September 2025 Favourites

A collage of 4 photos, showing rock band Def Leppard on stage at BBC Radio 2 in the Park, Brian May with his guitar on stage at The Last Night of the Proms, the cast of Fawlty Towers, and the cast of series 20 of Taskmaster.

Welcome to my latest monthly roundup, I hope you’re doing well.

In terms of my caring responsibilities towards my mother, who is still recovering from her broken wrist, I’ve continued posting separate journal updates about everything that’s been going on, split into Part 1 and Part 2 for this month. So do read those posts if you want to be kept informed about that side of my life. Suffice to say that while we are still finding things difficult in some ways, she is continuing to get various forms of help, and we are now starting to consider the support required for her longer term care needs. Plus we’ve already had a very positive development at the start of October, perhaps the most significant to date, that has the potential to make a huge difference long-term. I’ll tell you about that in my October journal posts in the weeks ahead, and it’s going to be an important transitional month if all goes to plan.

Apart from all that though, I have kept myself entertained in various ways as well, with music, TV shows and an audiobook. So here are the main things I’ve been enjoying, and I hope you find them interesting to read about as always.

Contents

Radio 2 In The Park

BBC Radio 2 held their annual music festival early in the month, featuring a great line up of acts. It was broadcast on the TV and radio, and then made available on BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds for a month, along with some classic sets from the previous couple of years as well. So I enjoyed watching and listening to a lot of those performances.

2023 Festival (Victoria Park, Leicester)

  • Rick Astley (33 minutes) – This followed his success at Glastonbury that summer and he performs a great selection of pop hits, opening with the Star Wars theme that segues into Together Forever. There’s also a nice cover of Everlong by Foo Fighters, while Whenever You Need Somebody incorporates Good Times by Chic. He also does songs I don’t know, including new track Never Gonna Stop and Cry For Help, which are nice though not as great as his biggest hits. And of course he finishes with Never Gonna Give You Up. He’s also wearing a t-shirt with Kylie on it, which she mentions during her set.
  • Tears For Fears (1 hour 13 minutes) – This band were the closing act on the Saturday. I don’t know a lot of their songs, but the music in this set is good, while the lighting is quite atmospheric. The classic hits Everybody Wants To Rule The World and Shout, towards the start and end of the concert respectively, are naturally the biggest singalong numbers for the crowd, and I also know songs like Sowing The Seeds Of Love, Mad World and Head Over Heels. They also play some songs from their new album at the time, The Tipping Point, including the title track, none of which stand out to me particularly but they’re alright.
  • Kylie Minogue (1 hour 4 minutes) – This was her first full UK show in 4 years, and she gives a wonderful performance, as well as looking beautiful as always. It’s full of catchy pop hits, with my favourites including the big crowd-pleasers Spinning Around, Kids, Can’t Get You Out Of My Head and her cover of The Locomotion, along with some of the ones I don’t know so well like On A Night Like This, Wow, Say Something, and All The Lovers that she closes with. She also performs a few songs from her new album at the time – Tension – including the world premiere of Hold On To Now, which is pretty nice, and Padam Padam, which is a great singalong track that I’ve heard a cool Doctor Who remix of. It’s all accompanied by some nice choreography and colourful backing visuals.

2024 Festival (Moor Park, Kent)

  • Pet Shop Boys (1 hour 29 minutes) – While it’s not a particularly engaging performance to look at, with heavy reliance on the backing visuals to give a sense of movement and energy, the guys still give nice renditions of songs like Suburbia, Where The Streets Have No Name, Left To My Own Devices, Domino Dancing, Always On My Mind, Go West, It’s A Sin and West End Girls, among the songs that I know. The audience enjoy singing along with some of them as well. They also promote their new album that’s on the way called Nonetheless, from which the songs are nice enough but nothing particularly special.
  • Sting (1 hour 16 minutes) – Here the frontman from The Police performs a great mix of classics from his band and solo tracks, including Message In A Bottle, Englishman In New York, Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic, Fields Of Gold, Driven To Tears, Can’t Stand Losing You, Walking On The Moon, Every Breath You Take and Roxanne, along with his new song called I Wrote Your Name (Upon My Heart). He often encourages the audience to sing along too, which they do quite happily. So there’s a nice atmosphere to the whole set.

