2017 Retrospective

I didn't quite keep to last year's clever plan of starting my retrospective in January, the first words here typed near the end of November, but this year has been one of my less prolific. I'd put most of that down to simple exhaustion: around August/September of last year, things at work started changing quite dramatically, and the fairly constant stream of problems ever since has left me very drained, and in a state where I'm not finding a great deal of joy in my collection a lot of the time. Spurts of activity in May, July and September (the latter largely due to this blog's ninth anniversary, as well as the aftermath of attending TFNation for the second time, and news of HasCon) punctuated the months where I was surprised if I managed to squeeze out more than a couple of posts.

Still, having made a start (which was actually far easier than I'd expected), I can at least follow the template of the previous years and have this ready to go live just before 2018 - which will be this blog's tenth anniversary year - is rung in. While one of my blogs came to an unceremonious end on its tenth birthday, I see no immediate signs that this one will suffer the same fate. Then again, I have yet to even start my more generalised toy blog (inspired mainly by my purchase of a Vitruvian HACKS Medusa and some Play Arts Kai figures, but it's been eye-opening to think about the other non-TF toys I have lying around), and my foodie blog seems to have ground to a halt despite my few continuing forays into simple cooking when the opportunity arises. My blogging, generally, has been patchy for the last couple of years, but this one has been, if not consistent, at least ongoing... and that's the main thing.

I have noticed that, with about 50 draft posts (many of which featuring now-defunct Photobucket image thumbnails) still hanging around, I've spent rather too long agonising about clearing my backlog and not enough time focusing on new purchases, which is something I hope I'll have at least started to address before the end of the year...

But, without further ado, here's the roundup of what has felt like a rather crummy year...

Highlights of 2017

1. A Holiday in Brighton - back in August, my girlfriend and I took a week's break in Brighton, staying in an AirBnB flat and generally chilling by the coast. Naturally, it rained almost every day we were there, but we packed in quite a lot of touristy stuff, had some lovely food, and I ended up being the target of a comedy routine (in a somewhat flattering way) as it made its way toward the Edinburgh Fringe. This was our first proper holiday together for about two years due both financial constraints and Courtney's studies but, freed from the latter following her exams, we went for something modest and had a great time. But, speaking of the exams...
2. My girlfriend getting her degree, then a full-time job - Courtney had to quit Imperial College twice, for mental health reasons, and was concerned for quite some time that she'd never complete her degree or "be a productive member of society". Finishing her degree via the Open University was a struggle sometimes, but finish it she did, with a respectable 2:1, all while volunteering and tutoring. And despite her fears that it'd take ages to get a full-time job with her presumed lack of experience or marketable skills, she was offered the first one she applied for, and that seems to be going very well. It's not in precisely the field she wants to be - Science Communication - but it's a (social media) communications role within a scientific field... And she still volunteers at the Science Museum every now and then, having determined that a full time 'Explainer' role there was not for her.
3. TFNation - while the 2016 show was somewhat overshadowed by a panic attack, this year's was absolutely great. The guests were a lot of fun, the panels were interesting, the show exclusives were cool, there was plenty of new stuff to buy, and each day played out like a game of YouTuber Bingo... Though I carried on my habit of almost literally bumping into some of them (accidentally) while entranced by all the plastic crack, and remained just as unsociable as last time.
4. Titans Return/TransFormers Legends - despite increased prices, both Hasbro and Takara Tomy continued to bowl me over with some fantastic new figures. I'm getting a little cheesed off at the overpopulation of Optimus Primes and Hot Rods the Prime Wars trilogy is bringing to the shelves, but there's no arguing with the concept and little to complain about in the execution (other than ending up replacing some TR toys with the TF Legends version because Takara Tomy did them better). Roll on Power of the Primes! On which subject...
5. Power of the Primes previews - while I'm not entirely convinced by PotP Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime's engineering, the concept is decent. Likewise Orion Pax/Optimus Prime - that one I'll certainly be picking up... though I was disappointed to see that the Takara Tomy version is likely to be identical to Hasbro's due to their dismal plan to 'unify the world brands'. Perhaps Takara Tomy will do a repaint later on, but is it worth holding out for that possibility..? Then, coming right near the end of the year was the reveal of Battleslash and Roadtrap, AKA the PotP re-do of the G1 Duocon known as Battletrap, which really ticked my fancy - two Scout class equivalent vehicles that combine into an almost Deluxe class robot, but also have their own, individual robot modes? Count me in! Let's hope we get Flywheels as well...
6. New Scientist Live - I've no idea why this wasn't on the list last year, as the show was fantastic. This year's was at least as good, with a fantastic look at all kinds of new things on the horizon. My only gripe is that there's too much to see and do, one has to plan very carefully and make some tough decisions on which talks to attend.
7. Seeing some famous people live - not just the voice actors, etc. at TF Nation, this year my girlfriend and I saw Gillian Anderson talk about her book 'WE: A Manifesto' at the Women of the World Festival at Southbank and Robert Webb in conversation with Victoria Coren-Mitchell about his book 'How Not To Be A Boy', to name but two. On a related note...
8. Cosmic Shambles - Courtney wangled me a ticket to a live event near my workplace, subtitled 'Nine Carols and Lessons for Godless People', attended by some of her colleagues as a pre-Christmas get-together, for an evening of science and comedy compered by Robin Ince. It was quite varied, quite similar in overall tone to the Stand Up for Darwin event Courtney and I attended a few years back, and served as an introduction to the many Cosmic Shambles podcasts, which feature Robin Ince and several scientific people, including Brian Cox, with whom Ince has co-authored a few books.
9. Being asked to design a birthday card - one of my colleagues has a nephew who's a massive Doctor Who fan and, having see the cartoon I did of John Pertwee (for my girlfriend, before we were dating) asked if I'd be willing to attempt a custom birthday card featuring Matt Smith's Doctor... It worked out so well, the nephew is having the card framed. It is, however, worth noting that I had about two months to work on it, but somehow didn't start it properly till about two weeks before the birthday. Typical me!
10. Third Party takes on the movie characters - Having been wowing us for years with their G1-inspired figures (which surely prompted Hasbro to up their game, very likely inspiring the Prime Wars trilogy with all those stunning combiners), several companies ended up turning their attention to the mind-boggling CGI of the movie franchise, bringing us (at least previews of) fairly screen-accurate interpretations of Lockdown, Dino and Hot Rod... and apparently there's a Grimlock on the way..? And speaking of Third Parties...
11. Perfect Effect's 'Jinrai Prime' - if there was one disappointing thing about TF Legends Super Ginrai it was that it kept the basic Titan Master features of Hasbro's Powermaster Optimus Prime, but just changed a few cosmetic details. I have mixed feelings about Perfect Effect's output, having been more often than not disappointed by those that I've bought, but PC-16 is definitely one of the good ones.
12. Completing my ancient, electronic Rom toy - back when I first got the Rom, The Spaceknight toy, the handle of one of his accessories broke almost instantly. Thanks to an eBay seller, I now have all three accessories... but I've yet to decide whether I'm going to keep it or just sell it, as it's worth quite a bit with functional electronics and all accessories...
13. Finally getting my hands on... - a DVD of Something Wicked This Way Comes, Disney's awesome adaptation of Ray Bradbury's story, with the script written by Bradbury himself, scarred me for life when I saw it in the cinema as a nine-year-old (and I didn't even remember the spiders!). A stellar cast (Jason Robards, Pam Grier and Jonathan Pryce at his most sinister) adds to a surprisingly timeless movie. The version I have is a 2004 NTSC reissue from Canada, as it has never been made available by Disney in the UK. Come on, Disney, how about a 35th Anniversary release in 2018? Also managed to obtain season 3 of TransFormers Animated a mere eight years after it first hit the screens. I'm still not sure if it ever aired in the UK (probably on Sky if it did), but it was good to finally see the final episodes that led to the proper ending in the TFNation exclusive comic
    
