Some predictions for 2026

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As per the past couple of years, I try to channel my inner Mystic Meg, and come up with some predictions for the new year. Last year’s were mostly on target, although some were rather low-ball predictions.

Bradford City will win promotion

I don’t really follow football or support a team, but as my employer currently sponsors their stadium, I check up on how Bradford City AFC are doing on a regular basis. And at the moment, they’re doing quite well; I’m writing this ahead of time but they’re currently third in League One. If they managed to finish the season as one of the top two teams, or win the playoffs, then they’ll win promotion to the Championship, having only been promoted to League One last season. The last time they were in the second tier of English football was in 2003-4.

A big AI firm will go bust

There have been warning signs that the AI ‘bubble’ will burst soon. I certainly think that a ‘market correction’ is likely, and one of the big AI firms will go bust. Indeed, there’s a web site called Pop The Bubble which asks Google Gemini each day when the bubble will burst. At one point, on the 19th December, it predicted the bubble would burst the very next day, but more recently it has revised its projections to some time around September.

Certainly OpenAI, probably the best known AI company, is in trouble – its operating costs far exceed its income. So much so that answers may start including sponsored content. I wouldn’t be surprised that it reaches a point where it runs out of money and its investors get cold feet. That could happen this year, but we’ll see.

There will be some kind of ceasefire in Ukraine

The war in Ukraine will have been running for four years by next month, and both sides have suffered heavy losses. The BBC estimate that 160,000 Russians have been killed, and the real total may be double that. Overall, something like half a million people have lost their lives in the war across both sides.

What the ceasefire will look like remains to be seen. I see Russia as very much the aggressor here, and rewarding it with territory that was part of Ukraine doesn’t seem just, in my mind. Certainly, Ukraine hasn’t wanted to cede territory, but to stop the war it may have to – at least, for now.

The World Cup will be overshadowed by politics

Hosting of this year’s Men’s Association Football World Cup is split between Mexico, Canada and the USA this year, with the USA hosting the majority of games. However, I expect the USA’s new immigration rules for people applying for ESTA could backfire. I expect a tense political situation as various celebrities or politicians find themselves turned away at US airports or denied visas, and the diplomatic fallout that this could create.

I’m pleased that Scotland qualified as well as England this time, and Wales and the Republic of Ireland are potentially still in the running. I doubt I’ll be watching the matches – as mentioned, football isn’t really my thing and the time difference means that some of the matches are likely to be late at night UK time.

Rolled over predictions

I’m also going to roll over a couple of previous predictions:

  • Labour will do poorly in local elections
  • Twitter/X won’t become an ‘everything app’

As a member of the Labour party, I hope it turns a corner this year, but I doubt it’ll manage it in time for the local elections in late spring. As for Twitter/X, I expect it’ll stagnate and Elon Musk will continue to be a terrible person, but it’ll neither shut down, be sold off or launch any major new features.

2025, quantified

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For the third year running, I’m summarising all those end of year reviews that apps like Spotify and Goodreads offer you. You can take a look at 2024 and 2023 if you want.

Countries and counties visited

Unlike last year, I did manage to leave England a couple of times – Athens in June, and Wales in July. I also spent some time at Amsterdam Schipol Airport in the Netherlands, but as I was airside the whole time, I’m not really counting it.

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

  • West Yorkshire
  • North Yorkshire
  • South Yorkshire
  • East Yorkshire
  • Lincolnshire
  • Greater Manchester
  • Lancashire
  • Cheshire
  • Norfolk
  • County Durham
  • Merseyside
  • West Midlands
  • Oxfordshire
  • Northamptonshire
  • Staffordshire
  • Tyne & Wear

That’s a few more than last year – East Yorkshire, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, Staffordshire and Tyne & Wear weren’t on last year’s list.

Most distant points

The furthest compass points I have been to are:

  • Furthest North: Gateshead, Tyne & Wear (May)
  • Furthest South: Athens, Greece (June)
  • Furthest East: Athens, Greece (June)
  • Furthest West: Anglesey Sea Zoo (July)

My trip to Athens was something of an outlier, but we also went further west than last year. Not so far north this time, though.

