Best of 2025, Not from 2025

Cataloguing a now-40-year-old's increasingly juvenile entertainment picks from the past year, even when he wasn't hanging out with his kid. Not usually things that were released within the past year, unless they were suitably retro.

On the Omnibuses: December 2025

Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol and Other Haunting Tales

The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton (1836) ***

Really an excerpt from The Pickwick Papers, this short festive fancy features a proto-Scrooge and what I could only imagine as muppets, not to its detriment.

To Be Taken with a Grain of Salt (1865) **

I think this was his last Christmas story, or the last one I'm prepared to bother with at any rate. At the end of the journey, I can report the totally unforeseen discovery that A Christmas Carol was actually the best one (though I liked The Chimes well enough too).

Rhys Hughes, Yule Do Nicely: A Ghostly and Weird Advent Calendar

****

A nice excuse to read (or re-read) a variably whimsical story a day (more often two every other day due to forgetfulness). I've saved the bonus stocking assortment for next year.

And they were doing so well

Alrightreads: TV XXIII

Joe Haldeman, Star Trek: World Without End

1979 / Audiobook / 150 pages

***

Another early literary trek unburdened by the anxiety of influence or awareness that they did the same story on the show.

Jack C. Haldeman II, Star Trek: Perry's Planet

1980 / Audiobook / 132 pages

***

A more character-focused exploration of the human condition from the elder Haldeman brother, who seems to have watched more of the show.

Claudia Gray, The X-Files: Perihelion

2024 / Audiobook / 310 pages

**

I couldn't remember how the TV revival had left things, not being worthy enough of my mental space, but this picks up some time later for a one-off case, like the disappointing second movie did, but as a disappointing novel.

Tony Attwood, Blake's 7: Afterlife

1984 / Audiobook / 218 pages

***

An authentic if unexciting continuation of the series that would have worked, but since it wasn't followed up, ending on a less memorable cliffhanger is way worse than the legendary finale the show had.

Mark Morris, Doctor Who: Forever Autumn

2007 / Audiobook / 240 pages

***

I can't recall them ever having made an official Halloween episode off hand. Something like this would have sufficed, though would hardly have been an iconic holiday classic.

Ranking Star Trek: The Next Generation season two

As a young Trekkie sitting patiently through these early repeats before the BBC finally got to the good stuff, I was firmly in the camp that Riker's beard alone is not a reliable gauge of story quality. But nostalgia and curiosity eventually won out, and I returned for more punishment... and was pleasantly surprised.

Season two is still a bit stilted, dingy and sometimes embarrassing, but unlike the first, there's more good stuff than bad. I'd probably take these tentative voyages through a distinctly creepy cosmos over the worn-out final season too.

Ranking the major old-school Carcassonne expansions (except The Catapult)

The competitive medieval landscaping jigsaw Carcassonne is infamous for churning out unnecessary expansions, but if you really like the game, the more the merrier (except the universally unpopular The Catapult, it seems. I'm not going to pay £50+ to confirm).

I'm not interested in the standalone spin-offs, but collecting and mixing in as many compatible modules as possible makes for more dynamic games, even if it means having to look up fiddly rules every now and then (and if your stack is already overflowing the tile tower or bag, it's best to impose a time limit for sanity).

But which are the most worthwhile of the major expansions, and am I obviously just going to say the first two, like everyone else does? Here's my incomplete ranking, based on the long-out-of-print first editions to be extra useful for consumers in 2026.

Alrightgames: Carcassonne – Wheel of Fortune

Carcassonne: Wheel of Fortune

2014 (Big Box 5 version) / Tile placement board game expansion / 2-8 players

**

Move the pink pig for variably convoluted rewards or punishment. One of the most garish and pointless Carcassonne expansions (why is it part of the landscape?! How do they stand on it??!!), I didn't expect it would end up in my collection, but that's what fate decreed when it was chucked into a bundle with the more tempting Hills & Sheep.

Like The School, it's a fun mini-game at first, but becomes an annoying distraction as it goes on. We don't have to use it, but the wheel icons on the base tiles will nag.