14. TransFormers: Robots In Disguise (2015-) toys - despite some clunky engineering, and yet more Bumblebees, I ended up buying several figures from this line, Bisk being a particular highlight. OK, I then ended up replacing several with the Takara Tomy TransFormers Adventure versions (not to mention buying a couple of the 'Versus' packs) but there's actually a lot to like in this simpler line. Still working on the TV show... and still not entirely convinced...
15. TransFormers: The Last Knight Cogman & Nitro toys - actually, I think all of the toys have some merit, they were just overpriced and underpainted, and Hot Rod was missing his weapons. Cogman and Nitro were the stand-outs, though. The former due to his lovely black wash (if only it had bee applied to more parts) the latter for his unexpectedly cool, circa-RotF transformation.
16. Movie Masterpiece Barricade announced and teased - and looking pretty damned good. Preordered almost immediately.
17. TransFormers Movie Studio Series announced and teased - and looking interesting, to say the least. Not sure if I'll buy any (depends, in part, on their size and cost) but they certainly look promising.
18. Wonder Woman - loads of people were surprised by how good the solo Wonder Woman movie turned out to be, considering the execrable Man of Steel and so-so Batman vs Superman. Was this to be the turning point? Was Justice League ever going to outdo the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Of course not... Wonder Woman proved to be a very pleasant black sheep in their stable where, I'd wager, the studio felt it was bound to fail, so they left the production team alone with a decent script, an excellent director and an awesome cast. I'm sure some key scenes were left on the editing room floor for the theatrical release, but that's what Blu-Ray is for, right?
19. Thor: Ragnarok - while the first two movies were enjoyable yet underwhelming, Ragnarok proved to be a welcome change in many respects. More even-toned, action-packed and funnier than the previous outings, the only let-down was the sudden and unceremonious deaths of Thor's companions. 
20. Star Wars: The Last Jedi - My girlfriend and I continued our tradition of seeing new entries into the Star Wars franchise at the Science Museum...but, by that point, I'd already been to see it with my best mate. It's not perfect - it plays for laughs rather too often for my liking and it appears to cast aside many of the plot threads introduced by The Force Awakens - but I felt it was a solid entry into the franchise, and was almost (but not quite) surprised at the fanboy backlash and the inevitable flood of "Disney Have Ruined Star Wars... And Here's Why" whinging opinion videos on YouTube. Personally, I've always wondered what would happen if a spacecraft went into hyperspace with another ship in its path... and now I know.
21. DC Comics' TV shows - while Marvel's televisual output has been patchy, DC's has been far outshining its own cinematic output, with The Flash, Supergirl and Legends of Tomorrow all being great fun (Arrow is a little bit up its own arse, however)
22. Star Trek: Discovery - after Enterprise, I had fairly low expectations for the new Star Trek series... and I have to admit its anachronisms do bother me, but I find its darker tone somewhat refreshing, and the main characters are incredibly engaging. No surprises, though, the female lead, changes to the Klingons and many other things about this series have been... er... divisive among the 'fanbase'.
23. The Doctor Who Christmas episode - the last handover between both actor and showrunner was the abysmal 'The End of Time, Part 2', in which Russell T. Davies self-indulged as never before, breaking with established canon to imply that, in regenerating, The Doctor would actually become a different person. While 'Twice Upon a Time' also featured a Doctor intent on holding off his regeneration as long as possible (or maybe even denying it entirely), that - and the actual handover - were handled better, and it came across as heartfelt rather than petulant... All that said, the TARDIS is exploding yet again. Yawn.
24. Retro Gaming FTW - Let's face it, my gaming tastes skew a little retro (the most recent console I own is a Nintendo Wii), having grown up in the era of massive arcade games and their disappointing ZX Spectrum conversions. My folks got me an Action Replay cartridge for my Saturn last year, I still couldn't play some games properly due to the 50/60Hz issues. Now, having bought myself a fully converted Saturn, I can play my Japanese games at full speed... on the rare occasion I have time.

