where it’ll be.

In the spring, we’re looking to have a weekend in London. We normally visit London at least once each year, but didn’t manage to do so in 2023. There’s a teaching training day that would allow a long weekend for all three of us so we’re hoping to take advantage of that. At present, we can’t book train travel on LNER at weekends, presumably due to upcoming engineering work, but as soon as the tickets become available we’ll get something booked. Tentative plans include the newly-reopened Young V&A and the Cartoon Museum.

In March, we’ll be at Sci-Fi Weekender XV in Great Yarmouth again. It’s the 15th anniversary year, and we’ve been going since 2018. The numbering is a bit out due to, well, the event.

In May, I turn 40. I’m not sure yet how I want to mark this occasion.

As usual, we will be going on a summer holiday with my parents, although with my Dad still recovering, we won’t be going to France this year. Instead, we’ve booked a week in Northumberland – a part of England that I’ve not visited much. Hopefully, we’ll have an opportunity to visit Beamish as well.

Towards the end of the year, my Dad will turn 80, so depending on his health, we’ll look to organise something nice for him.

I still have at least 20 potential blog post ideas to write, and so I’ll aim to carry on posting something new every other day throughout the year.

I hope 2024 is a good year for you too, and wish you all a happy new year.