Of all the problems a band could face, fighting for room onstage with a Christmas tree must be far down the list of possibilities. Yet there was David "Jaff" Craig struggling to find room to move around, while avoiding knocking over the decoration next to him with an errant swing of his bass. It was the Futureheads own fault though, as both their current album and tour have a festive theme, hence the choice of two large trees on either side of the band.

Bliss it was to be a fan of Thin Lizzy 50 years ago, in November 1975. Phil Lynott referred to fans as “supporters”, an apt term given Lizzy were followed with a level of partisan fervour generally reserved for football teams. And they were on a sharp upward curve.

There was a time when Gilbert & George made provocative pictures that probed the body politic for sore points that others preferred to ignore. Trawling the streets of East London, where they’ve lived since the 1960s, the artist duo chronicled the poverty and squalor of their neighbourhood in large photographic panels that feature the angry, the debased and the destitute.

It can be reasonably argued that Mike Hodges, who died on 17 December, was the finest director of British crime films since Alfred Hitchcock. Though Hodges succeeded in other genres, his Get Carter (1971), Croupier (1998), and I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead (2003) comprise an existential trilogy – and rumination on beleaguered masculinity – as potent as Paul Schrader’s “man in a room” series.