sing....

Well, how do you follow that?

By listing every single one of the 460(-ish) different songs nominated (or voted for) as an earworm on this blog in 2008?

OK. Your wish is my command.

2112, 20000007, 2 More Years (MSTRKRFT mix), 2 out of 3 ain't bad, 20th Century Boy, 2kindsalove, 4st7lb, 7 & 7 is, 9 in the afternoon, 99 Problems, a case of you, A Day In the Life, A Good Heart, A Sunday Smile, A Tender History in Rust, A&E, Ace of Spades, Addicted to Bass, After Hours, Aggro, All Good Things Come to an End, all nightmare long, All Summer Long, All Time High, All You Really Have To Do, Alphabet Street, always the last to know, Amarillo, American Boy, An Ill Wind, Another Rock and Roll Christmas, Another Suitcase in Another Hall, Any Other World, Apply Some Pressure, Are You Lonely, Ashes, Atomic, Automobile, back in black, Back When You Were Good, Bad Case (of Loving You), bad moon rising, Bare Necessities, battery, BBC olympic theme, big yellow taxi, Birdhouse in your soul, Bittersweet Symphony, Black and Gold, Blackened, Blister in the Sun, Blue Bleezing Blind Drunk, Blue Railroad Train, Bongo Jam, Boomshakalaka, Boy From School, Break My Stride, Brianstorm, Bright Tomorrow, Brown Eyed Girl, build me up buttercup, Bulls on Parade, Californication, Calm a Llama Down, Calm Like a Bomb, Canyons of your mind, Career Opportunities, Caribbean Moon, Celice, Cello Song, cemeteries of london, cemetry gates, Chemical World, Child Psychology, Chim Chim Cher-ee, chocolate salty balls, christobel, Cinematic, Clash City Rockers, climbing to the moon, Cocaine in my Brain, Cold Day in the Sun, Come As Your Are, Constructive Summer, Countdown, Cracklin' Rosie, Crawl, Cry For You, Da Doo Ron Ron, Dakota, Damn, Wish I Was Your Lover, Dance Wiv Me, devil woman, Distant Sun, Do You Really Want to Hurt Me, down by the water, Down to the Wire, Down Under, dream a little dream, duchess, Duke's Place, Easy, Eat It, Eels Song, Eifach Sein, Elisabeth on the bathroom floor, Every Rose Has Its Thorn, everybody's changing, Everybody's Down, evolve or decay, Exit Music (For a Film), Faith, fake empire, Fall to Pieces, Falling, Falling Slowly, Fascination, fast car, feelgood inc, Fire, five to one, Fluorescent Adolescent, Flux, Folsom Prison Blues, Footloose, For Agent 13, Freeze Frame, Fugitive Motel, Future Sailors, Genie 2.0, Get Free, Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into my Car, Get Over It, get rhythm, Ghost Riders in the Sky, Gloria, Glory Box, god gave rock and roll to you, Gold, golden brown, Gone Daddy Gone, Good Girls Don't, Good Morning, good ship kangaroo, Goody Two Shoes, Got me Wrong, Graceland, graffiti, Greatest Day, Green is the Colour, Grounds for Divorce, half a person, Half a World Away, Hallelujah, Hallowed Be Thy Name, handlebars, Heart of Gold, Heavyweight Champion of the World, hey there delilah, Highly Evolved, Highly Suspicious, hold the line, Hometown Glory, hoppipolla, Hounds of Love, Human, Hurricane, Hush, I Am A Rock, I Can See Clearly Now, I Can See For Miles, I Can't Decide, I can't give you anything but love, I can't hold back, I Found Out, I Kissed A Girl, I Knew You Were Waiting, I know what I'm here for, I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked, I told her on Alderaan, I want you, I Want You To Stay, I will possess your heart, IEIEI, If I Had $1000000, If I Were A Boy, If there's a rocket tie me to it, If Tomorrow Never Comes, I'll Never Fall in Love Again,I'm Considering a Move to Memphis, I'm Fucking Matt Damon, I'm sticking with you, I'm throwing my arms around Paris, In My Life, In the Jungle, In The Mood, In Your Eyes, In-a-gadda-da-vida, Indiana Jones Theme, Inner Smile, inni mer syngur vitleysingur, Inside, Into the West, Is it any wonder, is it over, It Hurts Me Too, It's a Jungle Out There, It's Beginning to get to me, It's So Easy, junk shop clothes, Just, Justified and Ancient, Keep me in mind, sweetheart, Kennedy, Kiss Me, kokomo, last stop this town, Laughing Aloud, Laura, Lay Lady Lay, Left Behind, Less Is More, Let It Be, Let's Talk About It, Levi Stubbs Tears, Life for Rent, Lighthouse Keeper, livin' the vida loca, Living on a Prayer, living well is the best revenge, Losing, Lost Myself, Loughborough Suicide, Love Action, Love Games, Love Machine, Lovers In Japan, low, Makes me Wonder, Manic Depression, mannenberg, Mansard Roof, Me & Julio Down By The School Yard, Meat is Murder, meltdown, Mercy, Midlife Crisis, Milk, mmmbop, mogwai fear satan, Moonage Daydream, Moonchild, Morning After Midnight, Moving to New York, Mr E's Beautiful Blues, Mr Jones,mr sandman, My Favourite Waste of Time, My Heart Will Go On Forever, My Uncle used to love me but she died, My Year in Lists, names, Nancy Reagan's Head, Near Wild Heaven, Neighbourhood, Never Ever, Never Forget, New England, New Soul, New York, newborn, Night Nurse, Night Terror, Nightingale, No More Heroes, No One, No One Knows, Northern Lad, Nothing Ever Happens, Oedipus Rex, Oh My God, Old Cape Cod, Old Shit / New Shit, Once and Never Again, One and Only, One Day Like This, One Thing, Out Come the Wolves, Owner of a Lonely Heart, Oxford Comma, Paris to Berlin, Paris is Burning, Patience, phantom of the opera, Picture This, pioneer to the falls, Platinum, Please Read the Letter, Police and Thieves, Police on my Back, pork and beans, prince of parties, Private Psychedelic Reel, pub with no beer, queen of the world, ragged wood, Rapper's Delight, rattlesnakes, Ready for the Floor, Real Emotional Trash, Red Morning Light, Remember Tomorrow, Riders on the Storm, Right Beside You, Robots, Rocket, Rockstar, Romeo & Juliette, ruby, Rule The World, Nowhere With You, Run, Run Around, Run To Me, Sacre Coeur, Sally, Santa Claus is coming to town, Saved by Zero, Say it Right, See You Again, Sequestered in Memphis, Sex Bomb, Shadow of a Day, Shake Shake, Shake it! Shake it!, She don't use jelly, she wants to move, Sheila, Shipbuilding, Shirt, Sing Me Spanish Techno, Skinny Love,Skip to the End, Slow Hands, Slow Show, Songbird, Sonnet, Souljacker pt1, spiralling, Splendid Isolation, St Swithin's Day, stacey's mom, Stack-a-lee, Starship Trooper, Steady, As She Goes, Steppenwolf / Silver Machine, Straight Lines, Straighten Up And Fly Right, strawberry swing, stuck between stations, Substitute, Suburban Knights, Sunny Days, Sunset Coming On, Suzanne, Sweet About Me, Sweet Caroline, symphony number 9, Take Me Out, Tenterfield Saddler, that was just your life, That's Not My Name, The Auld Triangle, The Ballad of Ronnie Drew, The Beginning of the Twist, The Bitch Went Nutz, The Bucket, The Electrician, The Fall, the fallen, the fix, The Fountain of Salmacis, the loneliness of a tower crane driver,The President's Dead, The Saturday Boy, The Trooper, The Underdog, the warning, The Way I am, theme from airwolf, theme from buffy, Theme from Cheggers Plays Pop, theme from the flumps, Theme from Wizbit, theme to blind date, Theme to Paddington Bear, theme to sale of the century, Theme tune to big break, Theme Tune to Black Beauty, Theme Tune to Bullseye, Theme tune to Fraggle Rock, Theme Tune to Scooby Doo, theme tune to the muppet show, theme from shaft,There is only one of us, There's Power in the Union, They, This Girl Is Taking Bets, This Old House, Through the Morning, Through the night, Thunder Road, Time to Pretend, tired of sex,Tired of Waiting For You, Tonight, Tonight, Too Drunk To Fuck, too drunk to fuck, too much love will kill you, Touch Sensitive, touch too much, Toxic, Trampled Underfoot, Turn Tail, Two Hearts, umbrella, Us Against The World, Village Green Preservation Society, Violin Concerto, Viva La Vida, Volare, Voodoo Child, Waiting for a star to fall, Waving Flags, Way Down in the Hole, we didn't start the fire, We Hate The Kids, We'll Live and Die in these towns, what do you want from me, What Light, Whatever it Takes, When under Ether, white man in hammersmith palais, White Rock, white winter hymnal, Who Wants To Live Forever, wichita lineman, Winterborn, wired for sound, Witches' Hat, wordless chorus, Working for the MCA, Wow, Wuthering Heights, You Make Me Feel Like Dancin', Your Love Alone is Not Enough, Your Sweet Voice, You're Such A Good Looking Woman.

