Happy New Year! How’s it treating you so far? I dearly hope you all had a delightful Christmas and saw in 2025 in style (if you must know, I went to a pub with my friends but the music was too loud so we went back to their house and played a game where you have to think the same thing everyone else is thinking and if you lose you get given a big pink cow. I lost and then we watched the Hootenanny and bitched about the Boomtown Rats, and it was great).

As promised, it’s time for the return of Word For The Year. For new readers, Word For The Year is a New Year’s practice I learned from my girlfriend Miranda, where instead of resolutions (easy to slide back on and feel bad about), you choose a word that you want to define your approach to the year and what you want to get out of it. Whenever you sense yourself getting lost or wondering where to put your focus next, your word reminds you of what’s important to you this year. In the years I’ve been doing it I’ve chosen Appreciate (wanted to get better at appreciating my life as it happened rather than always striving for stuff – worked well, nice year), Dedicate (wanted to really pour my energy and heart into what I was doing to get the best results – worked really well, lovely year), Change (wanted to change things, terrible word and a terrible year) and Believe (wanted to remind myself of my own good qualities and abilities, excellent word, excellent year).

2024 – The “Believe” Year:

Since I started writing about Word For The Year (here’s last year’s Tape on it), it’s been lovely to see other people take it on and achieve great things with it – here’s Zoe Paskett’s note on how her word, “Commit,” panned out for her this year. “Believe” is probably my favourite word I’ve chosen so far, because I made an active decision to choose a word that gave myself power over what I was doing. I spent a lot of 2023 trying to effect changes I had basically no control over, and then felt frustrated when nothing came of them, whereas I spent all of this year reminding myself how good it feels to be in command of what you’re doing, what you’re making, what you’re experiencing. Those of you who joined in last year, how did your words work out for you? I’d love to hear how you found it!

2025 – The “L.O.V.E.” Year

Because this is my fifth year of doing Word For The Year, I’ve decided to do something a bit different this time. The idea occurred to me while Miranda and I were in a restaurant having dinner, and Nat King Cole’s “L.O.V.E.” started playing (you know the one – “L is for the way you look at me” etc).

I was thinking about how good that song is, and how often it’s used in films to underscore montages where everything is going really well – the midpoint of a romcom, say, where the protagonists are just having the best time. Perhaps they’re putting up a Christmas tree together and laughing, or maybe they’re laughing while buying a dog, or maybe they’re with their friends and they’re all custard pie-ing each other and they’re all laughing or something like that. Put the song on and you’ll know exactly what I mean, you’ll be able to see the montage in your head, and everyone will be laughing in it.

As I thought about it, I realised – that’s what I want 2025 to feel like. That feeling at the midpoint of a feelgood movie where everyone is just thriving, and living their best life. In 2024 I remembered how to have agency over my own happiness and wellbeing, and in 2025 I want to channel that into just having the best time. So I decided my word would be “L.O.V.E.” – not necessarily for the romantic implications of that word (though I hope that Miranda and I will make time to do lots of really nice romantic things together as part of my choosing this word – custard pie-ing each other, or buying a dog or whatever), but as a reminder that I want my overriding experience of the year to make me feel the same way that song does.

This idea has been met with almost universal criticism and disdain from everyone I’ve told about it. Everybody thinks it’s an insane energy to take into a new year, so I’d like to defend myself against the FAQs that have emerged so far:

1. You’re going to have an incredibly neurotic year trying to make everything you do feel like a music video. No I’m not. I’m not saying my year has to be like a music video, I’m saying it has to be like a feelgood montage. It doesn’t have to be a year of me leading a marching band down Regent’s Street or feeding the pigeons until they all sing or anything like that, it just has to be a year of me doing nice things that make me feel good. I’m not in denial that the year will also involve things that are unremarkable or sad or stressful, I just want to anchor myself to the feeling of that song so that whenever I wonder what I should be focusing on next, I can pull myself back to that feeling.
2. It sounds like you want to gloss over the difficult or boring bits of the year and only focus on the highlights, and by doing that you’re in denial about what life is actually like. Not true! I’m not thinking of the kinds of montages that only include big, dramatic, extravagant moments, I’m thinking of the kind of montages that include all the smaller moments, the bits in between the big stuff.
3. Aren’t you just describing a film? No, you know what I mean. I’m thinking of that montage halfway through When Harry Met Sally where they just go for walks together, or roll out a new carpet, or whatever. I don’t need this year to be full of incredibly exciting moments, I just want it to be full of moments that I pay attention to and enjoy.
4. It sounds like you’re focusing more on trying to edit your life into a montage in your head so you can look back on it than you are on actually experiencing your life moment-by-moment, and that’s going to get in the way of your actually being present in your life. No, it’s the opposite! I’m using this montage idea to encourage myself to be more present, and to immerse myself in the things that feel good. I’m not going to spend the entire year thinking “Can’t wait to watch this back in my montage at the end of the year once I’ve edited it in my brain.” I just want the year to feel like the montages they put halfway through feelgood movies. I don’t know why this seems to be so hard to explain.
5. But those montages tend to be about forty seconds long, rather than a full calendar year. How are you going to maintain that feeling for 365 consecutive days? I’ve already basically answered this question, see above. I’m not going to maintain it for 365 consecutive days. I’d like to maintain it for 3 at some point if possible, but I’m really not going into this with unrealistic expectations.
6. You want to maintain a feeling of ineluctable joy, presence and delight for 3 consecutive days? And you genuinely think you’re going into this with realistic expectations? What if you trip over after two days? I’ll laugh about it.
7. What if you spill some food on yourself? I’ll laugh about it.
8. This is going to drive you insane. I can picture your year in my head and it’s stressing me out. Ok, fine, then you don’t get it. I’m not asking you to get it.
9. But you are writing a lengthy blog post trying to explain it. True enough.
10. What if you just chose a word that sums up that feeling, like “Enjoy” or “Thrive” rather than insisting on this weird montage concept? Yeah I could do that, except this montage idea really resonates and I understand what I mean by it, and it has a strong hold on my feelings, and one of the things I want it to help me do is to pay more attention to the way I feel. This idea makes me feel good.
11. You know that the midpoint of a feelgood romcom usually occurs shortly before everything goes horribly wrong, right? Yes, I’m not saying I want my life to actually then follow the plot of a feelgood romcom, I’m just saying that I want this year to feel like the montage they- do you know what, I’ve explained this enough, I’m not answering any more questions.
12. Fair enough, it’s your year. Yes it is, actually.

So there we have it! The feedback suggests that I will look back on this year’s word as a bizarre, foolish, moronic choice, but I know that it feels right and says what I want it to say, so I’m sticking with it. This is my year of neurotically spending all my time rolling out new carpets and laughing while having a panic attack and singing “L is for the way you look at me!” in a cracked falsetto while the bills pile up and everyone I know stops returning my calls. I can’t wait.

What about you? What words are you choosing? Let me know what you want your 2025 to look like, and we can all see how it panned out in a year’s time!

A Cool New Thing In Comedy – Miranda and I have just announced the full programme for the return of Eggbox to the Pleasance Main House on January the 28th! We’ve got live readings of brand new scripts from the two of us, Ayoade Bamgboye and Kathy Maniura, and short films from Christopher Bliss, Em Humble, That Jam, Ada Player & Bron Waugh and Kyle Jon Shepherd. Book your tickets asap if you’re planning on coming, as the previous two shows have sold out! Should be a really fun night.

What’s Made Me Laugh The Most – My stepdad describing Lara Croft and the Tomb Raider franchise as “a load of bollocks.”

Book Of The Year – I’m finding it hard to decide between Fake Like Me by Barbara Bourland (excellent psychological thriller about the art world) and The Bee Sting by Paul Murray (amazing Irish epic family drama). The Bee Sting has been rightly widely acclaimed, and nobody I’ve spoken to has even heard of Fake Like Me, though, so maybe I’ll give Bourland the edge in the hope that more people discover it!

Album Of The Year – Wild God by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. There is one genuinely awful line on this album where Cave tips over into self-parody (the line is “She rises in advance of her panties”), but other than that one line, this is maybe the most beautiful collection of songs he’s ever recorded and I love it.

Film Of The Year – Robot Dreams. I still get upset every time I think about this film. I have never seen a better film about friendship, and being grateful to the people in your life for the time they were in it. The last scene is burned into my memory forever, it’s absolutely devastating.

That’s all for this week! I’ll be back to normal weekly service from now on after the Christmas break. Let me know what you thought and what your Words for 2025 will be and, as ever, if you enjoy the newsletter enough to send it to a friend or encourage others to subscribe, it’s all hugely appreciated. Take care of yourselves until next time, and Happy New Year,

Joz xx

PS If you value the Therapy Tapes and enjoy what they do, and want to support my work and enable me to keep writing and creating, you can make a one-off donation to my Ko-Fi account, and it’s very gratefully appreciated.

PPS Made a sketch about the new series of The Traitors, hope you enjoy it:

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