Methods of transport used

For the first time since doing this, I can include planes in this (Athens again). There was also a lot of driving, in our old and new cars, and I continued to mostly take the train to work. No trips to London last year, but I did travel by train to and from Manchester Airport, when heading to Athens, and to Leeds. Apart from those Manchester trips, which included time on Transpennine Express, all my journeys were with Northern. Speaking of which, I had 8 successful Delay Repay claims, totalling £6.25 (78p on average).

I’ve been on a few buses and trams as well. No ferries last year, but I did spend some time on a boat in Oxfordshire.

Music listened to

A screenshot of my most popular bands and songs from 2025 from Spotify Wrapped

Over the year, I scrobbled 15,063 tracks on last.fm, which is more than the past few years. That’s a little over 41 songs per day, so on average I listened to six additional songs per day in 2025 compared to 2024. Assuming an average song is around three minutes, I listened to slightly over two hours of music every day on average. My ‘listening age’ was 42 – only out by a year, which is nice.

Whilst I don’t exclusively listen to music on Spotify, on there, trance was my top genre this year (it was pop last year), according to my Spotify Wrapped. My most-listened to song was Lady Gaga’s Abracadabra – look, a song that was released in 2025 – as it’s one of our (now) ten-year-old’s favourites. Similarly zeitgeisty was my top album – the soundtrack to K-Pop Demon Hunters.

My top artist was Alex Christensen, which is a weird outlier; he released several albums of classical cover versions of dance music which I marathon-listened to one day. Last year’s top, Armin van Buuren, was second.

A screenshot of my Goodreads Year in Books

Books read and listened to

According to My Goodreads Year in Books for 2025, I read 76 books this year, which is one less than last year (and 17 fewer than 2023). Unfortunately, I set my 2025 reading challenge at 80 books, so didn’t achieve it. Also, books ‘read’ include those that I have listened to as audiobooks.

The shortest book I read, at 64 pages long, was ‘Our Super Japanese Adventure‘ by Sarah Graley and Stef Purenins (not available on Amazon), who we met at Thought Bubble. Meanwhile, the longest book was ‘Rule of Cool‘ (sponsored link) by Matthew Siege at 479 pages, although I listened to the audiobook which was narrated by Felicia Day over 12 and a half hours. The longest audiobook was ‘Neurotribes‘ (sponsored link) by Steve Silberman, which was over 20 hours and probably the longest audiobook I’ve ever listened to, although the print edition is 477 pages (two less than the Rule of Cool)

Overall, the average length of book that I read was 270 pages, which is 39 more than 2024. ‘A Brief History of Time‘ by Prof Stephen Hawking (sponsored link) was the most popular book that I read last year. Although, I found it a struggle in parts and, unsurprisingly, some of the science has changed in the 37 years since it was first published.

Beers and ciders consumed

I log the beers and ciders that I drink using Untappd, and these stats are from my year in beer. Like last year, I drank less than one per month (11 in total) and my main style was ‘non-alcoholic’.

Steps taken

My total steps taken was very similar to 2024 and 2023. Overall I took 3,455,761 steps, which is only slightly less than 2024. My average is 9,468 per day; January was my most sedentary month and July was my most active, but not by much.

Time spent learning French

A screenshot of my Duolingo stats for 2025

I started Duolingo’s French course on the 1st January 2022 (so I have a four year streak now), and in 2025, I spent 3,560 minutes learning – that’s 59 hours in total. Compared to 2024, that’s 11 hours less, but we didn’t go to France again this year.

My Duolingo Score for French is 118, which means that I’m in the medium 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 was expecting to have reached 130 by now, but clearly not.

Still, not much further to go. I’m probably going to switch to German next – I got an A* in GCSE German in 2000, but a quarter of a century has passed since then and I’ve forgotten most of it.

