95: Best of 2024

Hello and welcome to Border Crossing issue #95, one last splurge for 2024.

I hope you’re well, got some decent downtime these past few days and you’re tucked in ready for the usual Best of… nonsense.

Before I dive into the lists, a quick plug for my end-of-year zine Just a Truffle Race to the End. It’s an A5 paper zine, 52 pages of my favourite essays from this year. I’ve made 100 copies and there are about 35 left. It’s just £4 from the Border Crossing shop. Except… if you’re a Border Crossing paying sub (thank you!) a copy should’ve landed in your letterbox last week, plus your name is in the ‘thank you’ list on the back page. If yours didn’t show up, nudge me.

Best of 2024

music

I posted my four music ‘best of’ lists over on Double Chorus, so if you’ve not checked those out, you can click across for:
My Favourite Albums of 2024
My Favourite Gigs of 2024
Song Obsessions of 2024
and
Music on Small Screens 2024.

tv

For this year’s film and tv categories, I've separated documentaries into a category of their own, regardless if they were one-off movies or multi-part telly series. Not sure why, but it felt like it made sense.

For me, it’s been quite a poor year in telly. Still a handful of fantastic shows but we’re deep in the mire as the streaming platforms pivot from competing on quality to a race down towards bottom feeder hell. Thus, the drop-off after my favourites was very steep. There are shows in the bottom half of this list that I don’t even think were objectively much ‘good’, it’s just I plain old enjoyed them.

1. Blue Eye Samurai
2. True Detective: Night Country
3. Wolf Hall: The Mirror And The Light
4. Carol & The End Of The World
5. Industry
6. The Day Of The Jackal
7. Scavengers Reign
8. Fargo
9. Bad Monkey
10. Interview With The Vampire
11. Richard Osman’s House Of Games
12. Shogun
13. University Challenge
14. Slow Horses
15. Rick & Morty
16. Race Across The World
17. The Diplomat
18. Queer Eye
19. The Dragon Prince: Mystery of Aravos
20. Ludwig

my favourite older TV I watched this year was:
Elementary (2012-2019)
Sort Of (2021-2023)
Loudermilk (2022)
Hill Street Blues seasons 1-3 (1981-1987)
and a pile of variants of Ru Paul’s Drag Race, which I’d never seen before and have now watched — or half-watched — about 15 different series of.

film

1. Anora
2. Civil War
3. All Of Us Strangers
4. Rebel Ridge
5. Emelia Perez
6. Monkey Man
7. Green Border
8. Dune Part 2
9. Love Lies Bleeding
10. Io Capitano
11. The End We Start From
12. Kneecap
13. A Different Man
14. Challengers
15. American Fiction
16. The Substance
17. Spaceman
18. His Three Daughters
19. Nemona
20. Wicked Little Letters

Haven’t yet seen: Hard Truths, A Real Pain, Conclave, A Complete Unknown, or Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World.

If you’re missing The Zone Of Interest, it was my joint number one film of 2023 with Past Lives. I’m not sure why so many folks have it in their lists for this year. Perhaps because, though it came out last year, it appeared on streams this year. I suspect the (already complicated and annoying) yearly divide for release dates will only get worse going forward, now that so many films get their tiny token cinema run (to make them eligible for awards) before launching online shortly afterwards.

Older films I most enjoyed in 2024 included:

Wadjda (Iran, 2012)
The African Desperate (2022)
The Virgin Suicides (1999)
I Walked With A Zombie (1943)
Kind Hearts & Coronets (1949)
Sixteen Candles (1984)

documentary

I’ve done a Top 13 docs because there was a big drop-off in quality/enjoyment after these and, at the same time, I especially wanted to include Skywalkers: A Love Story — a bonkers tale about kids who make Tik Tok films by illegally climbing dangerously high buildings. It’s nuts-and-bolts filmmaking, not a great doc per se — a bit shady even, in terms of truthtelling — but the story and characters are super compelling.

1. The Great American Buffalo (Ken Burns)
2. Eno (Gary Hustwit) *
3. Dahomey (Mati Diop)
4. Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa (Lucy Walker)
5. Occupied City (Steve McQueen)
6. The Greatest Night In Pop (Bao Nguyen)
7. Witches (Elizabeth Sankey)
8. Scala!!! (Jane Giles & Ali Catterall)
9. Zef: The Story Of Die Antwoord (Jon Day)
10. Corridors Of Power: Should America Police The World? (Dror Moreh)
(I wrote critically on this series here — the piece is included in the zine)
11. Bombing Brighton: The Plot To Kill Thatcher (Guy King)
12. Still: A Michael J Fox Movie (Davis Guggenheim)
13. Skywalkers: A Love Story (Jeff Zimbalist)

* Eno was a different film every time it screened, using an algorithm to shuffle and re-cut each time from hundreds of hours of footage. We only saw it once and that was fantastic but I can’t vouch for the slipperiness and/or plain cleverness of the concept, which presumably becomes apparent (or is exposed as a nothing) over several viewings.

