Happy New Year! How’s it treating you? I seem to have kicked off 2026 having made a subconscious decision to scratch myself to shreds in my sleep – I keep waking up with new scars on my face, shoulders, arms, back. The Wolverine claws I recently purchased for my upcoming work-in-progresses of Joz Norris Is Hugh Jackman Is The Phantom Of The Opera keep showing up in different places around the flat where I don’t remember putting them, and whenever I ask Miranda about it she gives an enigmatic smile and says “Don’t be silly, darling. You’ve probably started subconsciously moving them around, just like you’ve started subconsciously scratching yourself in your sleep” and then she does an evil chuckle and looks out of the window rubbing her hands with glee. It’s very strange. This morning I found the claws on her desk next to a folder I’d never seen before with “Secret Plan To Scratch All Joz’s Skin Off At Night Because I’m In Love With A Skeleton And Want Him To Look Like One” written on it. I’d forget by head if it wasn’t screwed on! It’s been a funny start to the year, and no mistake. Anyway, I hope yours has been less disorienting so far.

My forehead this morning

Anyway, it’s now January, and that can mean only one thing (ridiculous thing to say, clearly means a million different things depending on what associations you have in your mind about the month of January) – it’s the return of Word For The Year!

For the uninitiated who have been receiving this newsletter for less than a year, I will explain Word For The Year. Here at Joz Norris Industries, we don’t do New Year’s Resolutions any more (does anybody? I feel like the only time you hear people mention new year’s resolutions these days it’s in the context of someone saying they don’t do them, usually with the smug implication that this makes them somehow different or interesting, despite the fact that it’s what everybody does. It reminds me of someone I once met who claimed that, although most people really like the bass part halfway through Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain,” he actually preferred the guitar solo that follows shortly afterwards, and said it with the confidence of someone who really thinks this is a radical opinion rather than being the exact way in which everyone enjoys that song).

“The Christmas Naked Man,” a homemade Christmas decoration which I have included here so that when the post goes live, I have something else to use as the accompanying image other than a photo of some scratches on my forehead

Instead of resolutions, we choose a word to orient ourselves around for the year ahead, so that whenever we slip into uncertainty about what we should be focusing on next, the word reminds you what you most wanted your year to feel like or be informed by. In previous years I’ve chosen words like “Appreciate,” “Dedicate,” “Change” and “Believe,” all with varying degrees of success and producing different outcomes. Last year I chose something slightly different and ended up producing my favourite results yet – my word was “L.O.V.E.”, not necessarily for any of its romantic connotations (“connotations” feels like the wrong word here – claiming that the word “love” “connotes” romance is, clearly, moronic, but you know what I mean), but referring specifically to this feelgood classic by Nat King Cole:

At the time of choosing my word, I was feeling very happy and confident and relaxed about the year ahead and really wanted the entire year to feel like the feelgood montage halfway through a romcom where everything is going really well that’s usually scored to a song like this. Like the bit in When Harry Met Sally where we’re treated to a montage of them going for walks and rolling out carpets and shit. People called me crazy. People said that trying to live a year of your life as though it was a feelgood montage would drive me completely insane. People also tried to remind me that these montages usually happen just before something goes horribly wrong. I defied all the naysayers and stuck to my guns. By the halfway point of the year, I was so immersed in what I was doing with my life that I had completely forgotten that this was my word and had to go back and remind myself what it was as Christmas rolled around. I was delighted to realise that, despite my having forgotten all about it, looking back at the year I’d had, it did feel a lot like a feelgood montage. Feel free to click play on the video above and let it soundtrack the following highlights from the montage:

1. Me and a bunch of other comedians and friends are swinging on a tyre swing in the woods. We’re laughing our heads off!
2. I’m at karaoke belting out “Let Me Entertain You” by Robbie Williams. Everyone loves it! They’re all laughing their heads off!
3. I’m pretending to be the Phantom of the Opera at a murder mystery birthday party. Everyone’s dressed like French peasants! We’re all laughing our heads off!
4. Miranda and I are watching a South African cellist in concert. It’s the most beautiful concert we’ve seen in years! We can’t stop crying! And we’re also laughing our heads off!
5. Now we’re watching Brian Eno give a talk about the purpose of art at the Hay Literary Festival. He’s not trying to be funny, and so we are politely asked by security to leave when we cannot stop laughing our heads off!
6. I’m at Warwick Castle with my friends watching a jousting tournament. It’s sick as fuck. The knights fight with swords and everything. One of them hangs off the side of his horse while holding a lance. This shit is off the chain.
7. I’m swimming in Lake Como, laughing my head off. I laugh so much some lake water goes down my throat and I nearly drown.
8. I get 5 stars from Chortle at the Edinburgh Fringe, and then sell out my run. This is very serious, no laughing allowed, comedy is not funny.
9. I’m in a play, playing a 19th century conman in a one-man show. The director gently points out that my tendency to laugh my head off throughout the show is spoiling it for the audience. “I can’t help it!” I laugh back. “I’m just having such a nice year!”
10. I’m meeting Sting. I eat a really nice steak sandwich he’s laid on for the party I’m at (this actually happened! Crazy). I make a joke about “Fields Of Gold” and Sting laughs his head off. His head actually falls off because he’s laughing so hard, and I am arrested for murdering Sting by being too funny. Ironically, I am arrested by the police.