Disappointments of 2017

1. Still no new roof for my flat - while the landlord contacted all the leaseholders at the start of the year, parroting back to us what we've been telling him for years about how urgently-required the roof renewal is, he soon went quiet... then became belligerent when we dared to ask for a progress report. Despite all he said, it was never about getting the roof fixed, it was about squeezing more money out of the leaseholders.
2. My health - Honestly, I don't recall ever having been so ill, so frequently. I started the year with another cough (thankfully not another chest infection), had several colds throughout the year thanks to the germ factory that is the Piccadilly Line, and had more visits to hospitals just this year than I have had in the preceding 42 years of my life. On the upside, I have been diagnosed with an allergic reaction in my oesophagus, so at least I know why I get acid reflux so easily. While I managed to end the year without a cough/cold, a GP warned me that I have high blood pressure, and that I need to improve my diet and get some exercise. Working on it...
3. TransFormers: The Last Knight - not just the film (which I refuse to watch - odd YouTube clips I've seen have been ridiculous), but the almost perfunctory toyline and its inflated prices... if you can find the toys at all, because distribution - or store takeup - has been appalling. Long gone are the halcyon days of Revenge of the Fallen where, despite a terrible movie, Hasbro produced masses of excellent toys that were easy to find, both online and proudly displayed in shops. Pride in the brand has truly taken second place to shareholder profits. On which point...
4. TF:TLK Autobots Unite Hot Rod - bad enough that it's an obvious retool of AoE Lockdown (albeit with some not-insignificant improvements), but it was released without the movie character's weapons, most particularly his time-stopping blaster. And the original packaging gave greater prominence to Bumblebee than to Hot Rod. Says it all, really. At least it didn't take long for a Third Party company to announce their 'Masterpiece' version...
5. No more TransFormers Collectors' Club - I mean, come on Hasbro! You have a licensee deal with it for over a decade, then just cancel it and roll BotCon into 'HasCon'? This is just bad marketing, and making it a US-only event is insulting. Each of your brands deserves its own official convention, and your customers deserve events in each of your major market territories. Speaking of territories...
6. The 'Unification of World Brands' - Clearly fed up of people waiting to buy Takara Tomy's superior output, Hasbro have decided that Power of the Primes toys will be identical in all territories... and rather than raise their game to meet Takara Tomy's level of quality, they are forcing their Japanese partners to release the poorly-decorated Western-market versions of all Power of the Primes toys.
7. TF Legends Godbomber - I know it's basically just an add-on kit for TF Legends Super Ginrai, but it was still a bit of a let-down. Floppy, disinclined to stay together, and making Super Ginrai even less stable, it didn't quite live up to my hopes.
8. eBay scammers - I've been using eBay for many years now, albeit not very frequently. 2017 was the first year I've ever had to open queries on items that were not delivered, and this happened on three different items. Thankfully, I was able to acquire all of them by other means in the end, but it's still disappointing after so many years of positive experiences.
9. The Science Museum's 'Robots' exhibition - a bit patchy, and massively disappointing in that there was so little interactive stuff there. Even worse, they'd made such a song and dance about having rebuilt a British robot from the late 1920s, but he didn't do anything other than sit there. There were more impressive displays of robotics at New Scientist Live.
10. Really, really running out of space - I'm stacking boxes everywhere (empty containers from Third Party and Takara Tomy stuff - I'm not a complete hoarder!) and contemplating sticking some older stuff into plastic crates because I cannot fit any more cabinets into my flat. This is getting a little silly...
11. Quality control and some poor design decisions on new TF toys - from the weakness in TR Weirdwolf's cockpit door, to repurposing TR Blurr as both Nautica and Arcee, to excessive paint on TR Overlord, to misassembly on both TR and TF Legends Kup, things have been a bit up and down in Hasbro and Takara Tomy's QC. And don't even get me started on TLK Dragonstorm's toy... what junk! On the upside, shite like Dragonstorm and Steelbane save me money and space... But Hasbro seriously need to put a stop to any other dragons in their many TF continuities - they never turn out well! On a similar note...
12. FansProject Lost Exo Realm LER-05 Comera - a beautiful figure, no doubt, but with a glaring design flaw that led to one broken ankle and visible plastic stress on the other within hours of getting it out of the box. I have a number of other FansProject figures and their quality control is normally excellent... my problems with this thing are eerily similar to those I had with Perfect Effect's Leonidas... On the upside, the vendor - TFSource - is asking FansProject for a pair of replacement legs, so hopefully she'll be back to normal in the New Year.
13. Transform Dream Wave TCW-01 Bruticus upgrade - I was hooked by this from the moment the first photos turned up online, just by the simple fact that the new hands transformed into weapons that could actually remain plugged into Bruticus' wrists. The improved jointing on the ankles also looked great, and the reworked leg joints and armour improvements looked interesting... However, I wasn't able to use the set because one of the legs on my Onslaught was glued together halfway down, the new thigh didn't fit the other leg anyway, and the feet didn't work especially well. I tried switching it over to Grand Galvatron, only for the socket on War Breakdown's rear end to crack due to the poor fit of the peg. Honestly, what is it with me and 3rd Party-related breakages?
14. Justice League - now, to put this in perspective, I actually enjoyed Justice League about as much as I did Batman vs Superman... but I felt that it should have been turned into two movies, with the first introducing the characters more thoroughly, bringing the team together less suddenly and building the threat posed by Steppenwolf, with the second film showing the League pull together and take on the world-ending threat gradually revealed in the first part. What we got was uneven (not least in the clash between Zach Snyder's style and Joss Whedon's) and scrappy-looking (some distinctly ropey, unfinished-looking CGI, for example). DC still need to up their game, but at least Wonder Woman was a step in the right direction.
15. Marvel's TV shows - I've struggled to get back into Daredevil, can't be bothered with Iron Fist, wasn't inspired by Defenders, haven't tried Luke Cage or The Punisher yet... and the newer stuff just keeps getting panned. On the upside, Jessica Jones was excellent (though my girlfriend won't watch it due to the PTSD elements) and Agent Carter was great fun... while it lasted.
16. Doctor Who - much as I like Peter Capaldi as an actor, I struggled to enjoy some of his tenure in the TARDIS. Ending Clara's arc almost came as a relief, and Bill made a refreshing change as his companion, but Capaldi took far too long to find his stride and never quite hit the right note for me, being far too recognisable as Peter Capaldi rather than fully becoming 'The Doctor' (I mean, David Tennant at least put on a different accent!). The single-episode story format has been my biggest gripe about the series since ever since it returned to our screens, and so much of this year's season would have benefitted by longer story arcs. My fingers are crossed for the new series next year, with Jodie Whittaker taking the lead... but will Chris Chibnall be a better showrunner than Steven Moffat?