Ooh, I feel better for that. They can't all make the top 20, but they're all worth mentioning.

Earworms of the Year 2008 will be published on Friday.

...but instead I waste my time

...and people say they wonder what to do with themselves in the days between Christmas Day and New Year's Eve....

Listen, if I'm going to spend my time cataloguing the last twelve months worth of earworms, together with your votes, then I'm damn well going to do something with all that quality data. The Earworms of the Year for 2008 will be published on Friday, but in the meantime, get your chops around the 351(-ish) Artists nominated....

I for one love the fact that the world of earworms is one place where the likes of MGMT, Fuck Buttons, Lethal Bizzle and Brahms sit side-by-side with the likes of Adam Ant, Yes, Shakin' Stevens, Dick Van Dyke and Toto.

Anyway, the list:

Abdullah Ibrahim, ac/dc (two tracks), Ace of Bass, Adam Ant, Adam Green, Adele, Aha, Alice in Chains, Alicia Keys, All About Eve, All Saints, Alphabeat, Amerie, Amy MacDonald, Annie Lennox, Apache Indian, Arctic Monkeys (two tracks), Aretha Franklin & George Michael, ash, Athlete, Barenaked Ladies, Beach Boys, Bee Gees, Beethoven, Beirut, Ben Folds, Beyonce, Bikeforthree!, Billy Bragg (five tracks), billy joel, Billy Ocean , Black Box Recorder, Blake Leyh, Bloc Party (two tracks), Blondie (two tracks), Blues Traveller, Blur, Bobbie Gentry, Bon Iver, Bon Jovi, Bonzo Dog Band, Boy Meets Girl, Brahms, Brian May, British Sea Power, Britney Spears, Bruce Springsteen, Calvin Harris, Cat Power (two tracks), Celine Dion, Chemical Brothers, Chesney Hawkes, chordettes, Christina Aguilera, The Clash (three tracks), cliff richard (two tracks), Coldplay (four tracks), Counting Crows, Crazy Cousinz ft Calista, Crazy World of Arthur Brown, creedence clearwater revival, Crowded House, Crux Shadows, Crystals, CSS, Culture Club, David Bowie, David Ford, Dead Kennedies, death cab for cutie, Debbie Reynolds, Deep Purple, Def Leppard, Del Amitri (two tracks), diana krall, Dick Van Dyke, Dido, Die Fantastischen Vier, Dillinger, Dire Straits, Do Make Say Think, Domenigo Modringo, doris day, Dr John, Dubliners, Duffy, Eels (six tracks), Elbow (six tracks and an earworms special), Embrace, Estelle , Faith No More, Feargal Sharkey, Flaming Lips, fleet foxes (two tracks), Fleetwood Mac, Flight of the Conchords (two tracks), Flo Rida, flobots, Foo Fighters, fountains of wayne, Fourplay String Quartet, Franz Ferdinand (two tracks), Fuck Buttons, Gabriella Cilmi, Gary Glitter, gene, Gerry Monroe, Genesis, Geoff Proudley, George Michael, Get Cape.Wear Cape.Fly, Girls Aloud, glen campbell, Glenn Hansard & Marketa Irglova, Goldfrapp, Gorillaz, Gregory Isaacs, Guillemots, Guns N'Roses, hanson, Hard Fi (two tracks), Hawkwind, Hold Steady (three tracks), Hot Chip (three tracks), Hoyt Axton, Human League, Ida Maria (three tracks), Incredible String Band, Infernal, Ingrid Michaelson, Interpol (two tracks), Iron Butterfly, Iron Maiden (four tracks), isaac hayes (two tracks, one as chef), Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan, J Geils Band, Jacob Golden, James, Jamie T, Jay Z, Jeff Beck, Jeff Buckley, Jem, Jimi Hendrix (two tracks), Jimmy Cliff, joan as policewoman, Joe Dolan, John Williams, johnny Cash (three tracks), Johnny Nash, jon spencer blues explosion, joni mitchell, Jorma Kaukonen, Joseph Spence, Junior Murvin, kaiser chiefs, Kate Walsh, Katy Perry, keane (three tracks), Keb'Mo, Kenny Loggins, Kevin Ayers, Kid British, Kid Rock, Killers, King Crimson, Kings of Leon (four tracks), Kinks, kiss, KLF, Knack, Kylie Minogue (two tracks), Ladyhawke, Laura Marling, Laura Veirs, Led Zeppelin, Leo Sayer, Leonard Cohen, Lethal Bizzle, Lifehouse, Linkin Park, Long Blondes, Longpigs, Los Campesinos, Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington, Love, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Mali Music, Manic Street Preachers (two tracks), Marie Digby, Mark Ronson , Maroon 5, Maximo Park (three tracks), Meatloaf, Men At Work , Metallica (four tracks), MGMT, Mighty Boosh (four tracks), Mika, Mike Oldfield, Miley Cyrus, Mission of Burma, modeselektor, mogwai, monaco, Morrissey, Motorhead, Mousse T, My Morning Jacket (two tracks), Nat King Cole, Neil Diamond (two tracks), Neil Young (two tracks), Nelly Furtado (two tracks), Neon Neon, NERD, New Pornographers, Nick Drake, Nickelback, Nirvana, Nitin Sawhney, No Age, nouvelle vague, Oasis, Okkervil River, Owen Paul, Panic at the disco, Patti Smith, Paul Simon, Peter Allen, Peter Gabriel, Peter Mulvey, Phil Harris, Pigeon Detectives, Pink Floyd, PJ Harvey (two tracks), plain white ts, planxty, Poison, Portishead, Prince, Pulp , Puppini Sisters (three tracks), Puretone, Queen, Queens of the Stone Age, Rachel and Niamh, Rachel Unthank & the Winterset, Radiohead, Rage Against the Machine (two tracks), Randy Newman, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Reindeer Section, REM (two tracks), Reverend & The Makers, Joel Plaskett Emergency, Rick Wakeman, ricky martin, Rita Coolidge, Ronan Keating, Robert Palmer, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss (two tracks), Roger Miller, Rogue Traders, Ronnie Drew, Rufus Wainwright, Rush, Sam Sparro, Sarah Silverman, Scaremongers, Scissor Sisters (two tracks), September, Shakin' Stevens, sigur ros (two tracks), Silverchair, Simon & Garfunkel, Sixpence None The Richer, Sky+ menu music, Snow Patrol (two tracks), Snow Patrol, Sophie B. Hawkings (three tracks), Space, Spandau Ballet, Spoon, Stephen Duffy, Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, Stereophonics, Stiltskin, stranglers (three tracks), Suede, Sugar Hill Gang, Survivor, Take That (four songs), Texas, The A-Sides, the auteurs, The Beatles (two tracks), The Besard Lakes, The Colourblind James Experience, The Doors (two tracks), The Enemy (two tracks), The Fall, the foundations, The Fumes, The Futureheads (three tracks), The Hours, The Indelicates, The Kinks, The National (two tracks), The Raconteurs, the smiths (three tracks), The Subways, The Verve (two tracks), The Who (two tracks), Thea Gilmore, They Might Be Giants, Thomas Tantrum, Tight Fit, Tina Dico (two tracks), Ting Tings, Tom Lehrer, Tom Waits, Tony Christie, Tori Amos (two tracks), Toto, a Toyota Jingle, Tracey Thorn, tracy chapman, t-Rex, U2, Vampire Weekend (two tracks), Van Morrison, Velvet Revolver, Velvet Underground, Vines (two tracks), Violent Femmes (two tracks), Walker Brothers, Warren Zevon, We Are Scientists, Wedding Present, weezer (two tracks), Weird Al, Westlife, White Denim (three tracks), Wilco, Wombats, Yael Naim, Yes (two tracks!), Young Knives (two tracks).