Podcasts listened to

A screenshot of my most listened to podcasts of 2025

I listen to the majority of my podcasts through Overcast (with the remainder in BBC Sounds). My most listened to podcast was, once again, RHLSTP (RHLSTP!) with 40 hours over the year. The Guilty Feminist, The Comedian’s Comedian, The Bugle and a new entrant, Bugle spin-off podcast, Realms Unknown, make up the rest of my top 5.

Photos taken

A new stat that I tracked in 2024 was an estimate of photos taken, although it will also include some screenshots as well. In 2025, I took 1536 photos, so less than 2024 but more than 2023.

So, that’s 2025 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.

Happy New Year!

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Welcome to 2026! I hope you are having a good new year.

As in previous years, we didn’t stay up until midnight to see in the new year. However, our reason for an early night this time is that Christine is working today. So, we had what would have been our New Year’s Day meal yesterday. Christine pressure-cooked a gammon joint with pineapple juice (here’s a recipe that’s a close match) and we had the namesake trifle from Robert Owen Brown’s Crispy Squirrel and Vimto Trifle book (also available on Amazon via this affiliate link, but for about 10 times the price so buy it from the publisher).

2026 holidays

We have a couple of trips away already planned for 2026. As usual, we’re going to Sci-Fi Weekender in Great Yarmouth in March, and having enjoyed last year’s holiday in North Wales, we’re going back there this year. There were lots of places that we wanted to go to, but couldn’t fit into the week, so we already have several ideas of places to visit.

I’m not expecting any other trips away, although we may be in London at some point. Christine is starting her studies for another qualification at one of the London universities, and whilst it’s primarily a distance learning course, there are some in-person teaching events. Depending on when they are, it may be that we can go down as a family. As it was, I didn’t get to visit London last year; Christine did, but only for work-related reasons.

New tech

As Christine will be starting a new course, we’re using it as an excuse to replace the laptop that we share at home. We currently have a Lenovo Ideapad 320S, which was bought in 2018 when Christine started a previous course, so it’s eight years old now and positively ancient in laptop terms. I upgraded the RAM to 16 GB in 2022 (previously it had just 4 GB), which goes some way to explain its longevity, but it can’t be (easily) upgraded to Windows 11. And as Windows 10 is literally on borrowed time, it’s about time for an update. I’ll write more once we’ve got it.

Home renovation

We’ve owned our house for 10 years (11 this summer). We bought it with the intention of renovating it, and before we moved in we renovated most of the downstairs. At the end of 2020, we had our (then) four-year-old’s bedroom renovated, followed by our kitchen in 2022.

The next big project is the bathroom. We’d planned to start looking at this in 2026-27, but for various reasons we’re probably going to bring this forward to the first half of 2026.

So that’s some of the things that I expect we’ll get up to this year. There will always be things that happen that I never expect – like last year’s work trip to Athens – but it looks to be a busy, and hopefully productive year.

2025: a year in review

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A photo of some large illuminated letters spelling out 'Bradford 2025' in green, outside Bradford City Hall

It’s New Year’s Eve, and so, as per usual, I review the things I’ve done and written about over the course of the year just gone. You can read my previous posts from 2024, 2023, 2022, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010 and 2009.

January

2025 got off to a slow start, not least because of heavy snow that was around for over a week. Our nine-year-old had two days off due to the school being closed, which saw me take short-notice annual leave. January was also the start of Bradford’s year as UK City of Culture, and so I wrote about that.

It was my 23rd blogiversary, and also two years since we had our solar panels installed. I also wrote a long post about how I’m probably neurodivergent, and whether we could take our house off-grid (short answer: no, apart from for gas).

January also had its goodbyes and hellos. We went to a funeral for a family member, but also re-connected with relatives who we haven’t been on speaking terms for some time, which was nice.

A photo of the outside of Magna Science Adventure Centre

February

February is LGBTQ+ History Month, and I hosted a webinar on the A-Z of LGBTQ+ through work. I think one of my personal achievements of 2025 was teaching the leader of Bradford Council what ‘deadnaming‘ is.

