It’s a time-honored tradition: for the third year in a row, FT Weekend editor-at-large Matt Vella joins Lilah to reflect on this past year, and muse on the coming one. We’ve asked listeners to send their predictions and wishes for 2025, and today we’re talking through them! Will next year bring an end to meme culture? How do we step away from restaurant reservation wars? Will Lena Dunham make a comeback? Plus, Matt tells us why he is embracing chaos, and why we should all let go of the fear of being watched.

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As you know, the show is ending in early January – and you can still send in a cultural question through December. What’s rolling around in your head? How can we help? Email Lilah at lilahrap@ft.com, or connect with her on Instagram @lilahrap.

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Links (all FT links get you past the paywall):

– You can flip through all of our listeners’ and colleagues’ predictions on Instagram, here

– You can read Lena Dunham on Sally Rooney in our 2024 Women of the Year round-up here: https://www.ft.com/womenof2024

– Lilah mentions this piece by Anne Helen Petersen on how we’re all posting less on social media, and this opinion piece by Michael Grunwald about the future of farming

– Matt mentions the rise of the noodle boys

– You can listen to last year’s predictions here, or by searching ‘Life and Art 2024 cultural predictions’

– Matt is on X @mattvella

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Special FT subscription offers for Life and Art podcast listeners, from 50% off a digital subscription to a $1/£1/€1 trial, are here: http://ft.com/lifeandart

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Music clip from Family Productions

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

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Today we are bringing you a winter survival guide, full of deceptively small tips that will make winter unmeasurably better. How do we best appreciate these cold, dark months? How do we stay stimulated, but also reject the grind? Our FT Weekend Magazine’s resident “winter goddesses” Griselda Murray Brown and Cordelia Jenkins join Lilah armed with tons of delightful suggestions, from buying warm lightbulbs to reading your friends’ dusty old books. They also fight about electric vests. It’s a joy. We hope you love it.

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As you know, the show is ending in early January – we’re still collecting your cultural questions. What’s rolling around in your head? How can we help? Email Lilah at lilahrap@ft.com, or connect with her on Instagram @lilahrap.

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Links (all FT links get you past the paywall):

– For our summer episode, search ‘How to have the perfect summer’ wherever you listen. Here it is on Spotify

– The FT Magazine’s advent special is full of tips for enjoying winter

– Lulu’s piece about watching 100 Christmas films is here: https://on.ft.com/3BBYrUR

– Cordelia mentioned “jealousy lists”: here’s the FT’s list of favourite non-FT articles published this year. Here’s Bloomberg’s (paywall). Cordelia is most jealous of this Guardian piece by Jonathan Nunn about Nicholas Saunders: “Hippy, capitalist, guru, grocer: the forgotten genius who changed British food”

– Gris loved Laura Marling’s album Patterns in Repeat. She also mentioned the book Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat by Katherine May.

– Gris is on Instagram @griseldamurraybrown. Cordelia is on Bluesky @cordeliajenkins

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Special FT subscription offers for Life and Art podcast listeners, from 50% off a digital subscription to a $1/£1/€1 trial, are here: http://ft.com/lifeandart

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Music clip from Chrysalis Records

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Elif Shafak’s new novel brings together four stories set in three different centuries: ancient Mesopotamia, 19th century London, a Yazidi village in 2014, and the present day. It connects them through the epic of Gilgamesh, and a single drop of fresh water. Making history come alive is one of Elif’s many talents, and today she shares her thoughts on how novels can fill in the gaps in authorised history. She also talks with Lilah about the importance of the unwritten word — and why she looks to oral traditions to make sense of the past.

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As you know, the show is ending in early January – we’re still collecting your cultural questions. What’s rolling around in your head? How can we help? Email Lilah at lilahrap@ft.com or message her on Instagram @lilahrap.

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Links (all FT links get you past the paywall):

– Elif Shafak’s new novel There are Rivers in the Sky, is out now in the US and the UK

– Read the FT’s review of the book here: https://on.ft.com/4gC9cWd

– Lilah spoke with Elif about her previous novel The Island of Missing Trees and the stories we tell ourselves back in 2020. Listen to that interview here

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.