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Music

Black Gold: Best of Editors: Birmingham's finest current tunesmiths have released this greatest hits album with a few new songs and it's enjoyable stuff. The band have dabbled in both soaring and brooding guitar anthems, a bit of pop and lo-fi electronica, and it's not an unpleasant experience listening to the best bits of their back catalogue. Their new tune, Frankenstein, is also good stuff. But a new album of new material would be smashing.

Three Chords and the Truth by Van Morrison: I genuinely don't like criticising a Van Morrison album. The majestic Astral Weeks was the soundtrack to my first great love and I've been an admirer for some time. But this latest offering is thin stuff. It's like a VM impersonator decided to do a passable pastiche of other VM album fillers. On the plus side, I went back to Astral Weeks and loved every second of that. 

Giants of All Sizes by Elbow: The thinking man's Oasis are back with another album of mellow and tune-filled contemplations on all manner of things. It's both familiar and new and moving and comforting, like a lovely warm winter coat that will keep you toasty warm when it's pissing down with Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage outside.   

Film

My Name is Dolemite: A wonderful comedy drama telling the tale of 1970s comedian and unlikely film star Rudy Ray Moore, who carved a new niche for himself and his motley band of friends in the world of Blaxploitation cinema. Eddie Murphy is great in the lead role and Wesley Snipes is excellent as his serious actor-turned-director friend. An absolute hoot of a movie.

Replicants: Keanu Reeves goes into 'quiet-voiced serious actor' mode to manfully chomp down on a limply grim cock of a sort of modern Frankenstein sci-fi script. The whole thing is gag-reflex-inducingly bad and even the Speed, Matrix and John Wick fella can't make it seem palatable. And, fuck, how I love Keanu, despite him and several other creatives I adore, including Anthony Hopkins, Richard E Grant, Winona Ryder, Gary Oldman and Francis Ford Coppola, driving a shit-stained stake right through the concept of filming Dracula in 1995.

Comedy 
Stewart Lee: Tornado/Snowflake: A constantly brilliant performer brings his latest show to the Leicester Square Theatre. Funny, smart, thought-provoking and beautifully crafted. An utter joy. I love him. Buy a ticket. The best stand-up I have seen.

TV

The Boys: Season One: Amazon's adaptation of the blackly humorous rip-comic-lore-to-pieces graphic novel series by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson. Simon Pegg puts in an appearance as unlikely secret operative Hughie's dad. Karl Urban, Jack Quaid and Erin Moriarty steal the acting honours in a superior ensemble piece. The second season is already slated to appear next year. Can't wait.

Pool News...

Another year of county pool has ended and it's been a largely forgettable one. I always knew I'd be missing a couple of games when the season began, so any hopes of England trials were always going to be slim. Having said that, I should have still been up in the running if I'd have taken my chances and being more ruthless and disciplined during A Team matches. I suppose a return of 18 wins from 32 frames is pretty decent at that level, though. 

I also played Seniors for the first time this year and it was OK. I struggled most of the season adapting to playing early morning matches when I was usually practising before the county match proper and I carried quite a bit of luck with me, too. But 20 wins from 28 frames is a good if somewhat flattering result. 

The main issue this year has been consistency of approach and performance. After a poor outing at a big tournament 18 months ago, I changed some things around and I've finally worked out how to mix my attacking instincts with self-preservation. I was still thrown by the new pattern of limited practise and early starts I've had to adapt to on match days, though. 

I'm not sure that I'll be back playing county pool next year. I have a new career to carve out and I want to focus on getting my Second Dan at Hapkido and move towards getting my purple belt at BJJ. Those ambitions require physical demands that I may not be able to put my body through for more than a few more years. So they have a definite 'Best before' date.

I also don't want to do anything half-hearted any more and I feel as though I've done that at pool a lot this season because I've been trying to focus on too many other things. I also don't want to do something just because it's a habit. 

The answer for next year is probably to do less better. I just need to work out what that less is and how I get it. But if pool is the thing that goes, that's OK. I've done 715 frames for the county and more than 600 A Team frames. I think I've served my time.