Whilst January was short of days out, in February we went to Magna near Rotherham, and also went to see the Dogman film at the cinema. I also wrote about a crowdfunder for the Bradford Playhouse – this was successful, and it now has a shiny new lift installed, making it fully accessible for the first time.

March

As per usual in March, we went to Sci-Fi Weekender in Great Yarmouth. It was another good event this year and we’ve already booked to go again next year. On the way down, we called at Thaymar Ice Cream, which has a lovely little café and is just off the A1. Sadly, it doesn’t have electric car charging facilities and so we probably won’t be able to stop there next time.

I took our nine-year-old to the Abbey House Museum, which had recently been reprieved from closure. We also visited Tropical World on the same day – we’ve been loads of times and I wrote about it 10 years ago. Christine and I managed to arrange a babysitter, so we had a rare grownup night out and went to see Mickey 17 at the cinema. Speaking of cinemas, I decided to rank six of Britain’s cinema chains in a highly subjective way.

A photo of a hawk with its keeper at the National Centre for Birds of Prey in Helmsley, North Yorkshire

April

We also went to the cinema in April, this time as a family to see A Minecraft Movie. I stand by my review of it being basically fine – great if you’re a Minecraft fan but neither terrible nor a masterpiece.

With the improving weather, we managed a few days out, including RSPB Fairburn Ings, the National Emergency Services Museum and Knowsley Safari Park. As per usual, we went to see my parents in York for the Easter weekend, and from there we also went to the National Centre for Birds of Prey, Ampleforth Abbey and the York Model Railway Show.

May

I wrote about No Mow May at the beginning of the month; as it happens, it wasn’t until this autumn that we got someone in to sort our garden and trim the grass. May is also our wedding anniversary – 12 years this year – and my birthday, for which we went to Beamish to use up our annual pass from last year. We also called in at Kendall’s Ice Cream Parlour in Hipperholme – a favourite of Christine’s when she was younger which sadly closed down later in the year.

On the blog, I wrote the first of our electric car journey blog posts in May.

A photo of the Parthenon at the Athens Acropolis

June

June was a big month in a way that I hadn’t expected at the start of the year. I was given the opportunity to represent my workplace at a summit in Athens, as a guest of PeopleCert who paid for my flights, accommodation and food. They also included a tour of the Acropolis on the first day. Though I have been to Greece before, that was a trip to the island of Crete when I was three which I don’t really remember. Whilst it was a short, intense visit, I thoroughly enjoyed it – especially the food.

June also marked ten years since we bought our house. It’s the longest that I’ve lived in one place since moving out of my parents home aged 18.

July

More travel was to come in July, as we went on our holiday to North Wales. Whilst we were only there for a week, we squeezed a lot in, to the extent that I was still blogging about what we did in September. Our holiday was also a test run for our new electric car that we bought in July. We managed pretty well to say that we’d only had it a week when we set off. We still really like the car, and have no regrets about the switch to electric.

Also in July, we went to an event at the Bradford Literature Festival with Robin Ince and Pierre Novellie. We ended up listening to Robin’s book around Wales, whilst I finally finished Pierre’s book earlier this month.

A photo of Little Moreton Hall, a Tudor house

August

August is my busiest month of the year at work, but that didn’t mean that we weren’t able to have lots of nice days out. We went to the very wonky Little Moreton Hall in Cheshire, Bowland Wild Boar Park and Bolton Abbey in North Yorkshire. Further afield, we went to celebrate my cousin’s 50th birthday in Oxfordshire, calling in at Cadbury World on the way.

I bought myself a new iPad at Costco, making it my fourth overall and the first new iPad in seven years. Speaking of Costco, we let our membership lapse in November, as we’re pretty well stocked up at present. I imagine we’ll re-join some time in the new year, once we’ve finally used everything up.

September

Though not quite as busy as August, September is still a busy time for me at work. However, we did make it to a couple of exhibitions: The Cat That Slept For A Thousand Years and The Art Of The Brick. These have now both closed.

Christine had her birthday, and so we had a little celebratory meal in Leeds, along with a shopping day out in Manchester.