So, despite 2017 feeling like quite a bad year, I can remember more highlights than disappointments, and all but two of the disappointments weren't massively significant. Thinking about it, I'm sure there were even more highlights (I went to two MCM London Comic Cons this year, and at least one of them netted me some rather cool toys), but just can't pick out any specific details... So, let's proceed with...

2017 Predictions vs. 2017 Reality

1. Hasbro operate their own TF Collectors' Club - well, that certainly didn't happen. What we got instead was the 'jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none' that was HasCon, in which they showed off all their properties at an expo of their own, in their home town. Much cool stuff was shown, including some amazing TransFormers-to-come... but the 'exclusives' were merely early access to stuff they'd make more widely available later.
2. That custom TF Prime Airachnid still hasn't happened yet... but since a fan-made movie Dino ended up getting turned into a Third Party product, I'm still hopeful...
3. A bit more originality from the Third Parties - also hasn't happened... What we've had instead is a shift in focus from Masterpiece-style animation-accurate G1 characters to CGI accurate (ish) movie characters, such as Unique Toys' Peru Kill, Alien Attack's Firage and TFEVO's Hot Fire. There was also a whole slew of the same animated movie characters from several different companies (Kup, Springer and Arcee spring to mind) and even some IDW comics characters (their stylised Hot Rod got turned into plastic by both Mastermind Creations and SXS).
4. Attending another TF Convention - got to TFNation again, and really enjoyed it, largely thanks to not having a panic attack on the Saturday morning, like in 2016. Even better, I may have convinced my girlfriend to come with me to the 2018 show...
5. Price Hikes - never before has this been more keenly felt than in 2017. Bad enough that Deluxe class figures from Titans Return were a few quid more expensive than Combiner Wars, the so-called 'Premier Edition' toys from The Last Knight were ridiculously overpriced from the start despite largely simplistic engineering and minimal paintwork.
6. Some more interesting Titans Return/Legends stuff - and I ended up buying far more than I'd expected, at least partly down to their easy availability at TFNation, the autumn MCM Comic Con, Forbidden Planet and Orbital Comics. It's been so tempting to get at least one of the massive toys like Fortress Maximus and Trypticon, but I really, really don't have room for figures that size in my tiny flat.
7. The Last Knight will be just another piece of incoherent trash - in the end, I didn't even bother seeing the movie. The trailers (and everything I read about the movie) convinced me beyond any reasonable doubt that watching it would just make me angry. It seems to have underperformed at the box office (at least in comparison to previous installments), and the much-vaunted "Writers' Room" was disbanded almost immediately... which should come as no surprise considering they actually tried to mix Arthurian legend in with TransFormers mythos ripped off from TransFormers Prime, imply HeadMasters but then cut out the relevant action, and attempt to create a legitimate connection between the first three movies and the latter two by shoehorning in a mention of "the Order of the Witwiccans". At least the toys were reasonably good... if overpriced...
8. WeiJiang release another upsized and improved TransFormers figure - um... strangely, not so much. I was hoping for Black Apple's upsized and re-engineered Dark of the Moon Megatron, but pretty much all we got from the Third Parties this year was an upsized (but not really improved) Generations Arcee, upsized versions of the Voyager class Megatron and Hound from The Last Knight, and an over/underachieving take on Battle Blade Bumblebee from RotF... but nothing so mindblowingly good as WeiJiang's Masterpiece-level upsized and upgraded Evasion Mode Optimus Prime.

Hopes/Predictions for 2018