Also an extra nod to Elizabeth Sankey’s terrific film Witches, which seems to have slipped between a lot of cracks this end-of-year. The followup to her debut Romantic Comedy, Witches cements Sankey’s use of personal narration over a wealth of archive film clips to bring her fresh voice to a story. Technically it’s in the Mark Cousins vein and I’m very taken with that style anyway, but Sankey brings her own unique slant to the form.

live performance onscreen

1. James Acaster — Hecklers Welcome
2. Stewart Lee — Basic Lee
3. Nan Goldin’s ‘Are you listening?’ speech, Neue Nationgalerie, Berlin
4. Rambert Dance — Peaky Blinders: The Redemption Of Thomas Shelby
5. Jacqueline Novak — Get On Your Knees
6. Taylor Tomlinson — Have It All
7. Ali Wong — Single Lady
8. Fern Brady — Autistic Bikini Queen
9. Hasan Minhaj — Off With His Head
10. Rachel Feinstein — Big Guy

I acknowledge it’s a weird thing to have one dance production, one protest speech and loads of stand-up, but that’s just how it rolled out.

live: theatre / standup / literary

1. A Mirror, Trafalgar Theatre, London
2. John Cooper Clarke with John Robb, Louder Than Words, Manchester
3. Jude Rogers & John Grindrod non-fiction writing sessions, Arvon
4. Olga Koch: Prawn Cocktail, Komedia Studio, Brighton
5. Jim Bob with Steve Lamacq, Shiiine On, Butlins Minehead
6. Baga Chipz & Alfie Ordinary, Charles Street, Brighton
7. QDance: Re:Incarnation, Brighton Dome
8. David Bramwell’s book launch lecture, Grand Central, Brighton
9. Lucky Dog, The Bridge House Theatre, London
10. Leon The Pig Farmer, Shiiine On, Butlins Minehead
11. Simon Garfield in conversation, Arvon
12. Sunny Singh: A Bollywood State Of Mind, Dome Studio, Brighton
13. Jim & Les: Post Historic Monsters chat, Rough Trade East, London
14. Bibi Does Brighton, Slack City live, The Actors, Brighton
15. Willy Vlautin in conversation, Komedia Theatre, Brighton

In May I did my ‘live radio chat show’ presenter/interviewer gig for Slack City Social at Brighton Fringe. It was just a one-off this year, rather than a run of shows, with guests Joel Morris, Naomi Wood and Richard Norris, plus live music from Cub Zoa (Jack’s two-song set made it into my top gigs of the year). Obviously a show involving me doing the interviewing is ineligible for this chart — but I enjoyed the night and the guests were brilliant.

I also played interviewer / host for the record launch of Immersion’s collaborative ‘Nanocluster’ project, which was similarly great fun but ineligible for the chart. Immersion is Colin Newman (Wire) and Malka Spigel (Minimal Compact), both deeply insightful and funny in conversation about music.

books

1. Alan Garner — Powsels and Thrums
2. Judith Butler — Who’s Afraid Of Gender?
3. Lyndsey Stonebridge — We Are Free To Change The World
4. William Dalrymple — The Golden Road
5. Grace Blakely — Vulture Capitalism
6. Jim Bob — Where Songs Come From
7. Hester Musson — The Beholders
8. Roxanne de Bastion — The Piano Player of Budapest
9. Joel Morris — Be Funny Or Die
10. Will Hodgkinson — Street-level Superstar - A Year with LAWRENCE
11. Emily Herring — Herald Of A Restless World
12. Kathleen Hanna — Rebel Girl
13. Ben Murray — Oh, That More Such Flowers May Come Tomorrow
14. David Bramwell — Outlandish
15. Aflo The Poet — Warm Up
16. Sunny Singh — A Bollywood State of Mind
17. Oliver Gray — Austin Healing
18. Mary McCormack & Melissa Fitzgerald — What’s Next: A Backstage Pass To The West Wing
19. Adam Phillips — On Giving Up
20. Taffy Brodesser-Akner — Long Island Compromise