A photo of the Castlefield Viaduct

October

We were back in Manchester in October, to see the Brains, Bogies and You exhibition at the National Science & Industry Museum. Whilst there, we also popped in to see the nearby Castlefield Viaduct. I also took our nine-year-old to The World of Glass in St Helens.

At the theatre, we saw the Rude Science show – I’m hoping to finish the book before the end of today – and I met the Map Men in Leeds. My copy of the book went to my Dad as a birthday present but I’ve listened to the audiobook.

November

We received a big upgrade to our internet at home after we got fibre broadband installed. A couple of months on, and it seems better than what we had before on the whole. We also put up our Christmas tree super early.

We also managed some days out, to the Kelham Island Museum in Sheffield and York’s Chocolate Story, and had an enjoyable day at Thought Bubble in Harrogate. And we watched the first of two pantomimes at the Bradford Playhouse.

A photo of the top of our Christmas tree

December

Back to the cinema again, this time for the second instalment of Wicked. We also had another family celebration, this time for my cousin who had her 25th wedding anniversary. Dress code was black tie, so I hired a suit for the occasion.

I finished work for Christmas on Friday 19th, to coincide with school holidays, and so we went to Quarry Bank Mill last week – our fourth National Trust property of the year. Christmas itself was, as usual, spent with my parents in York.

All in all

Overall, 2025 has been a good year for me. Going to Athens was definitely a highlight, as was our holiday in Wales. Let’s hope 2026 is just as good.

Reviewing my 2025 predictions

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Back in January, I made six predictions about events that would take place in 2025. So, seeing as there’s just a few days left in 2025, let’s see how I did:

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

This was a 2024 prediction as well. And it’s been accurate again – X has basically stagnated under Musk. Whilst I no longer use X, I’m not really aware of any new features; just a continuing decline as more extreme voices are amplified. I hope that, in time, X will just become irrelevant.

Donald Trump will be terrible in ways we haven’t foreseen

I mean, this is an easy one, but I think one of the worst things he did this year was his comments about Rob Reiner. Reiner and his wife were tragically killed, probably by their son, and yet Trump decided to criticise him. I try very much not to speak ill of the dead (or at least, not the recently deceased).

Trump and Musk will have a public fall-out

Yes, this happened. They seemed like best buddies at the start of the year, but their respective massive egos got the best of them. It hasn’t ended as badly for Musk as it could have done though.

Labour will do poorly in local elections

Yes, although this was an easy prediction. I was still surprised (and saddened) that Reform managed to take control of several local authorities. That being said, their general mismanagement of Kent County Council shows that they may not be a long-term political force.

There won’t be a General Election in 2025

Again, I was phoning it in a bit here. With Labour not doing so well in national polls but still having a parliamentary majority, I expect they’ll stay for as long as they can.

The overall situation in the Middle East will improve

We finally got a ceasefire (of sorts) in Gaza, although I think it’s a case of things not getting any worse rather than necessarily improving. We’ll see what happens in the medium-term but there’s a lot of rebuilding to do.

I think that’s a reasonable success rate, although frankly some of these predictions were highly likely anyway. I’ve now got a few days to think up some predictions for 2026.

PowerCalc for Home Assistant

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Screenshot of the energy dashboard in Home Assistant with some data provided by PowerCalc

One of the features I like about Home Assistant is its Energy dashboard. It can analyse and display various data about power and energy usage in your home – provided that you have the correct sensors available. As we have solar panels, our inverter provides lots of live data via a local API that we can use.

We also have a number of energy monitoring smart plugs that track energy usage. We have a couple of Meross plugs, and a couple of cheap Tuya Zigbee plugs. Home Assistant can then display the power usage of these devices, and so you can see where your energy is going.

But we can’t fit these onto every device. For example, devices like our oven, hub and dishwasher are all built-in, and don’t use standard 3-pin plug sockets. We could have smart relays fitted, but that would be a paid job for an electrician. So, instead, there’s a potential software solution, in the form of PowerCalc.

PowerCalc is a custom integration that you can install from HACS. Once set up, you can use PowerCalc to estimate the power usage of your devices, or use its extensive library where other users have provided this data already. Indeed, when I installed PowerCalc, it automatically added entries for our various Google Home smart speakers. Once added, these appear as additional entities attached to your existing devices, which is nice – they don’t appear as separate devices.

You can then add these entities to your energy dashboard, to see where your electricity usage goes. Here’s a Sankey graph from last week from our house; it was quite a dull day with little solar generation. There’s a lot that we can’t track, but you can see that a significant amount of our energy usage was spent drying clothes.

PowerCalc gets regular updates, with new devices being added all the time. And, of course, you can add these yourself, if you have the means to record the energy usage. The energy usage data also updates in realtime, so you could add the data to a dashboard and see how changing the brightness of a bulb affects its calculated energy usage.

Merry Christmas!

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A photo of me wearing a rainbow santa hat

By the power of a scheduled post that was written last Saturday, I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas if you are celebrating today. As per usual, we’re staying with my parents in York for the Christmas period, having arrived last night.

Unlike the past couple of years, my gift to Christine hasn’t been Discworld-related. Instead, I’ve bought her a gift sponsorship of an endangered frog at the Manchester Museum. At the top level, this includes a one hour behind-the-scenes tour of the vivarium for the sponsor and up to three guests. So that’ll be something to look forward to doing in 2026, especially as the Manchester Museum is one of our favourite places to visit.

As for our gifts to family, this year Christine has made most of them herself. She took up crochet in a big way earlier this year, and so our relatives will have opened a selection of blankets, hats and gloves this morning.

Christmas is also an opportunity for us to relax and recuperate. I’m off work for two full weeks, having finished last Friday. As our past two summer holidays have been a single week, this is actually the longest time I have had off work since our 2023 summer holiday. Thankfully, my workplace closed at lunchtime on the 23rd, and doesn’t open again until the 5th, so I shouldn’t have too much work to come back to.

This is the first year where our nine-year-old doesn’t believe in Santa. It means that they know their gifts were bought for them by people close to them, and not just provided by a mythical being.

Once again, I hope you all have a great Christmas.

My best children’s books of 2025

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Having written about my favourite adult fiction and non-fiction books of this year, it’s time for the books that we enjoyed reading with our nine-year-old the most this year. This is a mixture of fiction and non-fiction.

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.

‘Murder! by Narwhal!’ by Alex T Smith

This was a Waterstones book recommendation that we picked up last year. Murder! By Narwhal! is, as you may have guessed, a kid-friendly murder mystery book where someone ends up deceased by the way of a narwhal horn. Our nine-year-old really enjoyed it, and there are plenty of twists and turns in the plot. Like all the best whodunnits, the perpetrator will be a complete surprise, and have made sense all along.

An as-yet untitled sequel to the book is due to come out in 2026.

‘Bunny vs Monkey’ by Jamie Smart

Our nine-year-old has been really getting into comic books this year, hence why four of the six books recommended here are comic books. This is book one of the Bunny vs Monkey series; so far, we’ve read five of them together this year, with others purchased but not yet read.

They are very silly books, which makes them perfect for their target age group.

‘History’s Most Epic Fibs’ by Athena Kugblenu

A non-fiction book! You may know Athenu Kugblenu as an occasional co-host of The Guilty Feminist Podcast, or as a stand-up comedian, or as a contributor to the recent Dead Funny History series on BBC Radio 4. History’s Most Epic Fibs is a kid’s book dispelling commonly believed fake facts from history, like how vikings never war horned helmets, or that Queen Cleopatra was not actually Egyptian. As well as being a source of facts, it’s also a way of teaching critical thinking, and not always taking everything someone says at face value.

We also read this year’s follow-up, History’s Most Epic Fails, about how things went wrong and changed the world – sometimes for the better. I recommend both.

‘Mega Robo Bros’ by Neill Cameron

Our nine-year-old got to meet Neill Cameron at Thought Bubble this year, and so we have a signed poster of one of their favourite comic book series from this year: Mega Robo Bros. Set in near future London, it tells the story of two humanoid robot brothers, who live with their scientist mother and her spouse. Whilst their parents try to let them have a normal life, when a mysterious evil Robot 23 comes onto the scene, their robot super powers suddenly become very useful indeed.

Unlike the Bunny vs Monkey books, which are anthologies of a series of short stories, each book is a complete story within an over-arching plot line. So far, we’ve read the first two books in the series.

‘Cooking with Monsters’ by Jordan Alsaqa

We bought Cooking with Monsters at this year’s Thought Bubble from Vivian Truong, who is the artist behind this comic book series. I should note that this is aimed at young adults, but our nine-year-old enjoyed it and there isn’t much in here that isn’t age-appropriate for younger kids. It’s also quite LGBTQ+ friendly; indeed, one of the main characters is non-binary. We liked the monsters such as the Bull Frog (a frog that is also a bull).

Currently, there are two books in the series – we’ve just read the first so far.

‘Unfairies’ by Huw Aaron

Another Waterstones recommendation, and a sign that comic books are moving into the mainstream, as this is published by Puffin Books. Unfairies is a similar level of silliness to Bunny vs Monkey, and follows the adventures of Pip who works in the storeroom at the bottom of a tree. As he makes his way up the tree, he encounters other fae creatures, all of whom seem to hate each other, until he gets to the top.

We only just finished this book last week. A sequel is due out early next year and was being promoted by Puffin at Thought Bubble, along with a new comic book from Olaf Falafel for which we picked up a free two chapter sampler.

Honourable mentions

We read the first of the Montgomery Bonbon books by Alasdair Beckett-King a couple of years ago, but read the rest this year. They’re good books – all whodunnits.

Playlist of the month: Novelty Christmas

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Screenshot of the novelty Christmas playlist

The last time I did a Christmas playlist, I included my favourite Christmas music. This isn’t quite the opposite of that, but instead it’s 10 novelty Christmas songs that wouldn’t really make sense to play at any other time of year. As per usual, you can listen along on Spotify – many of these songs are mercifully short and so the whole playlist is less than half an hour.

  • “Proper Crimbo” by Bo Selecta. Bo’ Selecta! was a British TV sketch show in the 2000s, which, at the time, I found hilarious but it really hasn’t aged well – especially its blackface depiction of Mel B, amongst others. This Christmas single was released at the height of its popularity where its creator, Leigh Francis, parodied Craig David, and was a hit in 2003. You may know Leigh Francis better as Keith Lemon.
  • “Mr Hankey the Christmas Poo” by South Park. It turns out there’s a whole album of South Park Christmas music, if you like that sort of thing. It also peaked at , in the 1999 Christmas singles charts.
  • “Gift Vouchers” by The Lancashire Hotpots. A brand new song for 2025! It’s all about what to get for someone when you don’t know what present to buy for them.
  • “Once Upon a Christmas Song” by Peter Kay. The 2000s were indeed a weird time for comedy, as Peter Kay dragged himself up to play Geraldine McQueen in a parody of TV talent shows. It reached in the 2008 Christmas singles chart.
  • “We Built This City (On Sausage Rolls)” by LadBaby. In 2018, LadBaby became the first YouTuber to get a Christmas single, and this was it – a parody of the Starship song. This was a feat repeated for four subsequent years, and so LadBaby has now had more Christmas singles in the UK than any other band or artist, beating even The Beatles. At least they were all charity singles for the Trussell Trust.
  • “Last Christmas” by Crazy Frog. Remember the days when people would pay to buy a ringtone? And yet, nowadays my phone is permanently on silent. This is a truly terrible cover version of the Wham! classic, the original of which finally made it to Christmas in 2023 (after the rein of LadBaby) and again last year.
  • “Jingle Bells (Goat Edition)” by ActionAid. It’s Jingle Bells, but made up of samples of screaming goats. Indeed, there’s a whole album of them, from the charity ActionAid who raises funds to provide goats to poor families in third world countries.
  • “The Very First Christmas” by Spongebob Squarepants. This song is awful. Sorry (not sorry).
  • “The Night Santa Went Crazy” by Weird Al Yankovic. We can’t have a playlist of novelty songs without a bit of Weird Al. This is one of his earlier songs, from 1996.
  • “Present Face” by Garfunkel and Oates. This is a song all about the face you have to make when opening a present that you actually don’t like, but don’t want to offend the person giving it to you.

