All Change Ladies and Gentlemen. All Change Please!

It has been fun these last fourteen months but I'm afraid this is the last Cynical Ben post ever. I'm bowing out on exactly 400 posts. 400 is a good total to declare on.

I am not going far though, and those of you who enjoy this blog will be pleased to know this is not an end but a new beginning. I have strolled over to WordPress where I have been able to construct a much more exciting site. So to see a new blog, with a new title, but written by the same cynical Ben (essentially the same old shite in a shinier box)...

click here now!!!

I have stared at a computer all day

My eyes hurt

Six minute blog

Oh bother, I have gotten a bit distracted this morning and have neglected to blog. I have six minutes in which to post something before I need to start getting ready for work. So I will just type something really quickly, the first thing that comes into my head, errrrrm, yeah, have you ever, errrm, no, now I can't think of anything.

Does anyone else like Al Bowlly? Yeah, he was good wasn't he. My computer has just gone from Al Bowlly to Lou Reed and John Cale's Style It Takes. