CAL '25

As I was looking through old photos last night, I came across an image I used on a blog post last year. It reminded me of something.

I had forgotten to write about whether I listened to Christmas Across The Lands in 2025.

The answer: of course I did.

Kind of.

I didn't get to bed until late on Christmas Eve. I knew I would be able to find the Christmas-themed programme playing on Christmas FM out of Dublin, so tuned in there. I wasn't disappointed. I was able to catch a bit of it before falling asleep. 

Following that, I was able to listen to CAL on WCSF - a college radio station, based in Illinois, I have tuned into before for Randy Sherwyn's twelve-hour radio marathons of Christmas music and trivia notes.

With all that said, I didn't catch as much of CAL in 2025 as I would have liked. I'll try to do better this year!

Introducing My New Calendar: A Year Of Football Trivia 2026

Over the past three years, I have had a Garbage Pail Kids box calendar to tear off each day (other than Sundays!). As well as that, I also had an Indianapolis Colts calendar in 2025. So, when it came time for me to find calendars for this year, I found myself at a crossroads of sorts.

The company that made the Garbage Pail Kids calendars didn't produce one for 2026. Therefore, that hope was dashed. As for the Colts one - I was gifted the '25 edition. It was one of my favourite presents from Christmas 2024, and one I obviously used every day (other than Sundays!) last year. I didn't want to blemish that fond memory I carry from that gift by buying my own a year later. I know how odd that might come across. 

I'm not ruling out buying a Colts calendar of my own in future. I simply felt I couldn't do it in 2025. But.. with all that said... I found the best alternative:

I was told by my father to find some things on Amazon for him to buy for me. Well, I knew I needed a box calendar, so looked around and came across 'A Year of Football Trivia 2026'.

It's such a perfect pick, if I say so myself. It allows me to continue tearing off pages and uncovering American football stuff. 

As you'll see below, the first trivia question of the year was about college football, so it isn't restricted to only covering the pro version of the sport.

The answers are on the reverse of each page. I have settled on a fun approach: read the question and then spend the rest of the day thinking about it. I will then find out the answer the following morning after tearing off the page. I then get another question to think about before the following morning.

Today's question lists five NFL owners from 1976. I am now tasked with having to line each respective name with the one of five franchises listed on the sheet. I have a good feeling I have three of them correct, but need to consider which teams the other two gentlemen owned.

It would be somewhat amusing if I ended up going 4-1. Especially after what I wrote yesterday.

Throughout this post, I dropped in a couple of 'Other than Sundays!' in parenthesis. That's because, as is often the case with box calendars, weekends appear on one page.

As you can see, in the photo immediately above, the sheet for last weekend had a quote from then Las Vegas Raiders coach - Antonio Peirce. I was going to write 'previous Las Vegas Raiders head coach - Antonio Pierce' but that is no longer accurate due to Pete Carroll getting the chop yesterday. I surmise other pages for Saturdays and Sundays will consist of quotations rather than trivia. Time will prove whether that prediction is right or not.

So far, it has been enjoyable to use this calendar. I miss having to use the other two, but - as noted already - it's a perfect alternative.

Check Out Year of Football Calendars on Amazon UK

Closing The 2025 NFL Regular Season With A Winning Record

Here's how the final entry in the handicapping contest went for me over the weekend.

4-1. Not bad, I suppose. It seems like I went 4-1 a lot over the season. Looking at the weekly results, I believe I came one short five times across the eighteen weeks. 

I didn't go 5-0 at all this year. On the reverse of that, I didn't go 0-5 either. 

The worst result I had was 1-4. I had three of those.

As for the overall win-loss, I scored forty-eight wins, thirty-nine losses and three pushes. That 48-39-3 record had a strike-rate of 55.17% so it was above the key number of 52.38% gamblers see as profitable when it comes to point-spread wagering on American football.

It obviously could have gone better, but - to look on the positive - it could have been a lot worse.

All of the weekly picks were made using Taylor's Pro Football Gambling Annual 2025. I now get ready for the playoffs, but - deeper in the background - I'll continue putting the pieces together for the 2026 edition of my annual.

End Of A Wrestling Tradition

An annual tradition came to an end this morning.

Each January 4th, for the past handful of years, I’ve set my alarm to go off in order to give me enough time to wash, dress and get ready for that year’s NJPW WrestleKingdom. I would always stand in my shower, look up at the darkness through the window and think words along the lines of ‘the things I do for pro wrestling’.

This year is different, however. 

I feel this is a one, maybe two, march show. Three at a push. It didn’t matter if I opened my NJPW World app slightly later for this one. This year.

The main event of the night will see Hiroshi Tanahashi wrestle his last match. The retiree will square-off against Kazuchika Okada, who’s returning to New Japan for a one-off.

I haven’t missed much of the show. It seems like I have been tuned in since the second match of the main card. It's currently at the mid-point (if I were to guess).

The other match I am keen to see is the title .vs. title contest between IWGP World Heavyweight Champ - Konosuke Takeshita - and Yota Tsuji, the current IWGP Global Heavyweight Champion.

Today could be Tsuji's moment to become the standard bearer for New Japan Pro Wrestling. That's something I've been anticipating for well over a year.

As I am writing this, Aaron Wolf - an Olympic gold medallist in Judo - is set to make his professional wrestling debut. That's the third match I am pushed into caring about due to how newsworthiness of Wolf entering the business.

Super Nintendo By Keza MacDonald

I read a really cool book over the festive period. 

Super Nintendo: How One Japanese Company Helped The World Have Fun by Keza MacDonald is a thorough look at the gaming juggernaut which started its life - in the late 19th Century - as a playing card company and has evolved into one of the most iconic worldwide brands.

MacDonald knits her book together by introducing us to Nintendo's main players behind games like Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda all the way through to some of the modern products and games like Nintendo Labo and the Splatoon series.

I can genuinely say I learned a lot from Super Nintendo. Even though it was quite an obvious thing in hindsight, I wasn't aware of the story about Universal Pictures - owners of the King Kong property - attempting to sue Nintendo for the likenesses used in 1981's Donkey Kong. 

My eyes were opened further, a little later in the book, when I learned that the pink game character Kirby (my youngest nephew's favourite Nintendo character, by the way!) is named after John Kirtby - the attorney who successfully defended Nintendo in Universal City Studios, Inc .vs. Nintendo Co. Ltd. 

With over twenty years working as a games journalist, MacDonald is unquestionably one of the most appropriate persons who can tell the story of Nintendo. She was able to introduce quotes from Nintendo's major names she was able to meet through her career.

There's more, however. 

Some parts of MacDonald's book details her own experiences with Nintendo as a consumer. I found there to be a fair balance between telling the story of Nintendo and peeling the curtain back to share her own stories as a player. It's from those anecdotes the writer allows us to see her as one of us: fans having fun.

If you enjoy Nintendo products in any way, I urge you to see this out once it has been published.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

Thank you to Net Galley and Faber for giving me an advance reading copy of this title.

Super Nintendo: How One Japanese Company Helped The World Have Fun by Keza MacDonald is set to be published on February 12th 2026. You can preorder a copy from Amazon UK by following the affiliate link below.

Check Out Super Nintendo by Keza MacDonald

2026: The Year In Preview

It's a day later than usual, but here are my predictions spoilers for the year ahead. 

- Yota Tsuji will win the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship at NJPW WrestleKingdom on January 4th

- Speaking of January 4th, the retiring Hiroshi Tanahashi will go out with a win over Kazuchika Okada

- Here's a longshot gamble, considering he's currently injured and not expected back yet: Seth Rollins will win the Men's 2026 Royal Rumble

- Bianca Belair will win the Women's 2026 Royal Rumble

- The Buffalo Bills will win the Super Bowl

- Cody Rhodes .vs. Roman Reigns III will headline this year's WrestleMania

- The Indianapolis Colts will part ways with general manager, Chris Ballard

- Gareth Southgate will return to football as coach of Manchester United

- I'll read at least six Stephen King books. Looking at where I am in my King journey, it looks like I have to go from Cell (2006) to Under the Dome (2009)

- Personal hope: Taylor's Pro Football Gambling Annual 2026 will have more copies sold than the 2025 edition

- Brazil will win the World Cup

- Shota Umino will be the G1 Climax winner 

- The much talked about Anthony Joshua .vs. Tyson Fury fight still wouldn't have happened by December 31st (I predicted this before Joshua's crash in Nigeria on December 29th 2025)

- A famous face from Neighbours will become a regular cast member on Home and Away

- At the risk of jinxing them.. Cardiff City will be back in the Championship for the 2026/27 season

- A female author will win the 2026 Booker Prize

- Arch Manning will win the Heisman Trophy

- Chris Rea's Driving Home For Christmas will be the Christmas Number One

As usual, I'll check back in with these spoilers on New Year's Eve to see how they fared. Read Wednesday's post to see how my guesses for 2025 panned out.

Good Riddance To 2025

2026 has arrived. 2025 can now finally piss right off.

I had a lot of ideas for this first post of the year, but - now that the day has arrived - I am a bit lost in the direction I'd like to take this.

First things first, I usually have the 'Year in Preview' post put up each January 1st. That's all written up and ready to go live on the 2nd.

Another thing I'd like to point out is the fact that, as of today, this very blog is twenty years old. It's hard to believe that, isn't it? 

And now I get to give 2025 a send off.

It wasn't a good year. 