Yeah, laugh it up. I'll stick the tracks up tomorrow. All of them.

standing in line to see the show tonight....

As regulars will know, as my history degrees might indicate and as the Earworms of the Year overload of the next few days is going to underline again and again, I am deeply drawn to pointless cataloguing. With that in mind, and given that I keep a nicely scored list of all of the gigs that I attend, if you had to guess, what did you think was going to happen eventually, as sure as night follows day?

I can't quite match Mike's 63 gigs this year (63!), but I am an amateur....and I reckon that 27 is still a pretty respectable number, don't you? (compared to 19 last year, 21 in 2006 and 18 in 2005...see, told you I liked lists.). It's plenty enough really, but even then there are gigs that I've missed in Nottingham or elsewhere over the last twelve months. With time, tour schedules, budget and stars all being aligned, perhaps I'll get to see a few more in 2009.

So, for the sake of completeness and my own warped sense of wellbeing, here they all are, all of the gigs I attended in 2008. They are sort of stacked by the scores that I gave each gig when I wrote then up, but that's so arbitrary as to be no scientific guide to anything, so as usual, I've ranked them on a combination of gut feel and an ever fading memory (which is one of the reasons I record these things in the first place).

I've put Glastonbury at the top simply because it can't be compared to anything else and is such a special weekend..... so, with thanks to LB, Hen Mike, Sarah, Rich, Laura, Ali, the two Johns, Peter from Vienna, anyone else I've attended a gig with in the last twelve months....even, on occasion and if she's in the same country as me, C.... I give you my gigs of 2008.

1. The Glastonbury Festival - 27-29 June 2008
2. Elbow @ Leicester De Montfort, 16th October - 9.5 / 10
3. Elbow @ Rock City, 14th April - 9.5 / 10
4. White Denim @ Bodega Social, 7th July - 9 / 10
5. Fleet Foxes @ Nottingham Trent Uni, 2nd November - 8.5 / 10
6. Billy Bragg @ Rock City, 19th November - 8 / 10
7. James @ New Theatre, Oxford, 19th April - 8 / 10
8.The Feeling @ Rock City, 10th March - 8 / 10
9. Gilad Atzmon and the Oriental House Ensemble @ Porgy & Bess Jazz club, Vienna, 17th March - 8 / 10
10. Laura Marling @ Rescue Rooms, 4th November - 7.5 / 10
11. Coldplay @ Birmingham NIA, 2nd December - 7.5 / 10
12. REO Speedwagon @ Rock City, 9th June - 7.5 / 10
13. Tina Dico @ The Maze, 4th March - 7.5 / 10
14. Iron Maiden @ Twickenham Stadium, 5th July - 7 / 10
15. Tina Dico @ Rescue Rooms, 4th December - 7 / 10
16. Joan as Policewoman @ Rescue Rooms, 10th December - 7 / 10
17. Wonky Pop Tour feat. Alphabeat @ Stealth, 15th April - 7 / 10
18. Martha Wainwright @ Rock City, 3rd November - 7 / 10
19. Futureheads @ Rescue Rooms, 3rd June - 7 / 10
20. Heavy Trash @ Nottingham Bodega, 30 September - 7 / 10
21. NME Awards Tour 2008 with The Cribs, Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong, Does it Offend You, Yeah? and The Ting Tings @ Rock City, 12th February - 7 / 10
22. Palladium & Alphabeat @ Bodega Social, 10th February - 3/10 (Palladium) & 8/10 (Alphabeat)
23. Nouvelle Vague @ Rescue Rooms, 7th February - 6.5 / 10
24. Def Leppard, Whitesnake & Thunder @ Nottingham Arena, 17th July - 6.5 / 10
25. One Night Only @ Rescue Rooms, 23rd February - 6/10
26. Seasick Steve @ Rock City, 9th October - 5.5 / 10
27. The Mighty Boosh @ Nottingham Arena, 8th November - 4 / 10

Elbow, eh? Go figure. Who ever heard of them anyway?

...and I think I mark too generously. Far too many 7s this year!

we get older every year....

Shuffleathon 2008 Update

Before I bury myself completely in the beautiful drudgery of compiling the Earworms of the Year 2008 (you should see my spreadsheet..... I always knew there was a good reason for coming into work at this time of year), I thought that perhaps there was time for one final shuffleathon update before the end of the year.

Astronaut's review is in (yay!), Mike's spanish language only CD has arrived from Mexico (oooh!) and Monogodo's CD has arrived but it sadly unplayable as the disc has cracked in the post (can we have a resend please, if it's not too much trouble?). Other than that, things are ticking along nicely and almost all of the CDs have now been put out into the post. There's still a few days before my nominal target of getting all outward CDs sent on before the end of the year, so if all stragglers could make an extra-special effort, then that would no doubt be much appreciated by the patient recipients of their mixes.

As always, any updates should be sent to the email address in my profile - be that CDs sent, received or reviewed.

Um. Other than that, Happy New Year to you all. I'll be back after the Earworms of the Year festival of pointless statistics and lists with more of the same nonsense in 2009.

Shuffler	Posted out	Received?
1. Me	yes
2. Mandy		yes
3. Charlie	yes
4. Planet Me	yes	yes
5. Ian		review
6. Mike	yes
7. Jerry	yes	review
8. monogodo		resend in hand!
9. Erika	yes	yes
10. Michael	yes	review
11. Lisa	yes	review
12. Cody Bones	yes	review
13. Del		yes!
14. RussL	yes	review
15. Tina	yes	review
16. Wombat	yes
17. Joe the Troll	yes	yes
18. JamieS	yes
19. Cat	yes	yes
20. Rol	yes	review
21. Beth	yes	review
22. asta	yes	yes
23. bedshaped	yes
24. Paul	yes
25. Alan	yes
26. Astronaut	yes	review
27. Threelight	yes	review
28. The Great Grape Ape	yes
29. Paul W	yes	yes
30. Ben	yes	review

As I keep forgetting to mention this year, Shuffleathon is based upon an original concept by the lovely YokoSpungeon.... an all round good-egg and surely a leading candidate for 2008's "New Mum of the Year" title?

