9 things I learned from the BBFC 2025 annual report

Long-time readers of this blog will know I have an "inside baseball" obsession with film classification. I’m fascinated by film classification, especially BBFC ratings, why films are rated what they are, and decisions that were the source of contention. For me, the release of the BBFC’s annual report is like Christmas; the ultimate chance to indulge my inner film nerd.

Back when I was doing my PhD, and then when I had started my job in Finance, I went on a generational run of reading and summarizing my key takeaways from the Annual Reports from 2016 to 2019. But then my job got very busy, and my actuarial exams got more difficult, forcing my niche hobby onto the back burner, leaving the 2020 through 2024 reports unchronicled.

Being on maternity leave, I can now right some of those wrongs, and thus, for the first time in six years, have the time to pore over the 2025 Annual Report, and tell you what I found interesting! Below are nine things that I learned from reading the 2025 annual report.

1. Complaints for non-standard reasons I

The section of the Annual Report that attracts most attention from BBFC nerds, is the complaints section, because this reveals the temperature of the British public, not just in regards to their pressure points in terms of film content, but broader societal issues as well.

Alcohol review: Kwai Feh Lychee Liqueur

Since moving into my flat in September last year, I’ve been really enjoying hosting friends, and part of my hosting duties include mixing fun cocktails for my guests. I was kindly sent a bottle of the Kwai Feh lychee liqueur to review, and had lots of fun using it to jazz up some well-known drinks recipes. 

I love lychees as a fruit, and this liqueur both had a strong lychee taste and smell. This lychee essence goes with a lot of alcoholic spirits, making it a very versatile ingredient for drinks. In the photo below, I made lychee mojitos:

The ingredients for this drink were: a handful of mint (I have a mint plant which I use for this, very helpful!), 25ml of Kwai Feh, 25ml of rum, 25ml of freshly squeezed lime juice, 15ml of sugar syrup, topped up with lychee juice.

Whilst I enjoy rum cocktails, I don’t actually love the flavour of rum on its own, so it was pleasing to my taste buds that the lychee liqueur overpowered the rum in this drink! The lychee mojito was very fruity and fresh, with the mint leaves and lime really bringing out the tastiness of the lychee in the drink.

The next drink I made was the pink señorita cocktail, partially inspired by the pink aesthetic of the Barbie film!

The ingredients here were: 25ml Kwai Feh, 25ml tequila, 25ml Cointreau, 10ml lemon juice, topped up with pink lemonade.

TV recap: THE APPRENTICE series 8 episode 1, BLANK CANVAS

“In business, times are tough. Investment, hard to come by” is the ominous voiceover, as we enter the new series of The Apprentice. True to form, the show kickstarts by showing us footage of some arrogant idiots taking absolute guff, “I will literally roar my way to the top”, brags one lady, as a guy brags “I have a habit for pulling people’s strings and making them do what I want.” 

Film review: HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2 (David Yates, 2011)

A wise English proverb once dictated that all good things must come to an end. Ten years on from the release of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the eighth and final Harry Potter film is released. 

The producers at Warner Brothers made the money-savvy choice of splitting Deathly Hallows into two films, which led to a sort of Kill Bill effect – one film was all highs, the other all lows. However, they did it the right way round, with the first instalment of Deathly Hallows boring people to near-death. This meant that the rollercoaster of visual pyrotechnics, character relationships and the final countdown between Harry and Voldemort was saved for the second film. And what a finale it is.

It would be optimistic to say that the three leads have particularly bettered over the ten years. Daniel Radcliffe still strikes me as awful impassive, spending much of the film looking baffled or bemused. When he is required to give a performance of emotional gravitas, he borders on overacting. 

However, if he is on the cusp of ham, Emma Watson is a fully-fledged bacon, once again letting her eyebrows do the acting, acting.