Alrightgames: Carcassonne – Hills & Sheep

Carcassonne: Hills & Sheep

2014 (Big Box 5 version) / Tile placement board game expansion / 2-6 players

****

My most desired expansion after Traders & Builders, I thought it'd have to stay that way, with the original edition being so rare and expensive and the affordable alternative being mismatched art. But then I noticed a misspelled Big Box listing under the radar on eBay and my indoor agricultural dreams came true.

Hills ***

Nicer in theory than practice, their tie-breaking function doesn't come up often, and if you're combining expansions, they're going to make your barns and castles wobbly. They're most interesting for taking some blind tiles out of play, assuming you were planning on playing to the bitter end anyway.

Shepherds and Sheep ****

Welcoming a new cast member for some low-stakes gambling that will hopefully amuse the younger player, helped out by a couple of perma-sheep grazing along the banks of the River III. Just try not to forget that they're there.

Vineyards ***

Finally giving cloisters their equivalent of the Inns & Cathedrals (if you manage to get them in there), this rounds out the original expansion series nicely. Some vineyards also feature on River III for good measure.

Alrightgames: Carcassonne – Abbey & Mayor

Carcassonne: Abbey & Mayor

2007 / Tile placement board game expansion / 2-6 players

****

One of the most acclaimed expansions for my favourite board game finally dropped into my price range. Like an abbey tile, it inessentially but satisfyingly filled a hole.

Abbey ****

Incredibly useful and sensibly limited hole pluggers (even if we'd been using a couple of blanks for a similar purpose), they don't look as awkward on the map as I'd feared.

Mayor ***

A city-specific variant on the Big Follower wasn't totally needed and is the least interesting part of the set, but I like the pennants being given another job. The new city tiles that support it are good too.

Wagon *****

Like the Builder, using this mobile meeple almost feels like cheating, but it adds a nice dynamic element to the map as it trundles between features. If you're not rolling it, you're not doing it right.

Barn ****

One of the most game-changing modules, these unassuming barns liberate farmers and make farms even more powerful. We already skip farms when I play with the six year old, but maybe we can come up with another use for them.

Alrightgames: Catan Dice Game

Catan Dice Game

2007 / Strategy dice game / 1-4 players

***

Mainly considered handy as a budget or travel substitute for the board game (especially if you only buy the spare dice and print out the sheets or colour them on the screen), but as a fan of Yahtzee-type games, I might even prefer it. Thought that's not saying much, and we have plenty of better things to do.

Alrightgames: Minecraft

Minecraft (Creative Mode)

2011 / PC game / 1 player

****

Long delayed by my hysterical parental concern that it would spell our daughter's irrevocable descent into crippling screen addiction (I don't want her to end up like me), it turned out to be relatively harmless. As long as she stays quarantined in offline Creative mode, anyway. But if she starts seeing the world around her as destructible blocks, I'm yanking her out of the matrix.

Alrightgames: Monster High – Skulltimate Secrets

Monster High: Skulltimate Secrets

2024 / PC game / 1 player

**

It turns out my new laptop can play modern games, at least undemanding 3D platformers, though for sanity we may have to upgrade to a proper mouse and controller (I typed 'joypad' first, before remembering what the 21st-century kids call them).

This game offers nothing if you're not already a fan of the franchise and young enough to be placated by the familiarity, but what else is new? The young fan hasn't asked to play it a second time yet.

Alrightgames: Basic Fantasy Adventure – Taming the Flames (Adapted)

Basic Fantasy Adventure: Taming the Flames (Adapted)

2011 / Roleplaying game adventure / 2+ players

****

A toasty dungeon for a winter evening, I kept the cosy burrow layout (which the player efficiently underutilised as usual), but saved the ill-fated sibling and over-emphasised the theme with fiery baddies drafted from Sylvion and lessons in the folly of combining elemental magics, that should set her straight.

Alrightgames: Basic Fantasy Adventure – Shepherds of Pineford (Adapted)

Basic Fantasy Adventure: Shepherds of Pineford (Adapted)

2008 / Roleplaying game adventure / 2+ players

***

A simple and well-mapped rural scenario that was easy to adapt to our junior pony game after drafting in forest encounters and species-swapped adversaries from other adventures to play hostile vegetation, changing the sheep to pigs because Carcassonne doesn't have sheeples, and tacking on a sickly happy ending where the missing livestock was recovered safe and sound and we all made friends because she's six. Plenty of time for violence and bloodshed later.