HNY everyone. Can we put Slade back to bed for another year now?

---

The top 10 countdown at the Auditorium continues....

The number 4s include White Denim, Britney Spears and Neil Diamond.

and the number 3s feature albums by Coldplay, Kings of Leon and Flight of the Conchords.

Between LB, bedshaped and me, we've only had one album on our lists in common so far (Coldplay was picked by two of us). Can you guess who picked what out of this lot? Not as obvious as some of our choices so far.....

you should have known by now you were on my list....

As I sit in front of the fire and finish off the last of that cellared bottle of 1979 Sauternes left over from Christmas Day, with the leftovers of two bottles of excellent cellared reds still to come, I'm going to bore you to tears about Earworms of the Year 2008 again....

I'll start compiling this at the beginning of next week. It's a needlessly labour intensive process, probably, but I get a kick out of doing it and would like to have as many contributions from people as possible before I get started.

Here's what I need you to do:

1) Think of the five bits of music that have been most stuck in your head over the last twelve months. They don't have to be things that were released this year. Hell, they don't even have to be songs - I'm always earworming the tunes from adverts and jingles from the radio, and I'm never very far away from a Kia Ora or an Um Bongo moment....

2) Write them down in order and put a little bit of blurb about each one. It doesn't have to be much, but I'll put a few quotes next to every entry in the list, so the more soundbites I can get from people, the better.

3) Email them to me at the address in my profile.

4) um, that's it. I'll do the rest and will look to get the Earworms of the Year 2008 list published on Friday next week.

Thanks for all your votes so far, but I reckon I can squeeze a few more out of you before Monday. Anyone and everyone is entitled to a vote, incidentally.....

OK? Good.

The Earworms of the Year Roll of honour.

2005 Coldplay - "Speed of Sound"

2006 Gnarls Barkley - "Crazy"

2007 Rihanna - "Umbrella"

2008 ???
---

Whilst we're on the subject of lists, the countdown of the albums of the year at The Auditorium continues... We've already had the likes of Alphabeat, Laura Marling, Metallica, Billy Bragg, The Feeling, Glasvegas, Sigur Ros, TV on the Radio, James, Santogold and the Killers, but

The number 6s feature albums by Vampire Weekend, Estelle and Royworld

The number 5s feature Albert Hammond Jr, Coldplay and Paul Heaton.

....I bet you can't begin to guess the ones nominated by bedshaped, LB and me, eh?

It's a pretty diverse list already, so I wonder what we'll pick tomorrow? No crossover between the nominations so far, anyway.

(my niece is still as cute as a button too....)

understand the world we're living in....

Morning. Everyone survived in one piece then? Excellent.

Two pieces of business today:

The first is Earworms of the Year. I'm going to start compiling this over the next few days and look to get it published this time next week. The basic idea is that I will go through all of this year's Earworm of the Week columns and come up with some sort of a ranking. That will throw up a whole random assortment of tracks, but what I really need to make it work though is votes from everyone on what's been looping on your internal jukeboxes over the last 12 months. So put your thinking caps on and think of the five tunes that have been most stuck in your head this year. Put them in ranking order of 1 to 5, write a little bit of blurb about each one and then email them to me at the address in my profile.

Thanks to everyone who has voted so far. It's nice to do a list that's a bit different from your average "best of 2008" lists, but it's your contributions and comments that really make the list, if you ask me..... so please email me your top 5.

The Earworms of the Year Roll of honour.

2005 Coldplay - "Speed of Sound"

2006 Gnarls Barkley - "Crazy"

2007 Rihanna - "Umbrella"

--

Meanwhile, at the Auditorium, the countdown of the ten best albums has now reached the number 7s. Between the three of us, LB, bedshaped and I have picked Scars on Broadway, Laura Marling and Alphabeat. Guess who picked each one......

Right, so I'm off to my parents to do Christmas all over again. Wish me luck. Should be back tomorrow......

raise a glass for everyone....

Look, let's not make too big a deal about this, but at this time of year especially, I'm actutely conscious of how lucky I am and how not everyone is going to be tucked up cosily in front of a warm fire with their friends and family, with a glass of wine in hand, enjoying a peaceful Christmas.

With that in mind, and on behalf of everyone who stops by here, I've made a £50 donation to the Red Cross Darfur Crisis appeal.



As many as 4.5 million people are suffering as a result of vicious internal conflicts across Darfur, Chad and the Central African Republic. The British Red Cross has been working in Darfur since 2004 providing food, water and healthcare to the most vulnerable. £50 isn't much, but it is enough to buy a medical kit equipped to treat 1,000 patients, or it could be used to feed one malnourished child for three months.

Read about what the Red Cross are doing in the area and why they need our help here and here.



It's not much, but it is at least something.

Thanks for popping by over the last twelve months, and I hope to see you again around here in 2009. Happy Christmas to you and to yours.

somebody put me together....

Some eighteen months ago, a few weeks after an ill-advised game of basketball with the Ultimate Olympian, and worryingly close to my wedding, I discovered that I had broken the ring finger on my left-hand. The joint ballooned up, and as well as making the sizing of my wedding ring rather challenging, I was told by the distracted looking doctor in the fracture clinic that this was going to take perhaps two years or so to heal (the joint was already in pretty bad shape as it was the same one that I had dislocated playing rugby several years before). Fast forward to today, and although the joint is still a little swollen, the wedding ring has come down by more than three full sizes and I've just about stopped feeling the need to tape it up when I play football.

So what do I do? I somehow manage to do pretty much the same thing whilst playing football about 6 weeks ago. At least it was a different digit this time.... although that's only a small consolation when you suddenly discover how much you actually use the thumb on your left hand.

Having been through this before, I didn't exactly rush to the doctor. Instead I iced the joint when I got home, sat out the bruise and generally tried not to think too much about it. It was only six weeks later, when I kept banging the damn thing, that I wondered if I should get it checked out. We men are always being told that we should go to the doctor more to get things checked out, so I went to the doctor.

"Ah, yes. The joints in the hand are very susceptible to this [no shit Sherlock]. There's no point getting an x-ray as I'm afraid there's nothing we can do. The joint is damaged and it may take a couple of years to heal and to come down to a more normal size. Try not to bang it too much in the meantime, as that will only make it worse. Have a happy christmas".

Two years? Try not to bang it? It's my thumb man!

*sigh*

With the last 18 month bringing me a chipped elbow, the broken finger, some torn ankle ligaments, a cracked rib, a suspected broken toe and now the damaged thumb, do you think my body is trying to tell me something?

---

We're up to the number 8s in our countdown of the year's top 10 albums over at the Auditorium. Given that we've chosen The Feeling, Metallica and Glasvegas, it shouldn't be too hard to work out which one LB picked, which one bedshaped picked, and which one is mine, eh?

gonna find out who's naughty or nice....

Today I carried out one of my favourite tasks of the year. It is also, as it happens, one of the most important jobs that I do every year.... I copied out some letters from Father Christmas for a colleague's two daughters.