2025 Festival (Hylands Park, Chelmsford)

The BBC assembled another decent selection of artists for this year’s festival, and if the sets on BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds are no longer available when you read this, then there is a Youtube playlist with some of the highlights.

My top 10 performers, beginning with the shorter sets before concluding with the big headliners, are:

  • Stereophonics (33 minutes) – The main tracks I know and enjoy by the group in this set are Have A Nice Day, Maybe Tomorrow and Dakota. I’m not familiar with the other songs, but they’re all good to listen to.
  • Kid Creole & The Coconuts (35 minutes) – I only know Annie, I’m Not Your Daddy from this set, which is their big finale. But it’s an enjoyably funky collection of songs, particularly their great opening number Caroline Was A Drop-Out and their jamming on Stool Pigeon. It also features beautiful dancers accompanying the smartly dressed lead singer.
  • Ronan Keating (23 minutes) – I was never into Boyzone, but Ronan does a good solo set here. And I do know the songs Baby Can I Hold You?, The Way That You Make Me Feel (with Bryan Adams making a guest appearance as on the original recording), When You Say Nothing At All and Life Is A Rollercoaster (which the crowd enjoy singing along with).
  • Belinda Carlisle (42 minutes) – Another pretty good selection of tracks here, with my favourites being (We Want) The Same Thing, Circle In The Sand, Big Scary Animal, Leave A Light On and, of course, Heaven Is A Place On Earth.
  • Sophie Ellis-Bextor (30 minutes) – I love her Kitchen Disco programme on Radio 2, so I had a feeling I’d enjoy her set, and I was right. It’s very upbeat and catchy, while Sophie looks amazing, plus she works the crowd very nicely. She does some songs I don’t know, inevitably, though they’re still fun. But she also does a great Ibiza medley with Lady (Hear Me Tonight), Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love), Can’t Fight This Feeling and Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight), and of course she concludes with Murder On The Dancefloor.
  • Louise (31 minutes) – More upbeat pop from another beautiful songstress. Her set isn’t quite as good as Sophie’s, and I don’t know most of her original songs, but it’s still really nice. I do know the song Naked though, along with her covers of Stay, Stuck In The Middle With You, Let’s Go Round Again and Together Again.
  • Bryan Adams (1 hour 16 minutes) – This is a fabulous rock set that blows all of the other acts away on the Saturday, and he involves the crowd really well. It includes songs like Kick Ass, Run To You, 18 Till I Die, Shine A Light, Heaven, You Belong To Me (including a bit of Blue Suede Shoes), When You’re Gone (with guest Mel C, who’s great and is clearly having the time of her life), The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You, a really beautiful and extended rendition of (Everything I Do) I Do It for You (where Bryan involves the camera operator, guitarist and the waving crowd), Back To You, and a belter of a finale with Summer Of ’69. He also performs a few songs from his new album Roll With The Punches, includingMake Up Your Mind.
  • Def Leppard (1 hour 16 minutes) – These guys also smashed it with a superb, solid rock set on the Sunday night, with brilliant energy, colourful lighting and cool backing visuals. But then you wouldn’t expect anything less from them. There’s great audience participation on tracks like Let’s Get Rocked and Hysteria, the guitarists and one-armed drummer Rick Allen get a chance to show off on the instrumental Switch 625, and there are lots of other big numbers like Rocket, Armageddon It, Animal, Love Bites, Bringin’ On The Heartbreak, When Love And Hate Collide, Photograph and Pour Some Sugar on Me.

Beyond all of those, the other artists are good in their own way too. For example, while I’ve never got into Olly Murs’ music particularly, he does draw you in with his friendly, cheerful manner, which enables him to have an excellent rapport with the crowd, and he does have a nice lively set. And Suede are alright too, even though I’m not familiar with their songs.