Babyliography CCXXX

Heather Nuhfer and Brenda Hickey, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Volume 4

2013-14 (collected 2014) / Ecomics / 106 pages

***

A generic pirate story with a sweet twist ending. We'll get around to the others eventually.

Louise Spilsbury, Collins Big Cat Phonics for Letters and Sounds: Blackcurrant Jam

2019 / School book / 24 pages

**

Comprehensive instructions, phonics practice and '90s primary school hair.

Isabel Thomas, Collins Big Cat Phonics for Letters and Sounds: Living in the Clouds

2022 / School book / 24 pages

***

Valuable lessons in biodiversity, environmental protection and how to pronounce annoying words. I liked how it explained various creature's intuitive adaptations, then concluded with a crazy giraffe weevil without explanation, like they should be able to work that out for themselves.

Various, The Usborne Book of Christmas Carols

2005 / Paperback / 32 pages

****

If you're looking up your childhood Christmas carols book for nostalgia in 2049, it was this one. We got out the Christmas things and the six year old was really taken with these timeless hits, as I remember being at the same age. The downside is that I have to sing her to sleep now, rather than sticking on the My Little Pony music box video while I watch subtitled telly. I bought one with sheet music included, because the idea that I might actually learn to play the piano during her childhood somehow seemed feasible at the time.

Benji Davies, The Storm Whale

2013 / School book / 32 pages

**

Anticlimactic story that turned out to be about feelings rather than adventure. We spent most of the time finding all the cats on page 1.

Babyliography CCXXIX

Danny Pearson and Christian Cornia, Collins Big Cat Phonics for Letters and Sounds: Dark Unicorn

2022 / School book / 24 pages

**

What? Her mandatory phonics book is one she'd happily choose to read anyway?! This is like that time my English teacher got us to write an RPG. Green Day instrumentals provided the backing.

Nick Sharratt, Super Silly Museums

2022 / Library book / 24 pages

**

The Pooseum is the main exhibit, of course.

Nicola Parsons and Karen Sapp, Catch It, Kitty

2015 / School book / 26 pages

*

This is why she shouldn't be allowed to pick her own books.

Samantha Montgomerie, Collins Big Cat Phonics for Letters and Sounds: Sticking Power

2020 / School book / 24 pages

***

The photos were too disgusting for her at first, but she got used to it, like when I finally touched a slug at 18.

Zanna Davidson and Nuno Alexandre Vieira, Fairy Unicorns: Treasure Quest

2022 / Hardback / 112 pages

***

I was pleased to see that one of her favourite literary sagas was treated to a brief revival, even if it meant strapping in for more repetitive and predictable chapters each bedtime, but then it turned out to be a pretty good blend of Knightmare and The Crystal Maze.

Babyliography CCXXVIII

Harriet Muncaster, Isadora Moon and the Shooting Star

2021 / Library book / 150 pages

**

We didn't get far with the superficially similar Amelia Fang, but adding fairy heritage into the mix did the trick.

Various, Rebel Girls 5-Minute Stories

2025 / Library book / 192 pages

**

I sold it on the Taylor Swift entry and she wasn't interested to try any others. Sorry, girls.

Dana Simpson, Punk Rock Unicorn: Another Phoebe and Her Unicorn Adventure

Collected 2023 / Paperback / 176 pages

***

She already likes the Distillers, so you'll have to try harder to shock this six year old.

Alex Hunter, Where's the Poo?

2019 / Paperback / 40 pages

*

This was all my fault. I told her to pick it up from the Morrisons book swap for the sake of it, despite her lack of enthusiasm, and that we'd swap one of her old books or give it back next time. We gave it back.

Ted Anderson, Jeremy Whitley and artists, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Volume 6

2014 (collected 2015) / Ecomics / 106 pages

***

Mostly on brand, with the notable exception of the dialogue-free pet feature, which she conventionally wasn't interested in.

Alrightreads: TV XXII

Mark A. Altman, Captains' Logs: Supplemental – The Next Generation 6th Season Guidebook

1994 / Ebook / 128 pages

***

There isn't much need to read these old books when the best interview quotes are compiled in more comprehensive and up-to-date online equivalents, but sometimes it's nice to pretend I'm 12 again and treating Oracle Books as a library. There's only one season to cover this time, but they make up the page count with unabashed repetition.

Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross, Captains' Logs: Supplemental II – The Next Generation 7th Season Guidebook

1995 / Ebook / 128 pages

***

Amusingly inaccurate cover aside, this is another fine supplement to the other volumes, if weirdly separate.

Paul Leonard, Doctor Who: Genocide

1997 / Audiobook / 281 pages

****

Are we the baddies? If only Doctor Who was all about these convoluted time and moral paradoxes, but I appreciate them when they come around. It strikes a tasteful balance of hopeless morbidity and inappropriate levity and it's a good outing for Sam too, though I could have done without the past companion's extended cameo.

John Peel, Doctor Who: War of the Daleks

1997 / Audiobook / 277 pages

**

Almost a decade after their last redemptive TV appearance, the terrifying salt cellars return for a tedious continuity fest that re-establishes the status quo in the hope that other writers will think of something interesting to do with them.

Chris McDonnell and artists, Steven Universe: End of an Era

2020 / Ebook / 240 pages

****

The essential second half of the documentary artbook.

Alrightreads: Comixxxxxxxxxxxx

Walter Simonson and Sal Buscema, The Mighty Thor, Vol. 4

1986 (collected 2014) / Ecomics / 237 pages

***

I didn't think I needed more Asgardian antics, but Simonson pulled an irresistible gimmick for a few issues, before it gets back to normal, or the closest thing.

Everette Hartsoe and Rick Lyons, Razor: The Suffering

1994-95 (collected 1996) / Ecomics / 80 pages

**

Girl Crow for pervs. Put a cloak on, love.

James Tynion IV and Gavin Fullerton, The Closet

2022 / Ebook / 104 pages

****

The creature wasn't scary, but the anxious child and incompetent parent were disturbingly familiar.

Masaaki Nakayama, PTSD Radio 1

2012 / Ebook / 160 pages

***

If The League of Gentlemen were horror manga.

Abby Howard, The Crossroads at Midnight

2021 / Ebook / 320 pages

****

Graphic creepypastas with effort.

Fave: The Boy from the Sea

Ranking the Agalloch albums & EPs

Everything they did reminded me of other things, but their hodgepodge of blackened neofolk post-metal or something or other was still probably the most iconic soundtrack to my early wanderings in the harsh post-education world. And thanks to a premature break-up, their discography remains distinctive and digestible. Here are my The Top 11 Agalloch Things.

Ranking the Testament albums

With eerie guitar leads and tomblike production conjuring the sonic equivalent of horror movie video covers, these guys were the only other thrash band I really cared about besides Metallica, and they seemed to pull off their inevitable 90s decline and senior regrouping better than their peers, even if I didn't keep up with all of it.

Beware! For it is my Top 13 Old and New Testaments!

Ranking Star Trek: The Next Generation season seven

Turning on BBC 2 in early 1996 and witnessing a pale android cutting a slice out of his crewmate who'd been turned into a cake was my first memorable taste of this series, but there are still some episodes from this final stretch that I don't think I ever bothered getting around to in the near 30 years since, on account of them sounding pretty rubbish.

Time to complete the voyage, I guess, with tired mediocrity now in HD!

Alrightgames: Morrowind – Game of the Year Edition

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind – Game of the Year Edition

2003 / PC game / 1 player

*****

Looking back to the formative and nostalgic games of my youth, Morrowind represented the end of the line. With its intricate character building, expansive map and seemingly endless things to do, it remains the most complex game I've ever played, or at least had a crack at before wandering off and doing my own thing before eventually getting bored. It was quite amazing, but just too much, and didn't make me enthusiastic to get into that sort of thing again, which is why I prefer small-box card games now.

But when I recently replaced my laptop with one that could handle early-21st century graphics, it seemed like something my daughter might enjoy messing around on during half-term break, and it only needs to be as complex as we want it to be. Discovering that the character speech is all stored in folders as replaceable files also introduced her to the joy of hacking.

Alrightgames: Barbie as the Island Princess

Barbie as the Island Princess

2007 / PC game / 1-2 players

*

A horrendous minigames compendium designed to disappoint little girls, but at least you don't have to pay for it any more. It's got nothing on the Game Boy Advance Barbie games and their dependable generic 90s platforming.