There is a listlessness that comes over me in January as I am finally clear of all the best-of and worst-of lists that crowd my rss and social media feeds at the end of the year. One list did have a winning suggestion though – banishing the phrase “bucket list.”

If ginger beer is beer, why doesn’t it contain alcohol? The answer is that it does, if you brew it right. Plus: keeping the names of your Guinness-based bar concoctions straight, and how to invite ridicule (and possibly physical abuse) in an Irish pub.

A full generation of moviegoers now associates 2013 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Randy Newman solely with the soundtracks and songs he has written for six Pixar films rather than the darkly sardonic ouvre he launched with a self-titled solo album in 1968.