My best adult fiction books of 2025

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Between now and the day before Christmas Eve, I’ll be posting about the best books that I’ve read (or the best audiobooks that I have listened to) this year, just in case you need any last minute present ideas. On Monday, 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.

‘How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying’ by Django Wexler

Cover of 'How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying' by Django Wexler

This book was recommended to me by a couple of people. It’s told in the first person by Davi, who is stuck in a time loop. Every time she tries to defeat the Dark Lord, she ends up dead and back at the beginning of the loop. So, as per the title, this is How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying. It’s very funny, with plenty of violence, sex and swearing to boot. Christine and I listened to this together in the car, and the audiobook is very well narrated by Jeanette Illidge.

This book ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, and so there’s a second book, Everybody Wants to Rule the World Except Me, which also comes recommended. I think Christine enjoyed both books more than I did, but they’re still amongst my books of the year.

‘Human Rites’ by Juno Dawson

Last year, the other two books in the Her Majesty’s Royal Coven trilogy were in my best of list, so it’s no surprise that this third and final book, Human Rites, is here too. These books almost feel like they were written specially for me, as many of the settings are places around Hebden Bridge that I know well. Plus the various pop culture references.

Dawson manages to bring the overall story arc to a really satisfying conclusion, without making it feel like it was a foregone conclusion. The audiobook is, once again, excellently narrated by Nicola Coughlan, who is able to give each character a unique and distinctive voice.

‘Rule of Cool’ by Matthew Siege

Cover of 'Rule of Cool' by Matthew Siege

This was my first foray into the world of LitRPG – fiction books that incorporate role-playing game mechanics. So, in this book, Rule of Cool, the characters level up, and as events happen, you can read how their stats change. Attacks are on the basis of dice roles. It’s a whole genre of books.

The story is an idea I’ve come across before, in Drew Hayes’ book NPCs. Characters in a game find a way to break out of their pre-defined non-player character roles, and get to be the heroes for once. Whilst Hayes’ book was a little disappointing, I found the story in Rule of Cool much more engaging.

I picked this up on the basis of its narrator, Felicia Day, whose career I have followed since she released the first series of The Guild. Which is approaching its 20th anniversary, somehow.

‘The Fireborne Blade’ by Charlotte Bond

Cover of 'The Fireborne Blade' by Charlotte Bond

I met Charlotte Bond at this year’s Sci-Fi Weekender, as one of the invited authors. She’s from Leeds, and when I read the dedications for this book, The Fireborne Blade, one of those was to a mutual friend. As well as a signed copy of this book, she also gave me some Yorkshire Tea.

It’s a dragon-slaying fantasy book with a few unexpected twists. There’s some humour in here, and overall, it’s quite a short book. Which, if you’re like me and wanting to hit an ambitious reading challenge target for the year, is welcome.

There’s a follow up – The Bloodless Princes – but I haven’t started this yet.

‘When The Moon Hits Your Eye’ by John Scalzi

Cover of 'When The Moon Hits Your Eye' by John Scalzi

Last year’s best of list featured two honourable mentions by John Scalzi. As with Human Rites, mentioned earlier, this is one of two books that I read which were actually published this year.

In When The Moon Hits Your Eye, the moon suddenly turns to cheese. The book is essentially a series of short stories, where different characters all react to the same events, including teams of scientists, eccentric billionaires, and cheese shop owners.

Whilst my favourite John Scalzi book remains Starter Villain, this is good, and what you would expect if you’ve read Scalzi’s other books. The audiobook is once again well-narrated by Wil Wheaton.

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