We started doing this several years ago: my colleague is determined that her children should grow up in a house where Christmas is a magical time of the year, and as such she encourages her kids to write letters to Santa which they "post" up the chimney breast. Then, on Chrismas Day, these two little girls wake up to find their presents and a lovely letter in reply from Santa. More often than not, these letters are an exercise in expectation setting and a way of explaining why the girls may not have got everything that they asked for. It is also, clearly, a special moment for both of them - Santa's letters are stored away each year in a folder of precious things and are looked at from time to time. The eldest daughter is now nearly ten, but she has resolutely insisted that she still believes and has painstakingly made up a letter to Santa with stickers and glitter and all sorts on it. That said, she's also old enough to insist on checking the handwriting on the letter and making sure that:

a) it is the same handwriting as it was last year
and
b) that it is not the same as her mum and dad's handwriting

Luckily for everyone, she hasn't got around to thinking that it could easily be the handwriting of someone else her mum and dad know.... although C. did write our Christmas card to them this year just in case. So you can see, I pretty much have a job for life here, or at least for another few years. (Besides, every smart kid knows better than to be too loud or grown up in their declarations about Santa's existence or otherwise... after all, you wouldn't want to jeapordise the volume of presents you receive, would you? I officially "believed" until long after I left home. In fact, I think I may still....perhaps I'll put my stocking out just in case, eh?)



The ritual is always the same: my colleague provides me with some headed notepaper ("From the home of Santa Claus. Lapland, The North Pole") and a couple of letters to copy out. I get out my good fountain pen and carefully transcribe what's written in my best handwriting and in blue-black ink. This year, the eldest had to be steered away from her desire for a "Dareway" (which looks hideously dangerous) and set up to receive her surprise present - an MP3 player. The youngest was easier: she only really wants Hannah Montana and High School Musical stuff. She'd expressed a desire for a bike, but told her dad that she realised that Santa would really struggle to put it onto his sledge. Well, I'm pleased to say that Santa has managed to squeeze one on for her, and hopefully her parents will be able to see her face light up when she gets exactly what she wanted.

When I first mentioned that I did this a couple of years ago, I was surprised by the level of debate it kicked off around perpetuating gender roles. Well, I do think that Lizzie raised an interesting point, but I still cannot quite bring myself to believe that helping to keep a tiny piece of the magic of Christmas alive for these two little girls is anything other than a good thing.

I enjoy doing it, anyway.



Happy Christmas.

Ho ho ho, etc.

----

Over at The Auditorium, we've reached the number 9s in our countdown of our top 10 albums of the year. Between the three of us, LB, bedshaped and I have plumped for albums by Sigur Ros, TV on the Radio and Billy Bragg. It's a bit harder to spot which one is mine today, but I'm sure you can manage it......

You can also vote for your singles of the year here.

Oh, and I also need your 5 selections for Earworms of the Year 2008 please. You may as well give in and email them to me now - I'm only going to go on about it until you do.....

the final countdown...

Over at The Auditorium, just as we did last year, LB, bedshaped and I have started counting down our top ten albums of 2008. I imagine that we're all going to have quite differing views, so it's well worth a look.

Today..... it's the number tens: - Santogold, James and The Killers.

Go check it out.

(and can you guess which one was my pick? Dur....)

you're only a customer....

It being the season of goodwill to all men, I'm a little loathe to launch straight into a rant...but, you know.

A little while ago, I was idly considering buying myself a Garmin watch that had a GPS chip in it and would help me to track my runs more accurately. It's not cheap, but I thought that it would really pep up my running to know how I was doing against my own previous times on the same route and stuff like that. Luckily, I discovered a brilliant application for the iPhone that did pretty much exactly the same thing and was going to cost me absolutely nothing. It's hard to sing RunKeeper's praises enough really: it uses the GPS functionality in the iPhone to track distance, time, speed and gradient to help you get a much more accurate idea of what you are doing and how you are performing. By way of example, here's my run in Oxford on Saturday before the Christmas party.



Not bad, eh?

Anyway. Because I don't really like holding onto my iPhone when I'm running, I thought that what would make this application perfect would be something that would enable me to clip the phone to my arm as I ran. That way I would be able to track the run and to use it is an iPod without needing to worry much about it. As luck would have it, I saw a recommendation in the paper for just the thing I needed: an armband for the 3G iPhone made by Gear4. Brilliant. I ordered on the spot. Job done. It was 5th Novermber and in less than a week, I would be able to run handsfree again.

No. Apparently not.

A little later, on 13th November, mindful of the £3.60 I was paying for 2-5 day delivery, I tentatively emailed them to find out what was going on. Ah, we're out of stock, they told me. Next shipment will be 19th November. Fine. 29th November, having received no product and no further contact from them, I emailed them again. Ah, we're still out of stock. The next shipment is 5th December. By now I was starting to become a little agitated. I wanted an armband. I had paid for an armband. I didn't have an armband but was unable to buy any of the ones I saw because I was already committed. The 5th of December came and went. Weeks passed. Nothing. Today - 22nd December - I got an email telling me, out of the blue, that they had despatched my order. When I got home, I found it was already here. It looks pretty good, but do you know what? I'm furious about the shitty customer service I have received.

Why did they take my order (and my money) when they were out of stock?
Why did it take me emailing them to find out that it was out of stock?
Why did they not update me of the status of the order until months past the date when I might reasonably expected to have received my goods?

That stuff isn't hard, is it?

The product I have is fine, but I can't help but conclude that Gear4 ultimately don't give a shit about their customers. If that's truly the case, then they really don't deserve any customers at all. You'd think that in the current economic climate, they'd value every customer they could get. Apparently (and bafflingly) this is clearly not the case.

Next time, I'm voting with my feet.

Avoid.

all your diction dripping with disdain....

Ah, back from a pleasant few days staying with some friends in Oxford. Ostensibly, the reason for my visit was that I was going to be working in our store there on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. It was also, of course, an excellent opportunity to catch up with my friends down there, culminating with the 11th annual Juxom Street Christmas Party on Saturday. Work in the store was as good as ever, even if it did make me realise that life at the sharp end of a retail business is very, very hard on the feet (and they're not as busy as they should be at this time of year, either). I had a lovely 20 minute stroll from my digs with Rich and Laura, over Magdalen Bridge and past their lovely illuminated chapel and into the town centre itself, which made a most welcome change from my usual commute by car to a large industrial estate.

The evenings were busy though: Tuesday night spent in a nice Italian with my hosts; Wednesday spent intially with The Ultimate Olympian for a few pints and then a meal with my colleagues from Nottingham also working in the store; Thursday spent in a chinese restaurant with the Pollstar, taking the chance to be introduced to his lovely, charming (and far too good for the likes of him) girlfriend and then on to a pub to watch Leon perform at an open mic night; Friday catching up with friends and helping with last minute party preparations and watching "Ivor the Engine", and Saturday itself spent at the party, starting with the traditional drink (champagne this year) at noon. It's the 11th time we've had this Christmas party now, and I think it's fair to say that things have changed - not least because there are now several children in attendance, so things are naturally a little more restrained (actually, we all ended up in the kitchen listening to Dire Straits at one point, so we are officially turning into our parents).

It's all good though... an excellent way to spend the week. I may even be feeling a touch festive.... something I'm sure work will choke out of my before the end of working week.

Anyway.

Music maestro?

Shuffleathon 2008 Update

Reviews are starting to come in now, with new ones by Cody Bones, Russ L, Ben, Ian all now in. Several more CDs have also reached their destinations, with asta discovering that she drew the shortest of short straws in this game and received a mixtape from me.....

There are still a few to be sent out. I realise that this is a busy time of the year, but it would be great if everyone could try to get their CD done and out into the post before the end of the year (or at least drop me a line to let me know that they're still alive and on the case....). As always, if you could drop me a line when you have sent / received / reviewed your CD, then I'll keep this slightly unwieldy table up to date with links and suchlike.

Right? OK then.

