Dear followers
First of all, fear not, the Sage has not forsaken you! Due to a combination of gainful employment, academic endeavours and assorted other leisure pursuits, I have been entirely absent from the blogosphere for four long months, for which I apologise unreservedly. However, I have roused myself for a brief comeback to offer you my humble views on the year that was 2011.
It's certainly been an eventful year for The Sage personally, starting off with an extended trip around what must be the most fascinating, colourful country on earth in India, spending the middle months pottering around South London reviewing ever more obscure music and ending 2011 settled back in the world of internal communications at EDF Energy.
For Britain as a whole, it's been a year of contrasts too. The opulence and feel good factor of April's royal wedding saw the country smugly basking in the pageantry of its past, but for much of 2011 the challenges of the present were all too real, with continuing economic stagnation, high unemployment and rioting in our cities on a scale not witnessed in modern times. It's all too easy to point the finger at David Cameron and his increasingly shambolic cabal of out of touch aristocrats, jingoistic Europhobes and disaffacted, emasculated Liberals for the nations's current ills, or indeed at the broadly successful but latterly naive Labour administration that preceded it.
The stark reality is that the current global economic situation and its associated effects are beyond the power of one party or indeed one country to address, and it can only be hoped that 2012 brings a final resolution to the Euro crisis, however bloody, and that the shockwaves this will inevitably cause can be controlled. Only once all the boils on the sick body are firmly lanced will the sick patient truly be able to recover.
So on to more important matters - the X Factor! The Sage longstanding and baffling addiction to a show he should rightfully despise continued in 2011, despite the absence of Mr Cowell and a talent roster thinner than ever before. The new judging panel was rather mixed - Barlow surly but watchable, Tulisa spikey but over-earnest, Louis the usual catalogue of cliches, Kelly Rowland largely unintelligible. The Sage hoped that feisty little Janet's Cranberries tribute act would win, but in the end Little Mix's competent cabaret won the day against the underwhelming comepetition of a pink-haired hollerer who had already been shown the door once and a camp Scouser with a Mexican pimp's moustache.
In the world of proper music, it wasn't a vintage year either, with no truly great album to match 2010's masterpieces from Beach House, John Grant and I Am Kloot. However, the Sage did enjoy New York's The Antlers, both on record and live. Their bleak, anthemic miserabilism is strangely uplifting, and their second album Burst Apart was one of the year's best. Elsewhere, Fionn Regan's wonderfully lush and pretty if occasionally overwrought folk balladry on 100 Acres Of Sycamore will melt all but the hardest hearts, Fleet Foxes made a strong return with their eponymous second album and The Low Anthem's Smart Flesh was a fine example of mellow Americana. Finally, a mention for Oh Minnows, who didn't allow the year's worst name to prevent them from delivering the year's best pop album with the sumptuous 80s synth feast of For Shadows(the review of which, just incidentally of course, also got The Sage a quote in The Guardian). The fact that the wretched Rihanna sells thousands of times the number of records of Chris Steele-Nicolson's one man band tells you all you need to know about the parlous state of western civilisation today.
At risk of sounding irredeemably negative about everything, 2011's cinema was also something of a disappointment for The Sage. There were some entertaining moments in the surprisingly successful Inbetweeners movie - the group dancing scene was worth the price of entry alone - while both The Coen Brothers' confident, charismatic version of True Grit and the visually compelling if pyschologically somewhat disturbing Black Swan were both highly accomplished. But the film of the year for me was Terence Malick's The Tree Of Life. Derided by some as over-long, too slow, incomprehensible, pretentious and hamstrung by its own over-reaching ambition, to some extent it is guilty of all these things. Yet it's nevertheless a joy to behold a director who's not afraid to take on as daunting a concept as the meaning of existence itself, and the stunning beauty of the cinematography elevates Malick's work into the realms of high art.
Finally sport, and a mixed 2011 for The Sage. While Derby County continue to define mediocrity in their seemingly eternal position in the lower half of the Championship, my other great love - the Welsh rugby union team - surpassed the expectations of almost everyone and reached the World Cup semi-finals. Every now and then, something clicks with Cymru and they play rugby to rival the best, and but for one ludicrous sending off against France, decided by an Irishman with the quintessentially Celtic name of Alain Rolland, Sam Warburton's men would surely have reached a richly deserved first final. A word too about Shane Williams, who retired earlier this month after a decade in the red jersey that saw him conjure up some of the most scintillatingly brilliant tries in the history of the sport. In these days of 16 stone wingers built like the second row forwards of 30 years ago, it's been a joy to see little Shane prove that brain can still defeat brawn when it's blessed with genius. Will we ever see his like again?
Well followers, that's my review of 2011 over. The Sage could type on forever, but instead I've decided to add a few links to some of my musings over the course of the year, with one or two added extras for good measure. All that remains is for me to wish you all a happy and prosperous 2012, and hopefully the Sage will return again before too long!
Regards
TSOS
The Sage in India
The Sage on the Royal Wedding
The Sage on the London riots
The Sage reviews Oh Minnows, one of his albums of the year, with a second link to one of the band's videos
And finally, the incomparable Shane Williams in action:
