2024 Wrap-Up

Hello,

I hope all my readers have had a lovely Christmas, and I’d like to wish you all a happy new year.

Thanks so much for reading me in 2024. It really means a lot that so many of you follow this newsletter — as well as my work elsewhere — and I hope you have enjoyed reading my stuff.

I think — at the risk of thinking far too much about myself — that this year I’ve written a lot of good pieces but few that even I could claim were great. Perhaps this is because of trying to be too prolific. I’ve written 79 pieces for The Critic and 98 for THE ZONE (excluding monthly diaries), as well as a few for other outlets, and a lot of them have been ephemeral or half-formed. But I tend to write in the grip of manic enthusiasm. If I really sat and pondered things I’m not sure I wouldn’t sit and ponder without actually writing. That said, we can get better or we can get worse, so I’m going to try and shake things up a few times next year.

Here, as in previous years (‘20, ‘21, ‘22, ‘23), are my favourite articles I’ve written for platforms other than THE ZONE:

“The afterlife of Father Jerzy Popiełuszko”, The Critic

“The Politically and Morally Bankrupt Tories Deserve to Lose”, The American Conservative

“The paranoid style in British centrism”, The Critic

“A medicinal dose of toxic masculinity”, The Washington Examiner

“My ‘state of the nation’ book”, The Critic

“Infected blood and infected institutions”, The Critic

“Politics with the depth of a puddle”, The Critic

“British politicians are turning me into a libertarian”, The Critic

“Fear the Keir”, The Critic

“Why this new book will pass unnoticed”, The Critic

And here are my ten favourite pieces from THE ZONE:

“God, the Devil, and Nick Cave”

“Reject the Nü-Misogynists”

“On Knowing That You Will Be Forgotten”

“The Drift and the March”

“Twenty Years of ‘Submission’”

“Ignoring Animals”

“In Praise of Male Friendship”

“Ally’s Book”

“In Defence of Richard Dawkins”

“My New Dog”

I really hope you all have a blessed 2025.

Thanks again,

Ben