A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #100: A Hundred Podcasts

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And suddenly, to our surprise, we find that we have reason to celebrate: not just the beginning of a new year, but our one-hundredth episode! After our small-scale beginnings back in 2017, a little over eight years later, we have arrived at this nice, round number (and that’s without even counting our monthly espresso episodes, which we started in April 2022). And for this occasion, we’re got something very special: Julie and Matt are joined by co-founder and Damn Fine O.G. Mege, who graced the podcast from its first episode until January 2020, though he has been back on an annual basis to contribute to our Christmas Specials. Join the three of them as they wax nostalgic and talk about the early days of A Damn Fine Cup of Culture: what was it like to jump into the podcasting pond? What were the challenges we had to overcome? What made Mege hang up his headset back in 2020? And what are some of our favourite episodes of those first couple of years?

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #267: Family and other horrors

MelanieLeave a comment

Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instalment. So come join us on our weekly foray into interconnectedness!

Hello and welcome to the New Year. Yuletide has come and gone. You have survived holiday family dinners – well done, you – and if you have a certain kind of family, you might be feeling, how do I put it, a little frayed around the edges. A little frazzled. A little freaked, even. A little absolutely and forever done with all that crap.

Last week, Alan gave you spooky Christmas stories. This week, I’m talking about the real holiday horrors, in the shape of one of my favourite series of the year. You won’t find it on Netflix or Amazon. It’s a one-woman-show on social media by @ShawnatheMom (YouTube link). It doesn’t even have a name, I think, and was originally meant to be consumed one short clip a day. And it’s the best portrayal I have ever seen of what it’s like when everyone slowly realises they’re dealing with a narcissistic family member.

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That was the year that was: 2025

MattLeave a comment

Let’s be honest: it’s no big secret that 2025 was a shitty year in many ways, so much so that at times, as if we’d woken up in an episode of Black Mirror, it felt like reality itself had installed a doomscrolling plugin. You no longer have to take out our phone or tablet: just walk around with open eyes and the rest will take care of itself.

And yet: not everything is bad. Whenever I hear or read someone going on about how culture, originality, cinema and TV are dead, I can’t help but roll my eyes – because there is so much out there that is pretty damn good: fresh, engaging, challenging, riveting.

See exhibit A:

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Welcome to the future

The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

Join us every week for a trip into the weird and wonderful world of trailers. Whether it’s the first teaser for the latest instalment in your favourite franchise, an obscure preview for a strange indie darling, whether it’s good, bad, ugly or just plain weird – your favourite pop culture baristas are there to tell you what they think.

We at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture hope that you’ve all had happy holidays so far! On Wednesday, we did our part by releasing the Christmas Special 2025 – in which this thoroughly modern Maria got a shout-out.

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #266: The ITV Ghost Story For Christmas

Alan Kuhl GrahamLeave a comment

Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instalment. So come join us on our weekly foray into interconnectedness!

During the 1970s, the BBC were to make an annual ghost story to be broadcast over the Christmas period. Under the auspices of producer Laurence Gordon Clark, they delivered a festive dose of chills memorable enough that they have since acquired quite a cult following. These BBC ghost stories for Christmas are all excellent stand-alone dramas, brilliantly delivering a creepy, unsettling tale for the Yuletide audience.

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast Christmas Special 2025

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It’s that time of the year again: when film geeks around the world argue about whether Die Hard and Batman Returns are Christmas films or not. The gang at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture has put together its usual Christmas Special episode, this time taking the topic of the year’s summer series, the Lost Summer, as a starting point: what, culturally speaking, have we lost this year… and what have we found? Join Matt, Julie, Alan, Mege and Sam as they ponder their Losts and Founds for 2025 – and everyone here at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture wishes you very happy holidays. Enjoy the remaining days of 2025, spend some quality time with your loved ones, and make sure to enjoy some damn fine films, series, books, games, songs, albums while you’re at it!

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Honey, Spielberg’s at it again!

The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

Join us every week for a trip into the weird and wonderful world of trailers. Whether it’s the first teaser for the latest instalment in your favourite franchise, an obscure preview for a strange indie darling, whether it’s good, bad, ugly or just plain weird – your favourite pop culture baristas are there to tell you what they think.

It’s true: we have derived a lot of joy from Hollywood. But very little of that joy comes from maudlin pieces of Tinseltown self-pity powdered over with a sprinkle of mild satire. And apropos of nothing: earlier this week, Matt wrote about the Noah Baumbach/George Clooney vehicle Jay Kelly.

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #265: Poisoned pages

MattLeave a comment

Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instalment. So come join us on our weekly foray into interconnectedness!

If you had asked me in the early aughts about my favourite writers, it’s very likely that Neil Gaiman would have been one of the names I mentioned. Like many I know, I first encountered him via Terry Pratchett, when I read Good Omens (1990), co-written by Pratchett and Gaiman, and fell in love with it. Next came the short story collection Smoke and Mirrors (1998), with its tales that ranged from urban fantasy and horror to stranger, more meta fare, and shortly after, I got into The Sandman (1989-1996), arguably Gaiman’s magnum opus in a big way. Once I’d made my way through the ten volumes of that series, there was a phase during which I bought almost everything Gaiman wrote. (Ironically, not his anthology comic Endless Nights, which is what furnishes this post with its link to last week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees.) I recommended him to friends, even to some of my teachers at university. After I graduated and started teaching at Uni myself, I did an introductory course on comics, and one of the texts I had my students read was issue 19 of The Sandman, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. Yes, I was that kind of fan.

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The Loneliness of the Hollywood Superstar: Jay Kelly (2025)

MattLeave a comment

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: Hollywood, the Dream Factory – it is actually quite silly, and none are more silly than Hollywood superstars. Drop them in the real world on their own, without their entourage, and they wouldn’t survive five minutes. They’re shallow, self-centred and vain, they barely have a personality of their own, which is probably why they choose acting in the first place. But then, they bring joy to all our lives, so all is forgiven. We love you, Hollywood superstar!

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Not a bird, not a plane

The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

Join us every week for a trip into the weird and wonderful world of trailers. Whether it’s the first teaser for the latest instalment in your favourite franchise, an obscure preview for a strange indie darling, whether it’s good, bad, ugly or just plain weird – your favourite pop culture baristas are there to tell you what they think.

Everyone knows Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. How many who just know Agatha Christie from the film and TV versions have ever heard of Endless Night, the 1972 mystery featuring Hayley Mills, Hywel Bennett, Britt Ekland and George Sanders? Perhaps this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees by Sam will point a few people in the direction of this forgotten Christie adaptation, not least because of its score by Bernard Herrmann!

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