Last Night Of The Proms

I don’t normally mention the Proms, as I don’t tend to watch or listen to them much, other than the Doctor Who Proms I’ve spoken about in my reviews of that show, and occasional other concerts featuring music I’m familiar with.

I do, however, always tune into the second half of the Last Night Of The Proms, with all its wonderful traditional pieces at the end, including Fantasia On British Sea-Songs, Rule Britannia! and – my personal favourite – Land Of Hope And Glory, which always gives me goosebumps. It’s such a momentous occasion that makes you feel proud to be British. It’s also great that people from other nations celebrate in the joy of music with us at the event, because music has the power to transcend all barriers and unite us all, and the Last Night always encapsulates that so beautifully.

But if you know me well by now, and if you also saw this year’s concert, you’ll understand why 2025’s Last Night is particularly special to me. That’s because the second half kicked off with an absolutely spectacular production of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, complete with Brian May and Roger Taylor, to celebrate the song’s 50th anniversary. It’s had orchestral arrangements before, but this version by Stuart Morley – performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Elim Chan (who was also superb on her Last Night debut) – was just astonishing, and gave me genuine goosebumps.

It’s a difficult song to get right, especially parts of the operatic section in the middle, but it also suits this type of concert perfectly. And they totally nailed it, with sublime vocals by Sam Oladeinde – who wisely didn’t impersonate Freddie, instead making it his own – great guitar work by Brian as always, a nice cameo by Roger with the gong at the end, and powerful instrumentation by the orchestra.

If Freddie could have seen it – and who knows, maybe he did – I know he’d have loved it and taken great pride in it. It’s probably the most prestigious occasion in the calendar that the song could ever be performed at, and given what an intrinsic part of British culture the song has become in the past five decades, it deserved it. Even if you don’t know the song (is that even possible?!) or don’t like the original version for some bizarre reason, it’s worth checking out. It really is something else.

The rest of the concert was really good as well of course, including a lovely medley from My Fair Lady and an excellent trumpet performance by Alison Balsom on Prelude, Fugue and Riffs by Leonard Bernstein. Plus I loved seeing comedian Bill Bailey on his Proms debut, giving a very impressive and amusing rendition of The Typewriter by Leroy Anderson, and then making a surprise appearance on the organ at the end to play snippets of a few familiar tunes before joining in with Auld Lang Syne.

Other TV Shows

The Blu-ray cover art for Fawlty Towers, showing Basil, Sybil, Polly and Manuel standing together with the hotel in the background, a two-storey white building on a small hill. The white Fawlty Towers sign is shaped a bit like a pointing hand, aiming towards the hotel, with the black letters skewed as if they've individually been nudged around.
  • Taskmaster – This consistently hilarious game show is back for its 20th series already. And while the previous series was one of the weaker ones in terms of me barely knowing anyone on it, I’ve been thrilled to see Maisie Adam on this new run. She’s one of my favourite comedians, who I saw live in person a few years ago, and she’s proving to be as brilliant in this show as I’d expected, even when things aren’t going her way. I’m also somewhat familiar with League Of Gentlemen star Reece Shearsmith and Goodness Gracious Me comedian Sanjeev Bhaskar, even though I’ve never been into their shows in a big way, and they’re good in this too. Phil Ellis and Ania Magliano I hadn’t heard of before, but they’re great value as well, particularly Ania. So while we’re only a few episodes into the series as I write this, it’s a lot of fun already, and they’ve already been able to share half an hour of outtakes. So I know the rest of the episodes are going to be really good as well.
  • The Sweeney – At long last, this classic 70s cop show starring John Thaw as DI Jack Regan and Dennis Waterman as DS Carter is being released on Blu-ray to mark its 50th anniversary. So I’ve started working my way through those. I’ve now watched Series 1, I have Series 2 to look at next, and Series 3 is coming out in December, then there will be just Series 4 after that. Plus I have the two films on DVD. It’s such a great action-packed drama with well-developed characters, top-notch guest stars, interesting storylines and cool music, and the remastered episodes look really good, especially considering their age. So the Blu-rays are well worth the upgrade from the old DVDs, they’re a big step up in quality. Most of the extra features from the DVDs have been carried over as well, with just a few non-essential omissions like episodes of other shows and some PDF files, so that’s good. I’m compiling a review of all the episodes and extras as I go along, so I’ll give my comprehensive thoughts on everything at a later date.
Front cover for The Sweeney Series 1 on Blu-ray, showing a large colour image of Regan and Carter, played by John Thaw and Dennis Waterman. Below them is another image of the two of them, this time pointing guns ahead of them, along with their boss Frank Haskins and a police car chasing another car.
Front cover for The Sweeney Series 2 on Blu-ray, showing a large colour image of Regan and Carter, played by John Thaw and Dennis Waterman. Below them are images from the series including Carter chasing a criminal, Haskins pointing a gun, Regan talking into a handheld radio, and a couple of other criminals.