1. Power of the Primes will be good, but expensive - I'd imagine that the financial turmoil of Brexit will be blamed, but I can see the current prices hanging around or further price hikes taking effect when the new line launches unless there's a dramatic change for the better in the financial markets... and, even then, it's not unheard of for prices to remain high after material costs fall. From what I've seen of the toys so far, it's a mixture of what has gone before in both Combiner Wars and Titans Return... nothing truly mind-blowing so far - I can certainly live without the Dinobot combiner and the new Terrorcons aren't quite tempting enough - but some potentially exciting reveals are still to come. I've already seen PotP Jazz and Dreadwind in Orbital Comics, but didn't buy the latter because they were priced at about £25 - I see no sense in buying them on import just to get them a little earlier.
2. Third Parties offering better value for money than Hasbro - not a great leap, considering the price hikes on Hasbro's mass-produced toys. With Deluxes now more than £20 in the UK, the value for money in official TransFormers toys is at an all time low (or is it? Contemporary Deluxe class toys are objectively still better than the Diaclone-derived G1 toys, and I'm fairly sure the prices are pretty similar...), while the Third Parties are producing some phenomenal products and fairly reasonable prices considering their size, complexity and the extent of their paintwork. Worse still, with Hasbro insisting that Takara Tomy release identical versions of Power of the Primes toys rather than their Legends remixes, we can't even wait a little longer for superior versions on import. It surely won't be long till all but the die-hard Hasbro/Takara Tomy loyalists are focusing their funds on unofficial products. Already, the Masterpiece-scaled stuff is on a par, if not cheaper than official Masterpiece figures.
3. Another great time at TFNation - along with my girlfriend this time..?
4. Toys, Hexcetera... - OK, really must try to get this thing going... So much cool stuff I could/should be posting!
5. The Bumblebee movie will be the worst movie in Hailee Steinfeld's career, but might just save the franchise - I have very low expectations for the movie, but may give it a try to see if Charlie Watson is even half as sassy as Mattie Ross (Steinfeld's character in True Grit). It sounds like it may contain elements of the first encounters from Marvel's G1 comics... but also shades of Herbie... Still, it has to be better than The Last Knight, right? I mean, they've admitted it's a reboot, so hopefully no more crass, adolescent 'humor'...
6. Hasbro to make another takeover offer - having had their offer to buy out Mattel rejected, I strongly suspect they'll try again, or try to buy another toy company. Rumour has it, for example, that a merger between Hasbro and Takara Tomy isn't entirely far-fetched... and the 'Unification of World Brands' seems to be a step in that direction.
7. Star Trek: Discovery will continue to divide the 'fanbase' - it ain't Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek, that's for sure... but I'm enjoying it, and it's certainly got people talking...
8. Doctor Who will be better - I'm less familiar with Jodie Whittaker, but she seems to be the sort of actor who disappears into her roles, so I'm hoping she'll be more 'The Doctor' than Peter Capaldi was. I'm also hoping that Chris Chibnall returns the show to its multi-episode story roots. Furthermore, I suspect that, however good the show turns out to be, a certain element of the 'fandom' will keep harping on about how another show has been ruined by the Social Justice Warriors 'forcing' the showrunners to ram a female Doctor down the throats of the 'true fans', rather than just accepting the changes. One of the stallholders at the MCM London Comic Con in October offered his pet theory to my best mate (who was, at the time, cosplaying as Capaldi's Doctor): that Jodie Whittaker is not 'The Doctor', but his daughter... Oh, please... Missy proved that natives of Gallifrey can change gender during regeneration, so why not The Doctor? At least the Christmas episode has... ahem... clarified the issue.
9. Deadpool 2 will disappoint some - the first movie broke the mold (as well as the fourth wall) but, like Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, the sequel will have lost the element of surprise that made the first stand out from the crowd. Unless, of course, they pull a Thor: Ragnarok, and surprise everyone...