Shuffler	Posted out	Received?
1. Me	yes
2. Mandy		yes
3. Charlie	yes
4. Planet Me	yes	yes
5. Ian		review
6. Mike
7. Jerry	yes	review
8. monogodo
9. Erika	yes	yes
10. Michael	yes	review
11. Lisa	yes	review
12. Cody Bones	yes	review
13. Del		yes!
14. RussL	yes	review
15. Tina	yes	review
16. Wombat	yes
17. Joe the Troll	yes	yes
18. JamieS	yes
19. Cat	yes	yes
20. Rol	yes	review
21. Beth	yes	yes
22. asta	yes	yes
23. bedshaped
24. Paul	yes
25. Alan	yes
26. Astronaut	yes	yes
27. Threelight		yes
28. The Great Grape Ape	yes
29. Paul W	yes
30. Ben	yes	review

Oh, and can you email me your 5 votes for Earworms of the Year please? Ta.

god of piston, god of steel....

-
Shuffleathon 2008 Update

Another week, another update to the big table. We've a new review in, with Tina's very fair-minded thoughts on Michael's CD now published here.

I'd still like it if we could get the outward leg of this thing completed before the end of the year. Most people have now managed to get a CD out into the post (including at least one person who doesn't even have easy access to a CD burner), but there are one or two people who I still haven't heard anything from at all. If you're out there, it would be good to know how you're getting on.......

The reviews I'm a little more relaxed about - take your time, if you feel so inclined, and make sure that you give it a good fair listen before rushing into a review. I'm not putting any notional deadlines on that for a little while yet.

As always, if you could drop me a line to let me know where you are in the process, be that sending or receiving a CD or if you've put up a review, then that would be much appreciated.

Shuffler	Posted out	Received?
1. Me	yes
2. Mandy		yes
3. Charlie	yes
4. Planet Me	yes
5. Ian		yes
6. Mike
7. Jerry	yes
8. monogodo
9. Erika	yes	yes
10. Michael	yes	review
11. Lisa	yes	review
12. Cody Bones		yes
13. Del		yes!
14. RussL	yes	yes
15. Tina		review
16. Wombat	yes
17. Joe the Troll
18. JamieS	yes
19. Cat	yes
20. Rol	yes	review
21. Beth	yes	yes
22. asta	yes
23. bedshaped
24. Paul	yes
25. Alan	yes
26. Astronaut	yes	yes
27. Threelight
28. The Great Grape Ape	yes
29. Paul W	yes
30. Ben	yes	yes

I'm away for a few days now, departing my comfortable desk and spending three days in Oxford working at the sharp end of the retail business as we hone in on Christmas. I'm quite looking forward to it, truth be told. All being well, and if the customers don't eat me alive, then I'll be back on Sunday night....

Earworms of the Year 2008.

Don't forget - I need your 5 nominations for the Earworm of the Year 2008 please. Thanks for all the votes so far, but I still need more. All you have to do is to email me (via the address in my profile) the five tunes - in order - that have been most stuck in your head this year. If you can provide me with a bit of blurb on each, that would also be great. I'm not after the songs you thought were the best, necessarily, just the songs that got caught on a loop on your internal jukebox. Hell, they don't even have to have been released this year.

I'll do a big writeup at the end of the year - have a look at the previous winners below to get an idea of what the hell I'm talking about. It's all good, anyway.

Roll of honour.

2005 Coldplay - "Speed of Sound"

2006 Gnarls Barkley - "Crazy"

2007 Rihanna - "Umbrella"

See you in a few days then. Toodle-Pip.

insufficient funds....

There is, it seems, some debate about the origin of the term "Pound" as used to describe the currency used by Great Britain. Some people think that it dates back to Anglo-Saxon times, when a silver coin called a sterling was produced by King Offa of Mercia, and 240 of these coins weighed exactly one pound. Other people reckon that it's a Norman term dating to around 1300 and used to refer to a small silver penny. What seems to be undisputed is the fact that the Pound Sterling is the world's oldest currency still in use today, and this fact appears to be the source of great pride for many Britons. Well, you can understand it, can't you? Your currency is an extension of your nationality; it represents you. When the pound is strong, we feel a sense of great pride. We may have an industrial base the size of a small vole, and 85% of all manufactured goods in this country are probably made elsewhere, but one unit of our currency is likely worth about ten of yours. Ha! Take that Johnny Foreigner. One-Nil to us. We like to go abroad and to feel that we're getting a good deal because the Pound is strong. In November this year, the Pound hit a 26 year high at a little over $2.11 to the £. We rejoiced. We marvelled at how much more bang we would have for our buck. We care not a jot that this same exchange rate makes Britain an unfeasibly expensive destination for many tourists and that our industry is seriously disadvantaged by these prices. Why should we care? We get cheaper jeans and cameras and stuff.

Of course, now the economy has collapsed, the boot is on the other foot: the Pound is now worth something like 1.1 Euros - which means that the exchange rate being offered to travellers (after commission and so on) saw a British Pound as actually being worth less than a Euro. Cue national despair. Oh, what is to become of us? Our currency is baseless and our sense of national self-worth is disappearing down the toilet. There's even been some crazy talk that we may find ourselves forced to actually join the Euro zone, which would mean throwing away thousands and thousands of years of our history and cultural heritage. Worse still: it would mean throwing our lot in with the French.

Is it just me, or does anyone else not actually give a damn what our national currency is? I don't derive any great sense of inner wellbeing from our coinage, and I certainly don't feel that my self-worth is bound up in having a picture of the Queen's head on my banknotes. I don't have strong feelings either way about how the Pound is performing against other national currencies. These things tend to fluctuate, and although it may notionally be more expensive now to buy a drink in New York than it was in November, it also costs me more to have a drink in London than it does in Nottingham, and we use the same tender.

What's the big deal?

As a historian, I can sort of understand the attraction of the heritage behind the Pound.... but then, that's really only a name, isn't it? Surely there's no one who seriously believes that the Pound we use now has any more than a notional link with the one used in Anglo-Saxon times? The name has remained with us, but over the years, the currency has been systematically debased, changed many times (including the move away from coins that actually contained precious metals and into paper promissory notes), locked into the gold standard, tied to a fixed exchange rate with the dollar, released from the gold standard, decimalised, tracked the deutsche mark, locked into the ERM, kicked out of the ERM and now floating freely against other currencies in the world. Would it really make all that much difference if we gave it all up and went with the Euro? Would the world really be that much worse a place if we woke up to find the Pound gone? Would our morale as a nation plummet?

No, it wouldn't. Of course it wouldn't. As soon as the Euro became legal tender in this country, you can bet that there would be a rush to get hold of it, and the Pound would become a thing of the past even before it was formally phased out. That's what happened here with decimalisation in 1971, and that's what happened in the other countries in the Euro Zone, so why would we think we would be any different now? Would we object to the throwing away of thousands of years of history and make a principled stand? No. Why would you bother?

So why make such a fuss about it now? The Pound Sterling is a symbol of the British currency. The value of the Pound is determined by the perceived strength or weakness of our economy relative to others. That is all. It is weak now because our economy is relatively weak. It does not say anything much else about us as a nation. Worry about the state of the economy, if you like, but the state of the currency? Nah. You may be valued by it, and your net worth may be measured in it, but why would you want to derive your sense of self-worth from the symbol of a currency?

That said, I'm not an economist, so perhaps I'm missing something?

a new winter coat and shoes for the wife....

--
Earworms of the Week.

[keep reading - Earworms of the Year 2008 information at the bottom, and I need your help so.....]

> "Elisabeth on the Bathroom Floor" - Eels

I think the Eels must be my most listened to band of 2008 (closely followed by Elbow, Fleet Foxes and...erm.... Flight of the Conchords). I've owned a number of the albums for some time, but it was only this year that they really clicked with me, and I found myself listening to them over and over again. It's not always happy listening, with this song being a case in point, but Mark "E" Everett almost never allows himself to slip into self-pity, and ultimately his songs are about life and not about death. Well, except this one, which is quite astonishingly bleak and about the suicide of his sister. It's oddly beautiful though.