My favourite older books I read this year —

Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi — The Uprising - On Poetry and Finance (2012)
Adele Oliver — Deeping It (2023)
David Graeber — The Utopia of Rules (2015)
Henri Bergson — Time and Free Will (1889)
William Makepeace Thackaray — Vanity Fair (1848)
John Grindrod — Iconicon (2022)
Andreas Malm — How To Blow Up A Pipeline (2020)
Richard Beard — Sad Little Men (2022)

essays

Halfway through 2024, I lost track of all the essays I’d most enjoyed — I’d accidentally deleted a note with the list on and only noticed in December. So I’ve stitched together this category from old newsletters and notes, trying to remember and trace essays that moved or impressed me. Which means, I guess, the ordering here is far closer to guesswork than usual. Not that ordering matters, eh. However, Pankaj Mishra’s dazzling, heartbreaking, unflinching LRB essay definitely deserves its nominal ‘number one’ spot.

1. Pankaj Mishra — ‘The Shoah After Gaza’ for London Review of Books

2. Tom Scocca: ‘The Year My Body Fell Apart’ for Intelligensier (NYT)

3. Sarah Crowder — ‘Jason Molina and the owl howling pain pain pain’ for One Stone Two Birds

4. Dana Stevens — ‘Rejecting The Binary’ profile of Judith Butler for Slate

5. Refaat Alareer’s collected genocide diaries, published posthumously by The Electronic Intifada (By the way, on 17th October, The Met police used anti-terrorist legislation to raid the home of E.I.’s Associate Editor, respected journalist Asa Winstanley, with ten officers, taking a load of his equipment away. Despite the menacing implications of this raid, as recognised by the NUJ and other organisations, there was virtually zero reporting of it anywhere in the mainstream British media.)

6. John Grindrod — ‘Bridges To Nowhere: A Motor Services Fantasia’ pamphlet

7. Kate Wagner — ‘Behind F1’s Velvet Curtain’ spiked and deleted after publication by Road and Track (but rescued via WebArchive)

8. Liz Pelly — ‘The Ghosts In The Machine’ for Harper’s

9. Jia Tolentino — ‘What Tweens get from Sephora’ for New Yorker

10. Noah McCormack — ‘Jessica Mitford’s Escape from Fascism’ for The New Republic

11. Paul Meighen — ‘Languages do not die…’ for Bella Caledonia

12. Stevie Chick profiles David Remfry for The Guardian.

13. Phil Hoad uncovers the odd story of hermit mathematician mystic Alexander Grothendieck for The Guardian.

14. Caitlin Dickerson — ‘Seventy Miles in Hell’ for The Atlantic

15. Patrick Radden Keefe — ‘A Teen’s Fatal Plunge Into The London Underworld’ for New Yorker

email newsletters

Here’s another category where the ordering is pretty random and doesn’t mean much overall. These newsletters are all great, very different, go far beyond their basic remit, and I enjoy reading them. Comparing them competitively is silly.

1. Patti Smith’s newsletter
2. John Higgs’ Octannual Manual
3. Stewart Lee’s mailing list
4. Sarah Crowder — One Stone Two Birds
5. Simon Warner — Rock and the Beat Generation
6. Laura Marling’s tarot of song
7. Meaghan Garvey — Scary Cool Sad Goodbye
8. Erin In The Morning
9. Maggie Rogers’ newsletter
10. Franz Nicolay — Piano Fighter
11. Birdsong Academy’s Shriek of the Week
12. Julia Raeside — I Dare Say
13. Ted Gioia
14. Ben Murray — Bite My Truant Pen
15. Dr King’s Curiosities
16. Katie Crutchfield’s Waxahatchee newsletter
17. James Walsh — All The Things We Did And Didn’t Do
18. Mic Wright — Conquest of the Useless
19. Tom Cox — The Villager
20. Charlotte du Cann — The Red Tent

art exhibitions

We missed the hugely hyped Van Gogh at National Gallery but otherwise I reckon it’s been a very exciting year for fine art experiences. This is probably my favourite category of 2024. Some of the best of it was via our week-long cat-sitting stay at Jen and Lainey’s in north London, squeezing in as many galleries as possible. Most of the London entries on here come from that intense few days. Paris and Catalonia trips also bore rich fruit and my outright favourite exhibition was a random stumble-in, works by a mid-twentieth century French painter I’d never heard of, when we’d only gone to Centre Pompidou for the Brancusi. So that’s about as perfect an art discovery as you can hope for.

