FBTP End of Year Awards: Part I...

Fuck the Oscars, the Brits or Sports Personality of the Year. It's time for the From to Paternity 2015 Awards!


Best Thing Always on Telly 

Emmerdale is a peak-time soap opera set in rural Yorkshire. It screens six 30-minute episodes every week and it's been the best thing on TV by an absolute mile this year. The storylines all hang together and are utterly credible, the ensemble cast is excellent, and it's delivered cracking plot after cracking plot again and again. Its executive producer, Kate Oates, takes over the helm at Coronation Street next year so it will be interesting to see if this loss affects the overall quality of the show. I hope not. It's been excellent this year. 


The runner-up prize goes to Coronation Street. It may not always be brilliant but it never drops below pretty excellent.


Best Thing Not Always on Telly 

I've written about series three of The Bridge recently and it still totally wows me. It has been the best thing on TV this year. By some considerable way.


Honourable mentions go to the last series of Peep Show, which was a real return to form; Game of Thrones, which was enjoyably violent and dirty nonsense; Netflix comic-book action adventure series, Jessica Jones and Daredevil; historical blood and bonk-fest Vikings on Amazon; and Gotham, which is a pretty splendid mix of superhero actioner and police procedural. Endeavour, ITV's Morse prequel, is also worth a look.


Worst Thing Always on Telly 

The paucity of the writing on EastEnders is a huge problem, but the key issue remains the smashing of Albert Square characters into totally unsuitable plotholes. There have been a couple of high points in Walford this year, notably the episodes dealing with Shabnam Masood's stillborn son, and the first meeting of Sharon Mitchell and the back-from-the-dead Kathy Beale. But it's largely been badly developed stories with one eye on grabbing headlines rather than building a long-term story that makes sense and is credible and stays true to the characters. 


If anything, I have massive sympathy for the writers, who are left to make sense and do their best job with the shabby and non-sensical storylines they are presented with. 


Worst Thing Not Always on Telly 

A seven-word review on the appalling sub-Love-Thy-Neighbour comedy that is Citizen Khan, which got its fourth series the year: How the fuck did this get recommissioned?

Best Gig 

The Unthanks, Newcastle's folk music wunderkids, held their own boutique festival, which they also headlined, and it was a wonderful. The venue was the Stevenson Boilerworks in Newcastle and it was a small-scale and intimate affair. The Unthanks' gig at London's Union Chapel was also ace. 


Honourable mentions go to Gaslight Anthem and Arcade Fire, who remain two of the best live acts out there, and former Supergrass singer Gaz Coombes, who produced a charming and utterly astonishing set.


Best Album 

My favourite album of the year may not have actually come out this year because I've been retro-buying as well as purchasing new releases. The two new albums that have wowed me have been: In Dreams by The Editors, which sees Birmingham's finest continue their delve into moody electronica; and Mount the Air by The Unthanks, which may be a more produced and polished album than their previous output but it still has much to treasure. 


Other things I've fallen in love with in 2015 include: One-Eyed Jacks and Outlands by Spear of Destiny; The Idiot by Iggy Pop; The Circus by Erasure; In Your Room by Yazoo; 12 Deadly Cyns by Cyndi Lauper; The Glare by Michael Nyman and David McAlmont. I've probably missed many more.

Favourite Fighter

Polish MMA fighter and UFC Women’s Straw-weight Champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk has utterly wowed me this year. Her striking is off-the-chart, in its volume, its power and its accuracy, and her grappling looks pretty solid, too. In a year dominated by the in-your-face publicity machine that is new UFC Featherweight Champion Conor McGregor, who can walk the walk and talk the talk, and the seemingly unstoppable rise then dramatic fall of the hardly shy and now dethroned UFC Bantamweight Champion, Rhonda Rousey, Jedrzejczyk has quietly gone about her business with under-stated and, at time, under-the-radar efficiency.


Twat of the Year 

I'm lucky. Apart from a couple of run-ins with largely inconsequential cloth-heads at work and a couple of other fuckwits outside of it, it's been a relatively twat-free year in both my professional and personal life.


Hero of the Year

Jeremy Corbyn's surprise elevation to Labour Leader has reminded everyone that politics should be about caring for people, not about kow-towing to multinationals or ensuring the rich stay rich and the poor get poorer. It's a timely victory and it's brought 380,000 back to the Labour Party.


Not Enough Bullets in the World Award 

Pretty much any member of the Tory Party. They are deplorable people and their lack of compassion should be a source of national shame. I genuinely have no idea how any of the fuckers sleep at night.