"My name's Elisabeth
My life is shit and piss".

Great song.

> "Love Machine" - Girls Aloud

For some reason, my wife was very keen to go and watch Coldplay at Wembley Stadium on the day that they are supported by Girls Aloud rather than the day that they are backed by Jay-Z. Funny that. Does anyone care now that they were an entirely manufactured band? Do you think One True Voice ever watch them on telly and dare to think that they could have been as big or as good if they had got to number one that week? Even they must realise that they were dealing with pop perfection - something that has been apparent since "sound of the underground".

I think W.A.S.P. did a song by the same name, but I'm fairly sure they did it quite differently.

> "Owner of a Lonely Heart" - Yes

I'm blaming Sarah for this one as it popped up on a "Genius" playlist that started with "Mr. Blue Sky". I'm not quite sure how Simple Minds ended up in the mix, but there you go. This is a very silly song by a very silly band. Proof positive that Prog bands could occasionally write snappy singles (although, in this case, only after Rick Wakeman had packed up his capes and left the band).

> "Apply Some Pressure" - Maximo Park

Still one of the most played songs on my iPod, and a real pleasure whenever it comes on. "Our Earthly Pleasures" was my album of 2007, so they must be due some new material in 2009, no?

> "Fire" - Jimi Hendrix / Joan as Policewoman

The original, loose-limbed version by Hendrix remains my favourite, but Joan Wasser and her band produced a version of this song at the Rescue Rooms on Wednesday night that sounded as though they were paying homage to PJ Harvey: intense and frankly terrifying. An awfully long way from the good humoured original, but actually none the worse for that.

> "Skinny Love" - Bon Iver

"For Emma, Forever Ago" is being widely acclaimed as one of the finest albums to be released this year. Typically, I've only just discovered it. I'm always slightly suspicious of those polls, for one thing: I bought the last TV on the Radio album on the basis of one of those, and I've only played it once and I'm not sure I made it all the way through. This year's polls are also recommending TV on the Radio's new album, but I've decided to ignore all of their rave reviews this time around. Once bitten and all that. Bon Iver, however, has sucked me in. I'm only a few listens in, but it seems to be a lovely, delicate record that I hope will grow with every play.

> "If I had $1,000,000" - Barenaked Ladies

Barenaked Ladies are a band that I sometimes have nightmares about. In common with Ben Folds, they have an unmistakeable air of smugness and self-satisfaction about them, and they almost certainly think they are funnier than they actually are. It's also hard to escape the memory, whenever I hear them, of the worst party that I have ever attended where someone got out a guitar and everyone - bar me - sang along to Barenaked Ladies songs... moments after the most pretentious cod-philosophical conversation about death I have ever had the misfortune to hear. As I recall, they all liked Ben Folds too.

I heard this song in the car this morning, as it featured on Alan's 2007 Shuffleathon that he was kind enough to mail me a copy of. Yes, it's vaguely annoying, but it's undeniably catchy, and there were even one or two lyrics that made me smile ("but not a real green dress, that's cruel"). Credit where credit is due. I quite like "one week" as well.

> "Suzanne" - Leonard Cohen

I've been listening to Cohen at work today, and as always, I am absolutely awestruck by the sheer poetry of his lyrics. There is no one, no one, who writes lyrics as good as this.

"And Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said all men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone
And you want to travel with him
And you want to travel blind
And you think maybe youll trust him
For hes touched your perfect body with his mind."

Set against a subtle, acoustic backing and sung in Cohen's rich, deep voice, that song haunts me.

> "Chemical World" - Blur

"Modern Life is Rubbish" was an extremely important album in my musical development. I discovered it in my first year at University, and I had it on a tape that I think had some Suede on the other side. I thought the quality dropped off sharply after "Villa Rosie", but songs like "Sunday, Sunday", "Blue Jeans" "For Tomorrow" and this one still sound pretty good today. I loved "Parklife" (even if I snobbishly hated that fact that almost everyone else did too), but I fell out of love with them around "The Great Escape" and only came back to them when they were on the verge of splitting up. Good band. I have never seen them live, so I hope they manage to squeak onto the Glastonbury bill this year. I can see what's in it for the others (££££), but I was wondering what Damon Albarn was hoping to achieve through reforming his old band... but then I heard him talking about the reunion, and it was clear that the most important thing to him was that he had salvaged his relationship with Graham Coxon and was simply delighted to have his old friend back - playing together in public was secondary. I liked that. Life's too short, isn't it?

> "Shipbuilding" - Suede

Another song on Alan's 2007 Shuffleathon (the 2008 one is even better), and an absolute cracker from the first "Help" album. As I'm sure everybody knows, it was written by Elvis Costello during the Falklands War and highlights the contradiction of how building warships brings prosperity back to the shipyards, whilst their children lose their lives serving on the same ships. Robert Wyatt recorded the original version of the song, but I really like the Suede version as, for once, Brett Anderson's anguished yelp works really well. The lyrics are absolutely superb. Costello is a pretty good lyricist, although not in the Leonard Cohen class, but here he really outdoes himself.

"It's just a rumour that was spread around town
A telegram or a picture postcard
Within weeks they'll be re-opening the shipyards
And notifying the next of kin
Once again
It's all were skilled in
We will be shipbuilding
With all the will in the world
Diving for dear life
When we could be diving for pearls"

Gorgeous song.

----

Earworms of the Year 2008

“Ohrwurm” - a german word that literally translates into English as “earworm”, and refers to a song or tune that becomes lodged in one’s head.

It's time to start voting for your earworms of the year......Last year saw 430 different songs nominated by 335 different artists.... I'm going to start putting together the list for 2008, but as always, I need your help!

Here's how it works:

I will exhaustively compile all of the songs that have appeared in the weekly Earworm slot that appears here every Friday -- both the ones that I have done, and the ones that any Guest Editors have done. I will also be accepting votes from anyone who can be bothered to send me an email.

I need you to email in your votes for your 5 Earworms of the Year.

This shouldn't necessarily be the songs that you have liked the most over the last twelve months though: I'm interested in the songs that you simply haven't been able to shake off throughout the year. It would be nice if you could include a short comment about each one, as I like to include a selection when I do the run down at the end of the year.

Got it?

Email me (via the address in my profile) the five tunes - in order - that have been most stuck in your head this year.

Easy, right?

Need some inspiration?

2008 in music
2008 in British music
Albums released in 2008

I'll put up the list in the New Year.

Roll of honour.

2005 Coldplay - "Speed of Sound"

2006 Gnarls Barkley - "Crazy"

2007 Rihanna - "Umbrella"

I love lists and I love making work for myself, so.....

let's talk about it....

Unless you're one of those strange people who plans these things months in advance, if you are anything like me, then you're probably still on the lookout for Christmas presents for various people. I find the hardest ones to cover-off are often the smallest; that little token present for that person you're not planning on spending more than a tenner on. If you haven't been struck by a brilliant idea, then no doubt you've been browsing the tat tables in various shops in the desperate hope of receiving some inexpensive inspiration, even if that means getting somebody something that (barely) seems amusing at the time and after all the polite thank yous are done is quietly put away and never thought of again. Well, somebody must buy that stuff.....

I'm sure you've got your own ideas, but if you'll allow me to humbly make a suggestion.....

The Art of Conversation by Catherine Blyth.