1. Bernard Réquichot: I Never Started To Paint, Centre Pompidou, Paris
2. Zanele Muholi, Tate Modern, London
3. Yinka Shonibare CBE: Suspended States, Serpentine South, London
4. Brancusi, Centre Pompidou, Paris
5. Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere, Hayward Gallery, London
6. Yoko Ono: Music Of The Mind, Tate Modern, London
7. Now You See Us: Women Artists In Britain 1520-1920, Tate Britain
8. Jeff Wall: Contes Possibles, La Virreina Centre De La Imatge, Barcelona
9. Beyond The Bassline, British Library, London
10. Degas and Miss La La, National Gallery, London
11. Mr Men Little Miss Reimagined, Helm, Brighton
12. Herbert Smith Award, National Portrait Gallery, London
13. Armand Boua, OOA Gallery, Sitges
14. Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum: It Will End In Tears, Barbican Curve, London
15. Greg Bailey: Lavender Boy, Helm, Brighton
16. Corin Johnson: Lawrence in Fitzrovia, Fitzrovia Chapel, London
17. Alvaro Barrington: Grace, Tate Britain
18. Liz Johnson Artur: Black Balloon Archive, British Library, London
19. Stewart Easton, Family Store Records & Gallery, Brighton
20. Baltic Open Submission 2024, Baltic Gallery, Gateshead

spoken radio and podcasts

1. London Review of Books: The Belgrano Diary
2. In Our Time
3. The Wonder Of Stevie
4. The Rest Is Football’s two part Gazza interview
5. The Rest Is Entertainment
6. Totally Football Show
7. Tape Notes with John Kennedy
8. This Cultural Life
9. Frank Skinner’s Poetry Podcast
10. Dua Lipa interviews Patrick Radden Keefe
11. Slate Culture Gabfest
12. Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
13. Scriptnotes on Moneyball with guest Taffy Brodesser-Akner
14. Queer Lit with Lena Mattheis
15. Greg Davies on Desert Island Discs
16. Slow Burn on Fox News
17. Evan Ratliffe’s Shell Game
18. June Thomas interviews Adam Sissman (Le Carré’s biographer) for Slate Working
19. Grilled Podcast guest hosted by Mark McCabe
20. Slate Political Gabfest

dining out

I’m listing brunches separately below, so this is only dinners and lunches…

1. Bonsai Plant Kitchen, Brighton
Plant-based Korean barbecue, skewers, aubergine, dirty rice
(been three times with Rifa, also with Anna)

2. Le Cocina, Sitges
mushroom paté, sweet potato ravioli (Rifa had egg and catch of the day)
(with Rifa)

3. Supernature, St Leonards On Sea
Austrian chanterelle strudel, bread dumplings, Sunday roast trimmings
(with Rifa and Grace and Grace’s dog Beanie)

4. A Vocados Ferran, Barcelona
burrata salad, truffle croquettes, avocado croquettes, cheese and walnut pizza, cheesecake
(with Rifa and Ben)

5. Amrutha Lounge, Earlsfield, London
plant-based Indian-ish soul food community café
(with Rifa, Laila and Veronica)

6. Indian Cafe Racer, Birmingham
paneer curry lunch
(with Team Jim Bob and the Hoodrats on tour)

7. Dishoom, King’s Cross
Indian early dinner
(with Rifa, then went back for birthday dinner with friends)

8. Burnt Orange, Brighton
lunch
(with Charlie, Jen, Rifa and a small tree)

9. Pizza Palazzo, Crystal Palace
truffle pizza, aubergine bites
(with Ben and Lindsey)

10. The Chesil Rectory, Winchester
Sunday roast (apart from dessert which was poor)
(with family)

11. Cinnamon, Sitges
vegan chicken korma, dal makhani, bread, rice
(with Rifa)

12. Terre A Terre, Brighton
tasting tapas lunch
(with Jim, Jakki and Rifa)
better batter
(with Rifa)

13. Mediterranium, Sitges
vegetarian paella, hummus starter
(with Rifa)

14. Peter’s Fish Factory, Margate
pea fritter and chips
(with the Hoodrats on tour)

15. Los Tortillez stall at Primavera Sound, Barcelona
truffle tortilla burger, best festival stall food ever
(with Rifa and Ben)

16. Ping Pong, Waterloo, London
Korean vegetarian
(sort of a job interview)

17. Cote, Brighton
plant-based mushroom bourguignon, Fable, red wine, vegan bacon, baby onion, chantenay carrots, potato purée
(with Rifa, unexpected Saturday lunch)

