Monday, December 28, 2009

A Proposition...


Everyone does lists at this time of the year don’t they? Best album of the year / decade etc. I don’t really like making lists like that partly because it takes a certain amount of prior planning and organization and partly because, as you’ll have noticed, I dot around, not really noticing what’s new and what’s not. After all, if you’ve not heard it before, it’s new right?

But anyway, not to be churlish, let’s get into the spirit of things…

Five Events that Made my Year

My iPhone – getting myself an iPhone in October proved to be every bit as distracting and fascinating as I’d hoped it would be. I love the touch screen and being able to push icons around on the screen, I love the combination of wireless connectivity and playing music, and I love the Apps. I’m sure I’ve only scratched the surface so far, but I am loving it.

Podcasts – one of the upshots of getting the iPhone was that I have discovered the world of Podcasting. Somehow, I’ve never quite got into listening to podcasts previously, mainly because I’ve now gone back to using iTunes, which makes it very easy to keep up with a particular podcast. Current favourites are The Word podcast, The Classic Albums Podcast, Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone, The Football Ramble and Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo’s Film Reviews.

My First Fall Gig – They’ve always been there, but I’d never seen them before, a little like the Queen (in so many ways…)

Green Man – What a difference a bit of sunshine makes. Previous years had been characterised by expansive rain falls and too long spent huddled in tents feeling wretched, but this year the sun came out and it was a wonderful experience. Highlights were listening to Jah Wobble and Joe Boyd reminiscing , being berated by David Thomas, meeting a few new friends, the new Chah Wallai tent, great sets by Bon Iver and Grizzly Bear and seeing Roky Erickson in the flesh.

Rediscovering the Fall – You’re probably all bored of my going about this, suffice to say that 2009 has been the year Mark E Smith came back into focus for me (albeit a somewhat fuzzy sort of a focus…)

The Wire – actually strike that, 2009 has been chiefly characterised by the obsessive and increasingly impatient wait for the next disk of The Wire to come through my letter box from LoveFilm. It’s been a fantastic journey, one that I would heartily recommend to anyone – easily the best thing I have ever seen on TV.

And now that it’s all over, Michael and I wander, bereft, from room to room unable to communicate our sense of loss to others. Broken tragic figures...

(Fortunately, Santa was tipped off and a gleaming Box Set sits on my desk top, a slightly golden hue emanating from its shrink-wrapped facade…)

Here, watch this, the opening scene from the first series…





I’m having fun here actually – now I’m in the mood I can see myself doing a few more of these lists in the next few days…

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