I may have slightly exaggerated the amount of time I spent laughing my head off this year, but the general gist of this is accurate. Honestly, I just felt very immersed in my life this year, and it was really lovely to look back on, just as it was to live through. I don’t think that I can claim that I had such a nice year because of my choice of word, but I also think I did myself a real favour in choosing for the first time to orient my year around something that wasn’t conceptually tied in my head to work and my career. I’m a workaholic, that is one of my principal flaws, and I often struggle to give myself the space and the permission to derive my enjoyment and self-worth from things that aren’t career goals of some kind. It’s a very bad habit and I felt like I really moved the needle on it this year.

For that reason, I’d like my Word For The Year in 2026 to repeat the same trick. This year my word will be “Powers” and I will live the year as though it’s a montage from a film in which a character is learning to master their newfound powers. Sort of like this bit in Bruce Almighty where Jim Carrey is given the powers of God and promptly uses them to destroy a municipal fire hydrant, upskirt a woman, acquire a nice shirt and then make smoke come out of his ass, relatable things we would all surely prioritise if we were given the power of omnipotence by the Abrahamic God:

Just kidding. I do actually quite like the idea of embarking on a year as though it were one vast supernatural training montage and the mind boggles to think about what you could achieve with such a mindset, but I also think this could be asking for trouble. I don’t want to get to December and feel like the year has been a total failure unless I have become jacked, or learned to astrally project myself across vast distances, or become an incredibly gifted flautist.

But I do want to keep the spirit of last year rolling, and choose a word that encourages me not to focus on the things I can strive and strategise for, but instead on the things I can enjoy and be energised by (on that note, this piece by the brilliant Oliver Burkeman on why you should maybe just do more of what you enjoy in 2026 is a great read).

So I think my Word For 2026 will be THRIVE. I like the idea of thriving this year, and I’m very interested to find out whether or not you can choose to do so. In the past, I think that if I’ve ever found myself thriving, it’s largely been down to happenstance and accident – just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. So can I step into the year with active plans to thrive? My friend Zoe thinks this is a bad idea, because the word “Thrive” doesn’t give me any information I don’t already have – we all know that our intention is to thrive, so how does choosing that word help me to know what to do next? But it feels like the right word to choose this year.

Last year I had every hope that I might end up thriving at some point, but there were also a lot of unknowns floating around – a lot was riding on a couple of big projects and I had no idea how they were going to turn out. This year, I can relax a bit more now that those projects have turned out really nicely and I’ve got enough fun things lined up in the year ahead that I’m ready to just try to enjoy them all without demanding too much of them. The world isn’t at my feet, obviously – there will still be plenty of times in the year where things get quiet and I wonder what I’m supposed to do next, not to mention the fact that, while I’m stepping into a very busy year, I have no idea whether any of the projects I’m working on are going to make me any money! But I feel energised by all of them, and willing to follow where they all lead. And after a few years that started with the nervous hope that everything might end up going ok, I think I’m ready to give myself permission to thrive this year. So let’s see how that goes.

Prediction – on the 12th of January I fall out of a tree and my head comes off. I spend the rest of the year as a head in a jar, ironically unable to eat my words because I no longer have a stomach.

What about you guys? Are you a long-time reader who decided to join in with Word For The Year in 2025? What did you choose, and how did it work out for you? Are you a new reader who’d like to give it a go in 2026? What will you choose, and what do you hope it’ll help with? I wanna hear all about your years ahead and the years behind!

A Quick Plug – The first order of business in 2026 is that next week I’m embarking on my first ever nationwide tour! In January the show is coming to Leeds on the 14th, Oxford on the 16th and Norwich on the 31st – I’d love you to come if you’re nearby, or perhaps help spread the word if not! They’re all selling very nicely, but every little helps!

A Cool New Thing In Comedy – Throughout January, Soho Theatre are running a season of shows nominated for Best Newcomer at last year’s Fringe, including Ayoade Bamgboye and Ada & Bron (both of which I did a little bit of work on), plus shows I really want to catch from Kate Owens, Molly McGuinness and Toussaint Douglass. Go see em!

What’s Made Me Laugh The Most – This week saw the first outing of Anna Leong Brophy’s debut solo show Born Sexy Yesterday, which I’ve been working on, and it’s already so good (next outing is at the Pleasance in February I think!) An audience member struggling to remove a shoe really got me giggling.

Book Of The Week – I just finished Adam Buxton’s I Love You, Byeee, a followup to his previous memoir Ramble Book. This one explores his time making DIY TV, his relationship with music and his mum. It’s as funny and charming as you’d expect, and the stuff about his mum is really heart-breaking. Also, he directed music videos for Radiohead??? I did not know that.

Album Of The Week – Luminescent Creatures by Ichiko Aoba. Yeah, her again. I’m an Ichiko Aoba guy now. This is a bit more ambient and woozy and less tuneful than the other albums of hers I’ve listened to so far, but honestly I could listen to her doing whatever she likes, she is an elemental force of some kind.

Film Of The Week – KPop Demon Hunters. I hated this for the first ten minutes or so because it felt very TikTok and very online, and it all made me feel quite itchy. Then a little bird with a hat and a big dumb tiger showed up and really made me laugh, and it started leaning into its fantasy storytelling much more, and it’s ultimately a really fun film. “Golden” an undeniable banger, as well, but you didn’t need me to tell you that.

That’s all for this year! Let me know your thoughts, and do feel free to send the newsletter to a friend or encourage others to subscribe if you enjoyed it. Take care of yourselves until next time,

Joz xx

PS If you enjoyed this and wanted to make a one-off donation to my Ko-Fi account, that would be very nice and cool.

PPS Thanks to everyone who came to Barry & Tony’s New Year’s Eve Hootenanny, it was so fun. We’re planning more Barry & Tony in the year ahead:

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