"A guided tour of a neglected pleasure"

"Mixing philosophy with literature Catherine Blyth wittily encourages conversation. It seems we’ve forgotten how to talk. The art of face-to-face engagement has lost its allure as the world of facebook has seduced us. Catherine Blyth is on mission to convert us back to pleasures of good conversation in this charming, celebratory look at repartee. Wittily mixing up philosophy with literature, blending science with psychology, and with a nod to the great chatterers of history, she persuasively argues the case for banter and badinage - it’s free, its fun and it gets your brain cells firing like the prettiest of firework displays."

I can sense that you're on your way to buy yourself a copy or two as we speak, so perhaps I should declare a couple of things here:

1) I haven't actually finished this book yet. In fact, I'm on about the fourth page of the introduction (every page of which, to be fair, I have enjoyed hugely).

2) The author is an old friend of mine.

I first met Catherine when she had the great misfortune to be assigned to eat her meals in my boarding house back in the distant, sepia tinged days of 1990. It can't have been much fun being a girl at my school: joining a tightly knit bunch of institutionalised emotional cripples when they've already had three years to form deep bonds and who, even at the age of 17, have absolutely no frame of reference for dealing with the female of the species, having spent most of their lives in single-sex seclusion. Catherine must have been a conversational genius even then, as she somehow managed to pierce my outer shell of awkwardness and establish that we actually lived only a few miles from each other. We soon bonded over the number 33 Johnsons bus that we had both used to get into Northampton as kids, and we never looked back. I admired Catherine hugely for having the strength of character to walk her own path at school and not to be beaten into conformity like so many others, including me. Many people spent their school years trying to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible, but Catherine always seemed to remain true to herself, even when that made her stand out dangerously from the crowd.

Much to my regret, we lost touch for a few years some time after University, but thanks to the magic of the internet and her very trusting husband generously forwarding on a speculative email from a complete stranger, we have rekindled our friendship. And look! She's only gone and written a proper, honest-to-goodness book. She's been on breakfast telly and met Rolf Harris and everything! The reviews have been excellent, but if she manages to distill a mere half of her wit, insight and droll humour into the book, then how could people not love it? It's hard to explain, but it makes me proud as punch to know that a friend of mine has managed to get something like this out into the shops. I waste my time writing nonsense on the internet, and she's gone and written a proper, published book that you can buy in an actual shop.

So, if you're struggling for ideas for Christmas prezzies this year, why not give someone you love the gift of conversation? You can pick it up for less than a tenner on Amazon, and it's included in the Waterstones 3 for 2.

Bearing in mind that I'm the kind of person who will deliberately and obtusely provide one word answers to small talk in the coffee queue, perhaps this is EXACTLY the kind of book I should be reading.....perhaps I should be more inclined to think of it less as a light and entertaining read and more as a self-help manual.

Beware: I might want to talk about this again once I've read it, so you might as well give in now and go and buy several copies. I'm only going to go on about it until you do..... (and actually, as I've already bought six copies, you may well be getting it from me for Christmas anyway).

are you happy inside your eyes?

Joan as Policewoman @ Nottingham Rescue Rooms, 10th December 2008

I mentioned in a meeting this afternoon that I was going to a gig this evening.
"Oh yes," said my colleague, "Who are you going to see?"
"Joan Wasser"
"Who?"
"Joan Wasser"
"Never heard of her. What kind of music is it?"
I paused for a moment and thought. "Torch songs"
"I've no idea what that even means."

...and then our meeting began.

I'm sure she's sick and tired of hearing people talking about it, but in spite of her wonderful solo records and her work with the likes of Rufus Wainwright, Scissor Sisters and Antony and the Johnsons, Wasser will probably always be remembered by most people as Jeff Buckley's girlfriend. They started going out shortly before "Grace" was released in 1994, and they remained together until Buckley's tragic death in 1997. The song "Everybody Here Wants You" was apparently written about her.

"Twenty-nine pearls in your kiss, a singing smile,
coffee smell and lilac skin, your flame in me.
Twenty-nine pearls in your kiss, a singing smile,
coffee smell and lilac skin, your flame in me.
I'm only here for this moment."

That's a lot to live with.

Luckily, Wasser is a very talented woman and is more than capable of escaping the shadow of her dead lover to carve a career all of her own. The slightly odd band name comes from the 1970s American TV show Police Woman, in which Angie Dickinson played a cop in her 30s who was tough and glamorous. As Wasser's own name was initially more well known for her work with the classical violin, she adopted a slightly tongue-in-cheek name and it stuck. She first caught my eye supporting Rufus Wainwright in 2005, spellbinding the crowd at the Royal Concert Hall standing slightly awkwardly and alone in the middle of the huge stage with her delicate songs. I was then a touch surprised to see the support act come out as part of Wainwright's own band, but much though I thought Rufus was good, it was Wasser who I looked up the next day and I purchased her album as soon as it was released. I can't say that album has been top of my listening pile, but it's a lovely record filled with meditations on heartache, desire and loneliness. Quite why I haven't got round to buying the follow up is beyond me.

It's a decent crowd at the Rescue Rooms: not full, but certainly more than for Tina Dico the other day, although it's hard to ignore the fact that almost everyone present is in their thirties at least. Wasser seems all too aware of her demographic, and upon being greeted by a deafening silence when she asks during the show if anyone present is still at college, she ruefully shakes her head and says "I guessed not". The show gets off to an inauspicious (false) start when Joan's keyboard gets stuck on reverb and requires a few re-boots before we're able to begin in earnest. The first few songs all feature Wasser on piano, backed by a bassist and a drummer, and the set resolutely fails to take off. Wasser herself is engaging, but seems shy and a touch self-conscious, although her wry self-deprecation quickly shakes off the impression sometimes given by her songs and her album covers that she might somehow be austere.

The show only really begins to take off when she steps out from behind her keyboard and straps on a guitar. At this point, the songs become more forceful and the sound of the band louder, and we are able to see Wasser's songs highlighted against the backdrop of her agile guitar playing, which occasionally encompasses the odd surprising solo. I'm captivated, but there's no getting away from the fact that she now sounds unmistakeably like the early Jeff Buckley, as caught on the Live at Sin-é album, all strumming guitar, soaring vocals and asides to the crowd. Joan Wasser has collaborated with so many eminent artists over the years, perhaps it's not surprising that some of their style has rubbed off onto her. Or perhaps it's the other way around? Fortunately, other than highlighting her relationship with Buckley in my head as she plays, this doesn't affect my enjoyment of the show a jot, and I'm particularly taken with the interplay between the three band members as they bounce off each other, taking their lead on the timing from the drummer and generally looking as though they're enjoying their work.

Although best known for her torch songs, the band belie this reputation by flexing their muscles and hitting the distortion effects pedals. A cover version of the Hendrix song "Fire" in particular raises the hairs on the back of my neck and brings to mind PJ Harvey circa "Rid of Me". The audience are perhaps warmly receptive rather than wildy enthusiastic, and applause between songs is heartfelt but somewhat short-lived, leaving gaps that Wasser is slightly too awkward to fill, preferring to endure a short silence as the applause dies down as she prepares for the next song (she does, however, pass a jumbo bag of Doritos around the audience, which is such an endearing gesture and the sounds of communal crunching soon fill the silence).

The show slips into self-indulgence towards the end, with the band playing a long, partly-improvised version of a fairly slow song with apparently little concern for their audience and a lot of attention on a very shaky solo by the bassist on a little acoustic guitar, but otherwise I enjoyed the show very much. This is a world away from your average singer-songwriter's material... it's certainly not perfect and there's perhaps more than a touch of the Antony and the Jonsons, Rufus Wainwrights and Jeff Buckleys about it, but you could be influenced by a lot worse people than that. Joan Wasser herself, in spite of her slightly shy and awkward stage presence, is a captivating performer. Perhaps time to check out her new(-ish) album.

Verdict: 7 / 10