It saw me lose a few childhood/young adult favourites in Sabu and Hulk Hogan. I know that the latter became a controversial figure over the past few years. I cannot overlook the fact that he was the guy I rooted for when I was a child. I would not be the wrestling fan I would later become were it not for Hogan.

Going by memory, other names we lost last year were David Lynch, Ricky Hatton, Brigitte Bardot, Ozzy Osbourne, Jim Irsay, Adam the Woo and other folk I am sure I'll remind myself of over the coming days.

Personal to me - I lost my aunt in the latter part of '25. She was the final aunt I had left after losing a handfuls of relatives  over the past five years or so.

I cannot and will not write about 2025 without mentioning the loss of one of the people who became one of the best friends I'll ever have: Vicki.

Yes, I wrote about Vick's passing over the summer. I'd like to share one final story about Vick and 2025 today.

As I've already told those who read the post after Vick left us, she and I would play in a weekly NFL pick 'em contest she signed up for with a local radio station to her. I'd give the guesses and she'd enter. It was always fun to get together and occasionally wind her up when I'd get her to bet against the Bills (I gave my reasons!) but I feel I fairly bet against the Colts (I suppose I did that more than bet against the Bills) if the need arose.

I had to find a different contest this season. I entered it using the name 'Picks For Vick' which are the words I have as a reminder on my phone that would go off each week to summon me to get our picks in. As I wrote in August, it never came to the point where either of us forgot, I just had it scheduled just in case. 

Anyway, I found a new venue and kept the reminder on my phone to alert me to get the picks in.

In late-September, I received an email from Jack Daniel's. I have been on the company's mailing list since the 1990s. I was quite popular with that company (if I say so myself) because they'd send me gifts every now and again. The gift giving ended quite some time ago, but I'm still alerted - by email -  to new products whenever they become available.

The autumn communication pointed out that there was a new blackberry flavour coming out. To find out where it would be exclusively sold, I had to click on the link in the mailer.

It directed me to the Tesco website. I looked around and came across a little advert on the page for the drink.  Take a look for yourself.

'For Those Who Know How To Pick Em.' 

'Wow, ' I thought. 'I have to try a bottle of that. For Vick'.

It got even more funnier, though. A bottle was £25, so I thought I would buy it with some of the royalties I had received from the sale of my book (one of the only shining lights from 2025 to be fair). All I had to do was wait for the time when I'd order a Tesco delivery.

I didn't need the royalties money, though. A few days after coming across the bottle, and knowing its price, £25 randomly appeared in our bank from the Premium Bonds. We did not win £25 that month, so I had to ring up to see if they had made a mistake. The persons I spoke with on the phone couldn't work out where the money had came from so it was all a bit confusing. I wanted to draw attention to it just in case we got into trouble for not informing them of a potential error in their system.

A day after I phoned them up, so I likely should have waited, I received a letter informing me that a prize I had won in January 2025 had been re-estimated and I was due an additional £25.

So - that's where it came from.

It was a bit surreal. I needed £25 for the bottle and £25 magically appeared in my account. I know there are some out there who might disbelieve this story, but I swear this is, to quote Tupac under his Makaveli alias, 'the realest s**t I ever wrote'.

With that all said, when the bottle was finally added to my trolley, I purchased it for £18.50 because of a Tesco Club Card discount.

Double bargain!

I have had the bottle here with me since the top end of October. I thought the only appropriate time to have the first glass of it had to be to toast Vick as we saw off 2025 and entered 2026.

To quote 2Pac yet again, I'm going to 'pour out a little liquor'. Here goes: 

Oh wow. It's nicer than I had expected.

There's a bit of a blackberry hit immediately after you taste the whiskey, which is quite pleasing. I genuinely thought I would dislike the taste, so had a can of Pepsi on standby just in case. I may as well put the cola away because this is a decent drink.

I haven't touched Jack Daniel's whiskey in a long time. The most recent occasion - that I can recall - was when I was given a small box of miniatures for Christmas many moons ago. I had never ventured into the special flavour JD wilderness until this morning. Or, to be precise, when I bought the bottle in October.

You know what would be better than Blackberry, though? And Vick would know where I'm going with this... blue raspberry!

Heck, I've had a few sips of this and I'm now wondering what it would taste like with Pepsi added. Ha, I'm going to try that even though I decided against it a few paragraphs ago.

Hmm, nah - I prefer it without cola. The sweetness of the blackberry hit I mentioned from the straight sips are lost with the addition of Pepsi.

That's me done for the night. I did what I wanted to do: toasted my friend as the new year began.

One of the things I would always say to Vick whenever January 1st strikes is that I was 'in the future' because of the five-hour time difference. I must have done it every single year because I saw it in one of our earlier text exchanges and know I did it in a Twitter direct message last year. 

I can no longer brag to Vick about being beyond her in the sense of being a year ahead (albeit for five hours). I'm okay with that. Vick is ahead of me now.