In other news, along with this year's too-numerous-to-list celebrity deaths, my last surviving grandparent died near the beginning of this year, following about a decade of decline due to dementia. She lived to a grand old age (would have received her telegram from the queen either this year or next, if I remember correctly), but her death made me realise that life is moving on so very quickly... and the next to go will likely be my parents. On the upside, their health has been generally good this year, aside from frequent colds. My own health was far better toward the end of the year, with the run of colds seeming to stop after I got myself the 'flu jab for the first time this year. I finally got a diagnosis on the prolonged cough I get whenever I get a cold: believe it or not, it's an allergic reaction in my oesophagus causing the reflux that prolongs the cough. On the downside, there was that warning about my blood pressure. My niece continues to show good progress... not to mention a bit of a mean streak, though I hear she tends to be slightly calmer these days, if a little prone to climbing the furniture mid-conversation. Meanwhile, my girlfriend's father was moved to a hospital in London for a while, before being moved back closer to home, discharged in good time for a family Christmas at home, but then re-admitted a few days before. He discharged himself the day we went up there, and got through Christmas reasonably well, but I won't be at all surprised if he's readmitted early in the New Year.

Brexit/the Trump presidency continue to limp on, with all the same arguments about the former continuing ad infinitum, and greater depths of stupidity and sophistry being plumbed by the latter. At least one can hope that the ongoing investigations in the alleged Russian tampering (not just limited to the US Election, it's now said) will eventually depose and possibly imprison the mercurial, thin-skinned emperor... If he doesn't just defect to a 'friendly' country before he can be impeached. That said, it's worth bearing in mind that the last time the USA was in a situation like this, the outgoing President Nixon was allowed to name his own successor, whose first act as President was to fully pardon Nixon. Classy. It'll be interesting to see how Pence plays it, should the situation arise...

December of this year saw the fifth anniversary of my relationship with my girlfriend, and we treated ourselves to a pleasant (if somewhat ill-fated) weekend at a spa - the Comera breakage happened on the Saturday morning we headed off to the spa, I was woken up around 1am on Sunday morning by a leak from the en-suite shower, and snow closed the Piccadilly line on the Sunday, complicating and lengthening our route home. Other than that, it was fairly relaxing, and I think both of us enjoyed the heated swimming pool, the treatments and the dinner.

There haven't been too many other 'big, life changing events' for me, and I've been even less prolific in blogging this year than last... but it's still going, and it seems as though there's much to look forward to in 2018...

Best wishes to all for a fantastic New Year!