WWW: Wake

I was very kindly gifted the audiobook of a novel called WWW: Wake for my birthday in August, thanks to my friend Claire. I’d never heard of author Robert J. Sawyer or the book before, but it sounded quite intriguing from the description, so I found some time to listen to it this month, and it is very good.

It’s about a blind teenage maths genius and blogger called Caitlin Decter, who is given the opportunity to try a prototype implant to restore her vision. However, what she ends up seeing at first isn’t the world around her, but a unique view of the internet. And through that she encounters a form of consciousness that has been steadily evolving within the World Wide Web, and develops a rapport with it.

It’s a crazy yet fascinating and thought-provoking concept, making you question what things like perception and consciousness really mean, as we usually just take them for granted. And even though the book was originally published in 2009, it feels more relevant than ever today given the rise of AI.

The novel is written from multiple perspectives too, each delivered by a different narrator in the audiobook, which works really well by making the various parts distinctive. At the heart of it all, Caitlin’s story is mainly delivered in the standard third person manner, but occasionally we get direct insights from her blog posts as well. There is some technical terminology relating to computers and the internet along the way, but everything is explained clearly, in a way that’s nicely incorporated into the narrative, so a lay person can follow along with what’s happening.

Meanwhile, throughout the book, we get a first person perspective on the web’s developing consciousness. It struggles to understand simple concepts at first, but then its connection with Caitlin changes everything, as it gradually starts to piece together everything in her world and attempts to communicate with her. It reminds you just how incredibly complicated the world, people and our minds really are when you break everything down into its component parts. What seems normal to us is bewildering to another being with no prior awareness of it.

Then alongside all of that there are interesting subplots involving an intelligent chimp being studied in California, and an infectious disease spreading in China that the country is trying to contain (and again remember, this book was written in 2009, a decade before you-know-what!).

So while I hadn’t known what to expect when going into the book, I really enjoyed it, as it’s quite a well-told and engaging story. And being visually impaired myself it’s easy to relate to Caitlin and understand her ways of thinking and behaving. It’s the first part of a trilogy as well, so I’ve now bought Watch and Wonder and will listen to them as time allows to see it how it all unfolds.

Conclusion

And that’s it, I hope you enjoyed that. Given my situation at home, I don’t have any outings planned for October, but it is going to be an important month for my mother. Plus I have work of course, and I know what I intend to watch on TV and write about here next. I won’t be bored!

So as before, if I don’t feel I have enough to fill an October Favourites post next month, then I’ll just combine what little I do have with November for a bi-monthly update later. Or maybe I’ll get lucky like I did for September. We’ll see what happens. In any case, I’ll continue posting my carers journals and entertainment reviews, so there will still be plenty for you to read.

In the meantime, I hope everything’s going well for you, or you’re getting support if you need it for anything. And I’ll see you for more updates very soon!

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Author: Glen

Love London, love a laugh, love life. Visually impaired blogger, culture vulture & accessibility advocate, with aniridia & nystagmus, posting about my experiences & adventures.

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