18. The Ivy, Brighton
set lunch
(with Rifa, Neil and Sue)

19. Indian Summer, Swaffham, Norfolk
classic takeaway curry, rural East Anglia style
(with Owen, Maria, Andrew and Ben, eaten at The Sick Room studios, Pentney)

20. Bodhi Vegan, Paris
Strange ‘Vietnamese’ pancakes, vegan omelette, salad
(with Rifa)

brunch

1. Gringa All Day, Barcelona
omelette, hash browns, pancakes, killer cocktails
(with Rifa and Ben)

2. Round Egg Buns, Paris
takeaway scrambled egg, mushroom, rocket in brioche
(with Rifa)

3. Moksha, Brighton
scrambled egg, hash browns
(with Rifa, our local favourite, usually Mondays, always brilliant)

4. The Little Place Next Door, Folkestone
avocado smash
(with Rifa, morning after Les & Michele’s celebration)

5. Holybelly, Paris
scrambled eggs, asparagus, mushrooms, hash brown
(with Rifa)

6. Little Fern, Barcelona
avocado toast, omelette, sweet potato truffle wedges
(with Ben and Rifa)

7. Hixon Green, Hove
hash, halloumi, poached eggs
(with Zinz)

8. LatinoAmerican, Hove
veggie breakfast with Argentine touches
(with Rifa)

9. Can Dende, Barcelona
mimosa, omelette, fried potatoes
(with Rifa and Ben)

10. Funky Bakers Eatery, Barcelona
spinach frittata, warm plain danish bread
(with Rifa and Ben)

note: one of Brighton’s most consistently great brunches is Tony’s place, Starfish & Coffee at Queens Park, but I’m sad to say we didn’t go there even once this year. It’s their fault for being far away and up a hill, but still, need to fix it.

desserts

Two different orange and ginger flavoured items in my top five is batshit: I didn’t even think I was particularly into orange and ginger.

1. The French Bastards, Paris, cake marbre
2. Ramsay & Williams, Margate, orange marmalade and ginger ice cream
3. Granja Viader, Barcelona, 120 year old Creme Catalonia recipe
4. A Vocado Ferran, Barcelona, cheesecake, ginger and orange sauce
5. Terre A Terre ‘test kitchen’, Brighton, mediterranean doughnuts
6. Cote, Brighton, warm madeleines
7. Terre A Terre, Brighton, affogato
8. Les Halles de Lyon Paul Bocuse, pink praline tart
9. Jen’s plant-based chewy sweets from Gretna shopping outlet
10. Real Patisserie chocolate eclair

drinking out

1. Blagged free bar, very kind barman, backstage at Bearded Theory
(with Jim and Jacqui, I was also high though).

2. Mid-show tequila, Jim Bob tour.

3. Anonymous vermouth bar, Barcelona.
(with Rifa and Ben)

4. Taking a bottle of Prosecco onstage, fraught Jim Bob gig, Birmingham.

5. The Brushmakers, (they don’t like it) Upham, Hampshire
(with Oliver Gray)

6. Granja Viader, Barcelona
holy moly dark hot chocolate and chai

7. Helm Gallery, Brighton
(artsy custom cocktails with Rifa, Fez and Anna, resisting spending £2k on a painting)

8. That old fashioned. Yeah, that one.

9. Sitting outside Unbarred alone, wrapped up when it’s chilly, with a Juicy.

10. Projects rooftop bar, eight subsidised passionfruit martinis over two nights
(with various, birthday week)

food discoveries / experiences

1. The truffle binge (a big bag of autumn truffles from Anna for my birthday, I’ve included the essay about it in the zine)

2. Communal dining round the big table at Arvon writing retreat in Totleigh Barton, and cooking for that same small community.

3. Perfecting my cocoa, strong, oat milk, added salt and cinnamon, glorious.

4. Les Halles de Lyon Paul Bocuse food market in Lyon — takeaway treats for the train south.

5. Fine tuning my ‘Mexican cottage pie’ game.

6. Communal dining and cooking at Keane’s Sea Fog recording studios with Tom, Tom, Gillie and Fin, working on new Tom Williams music.

7. Another serious attempt to ditch (well, drastically reduce) dairy.

8. Taste-testing Brighton’s chocolate eclair game.

9. my honey, black bean and feta empanadas.

10. encountering the ins and outs of modern hospital food.

Enough!

Thank-you for reading this year. Have an adventurous, joyful 2025.
All my love,
Christopher
xx

•

get in touch

email: chris@christt.com
Instagram: @cjthorpetracey

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always there

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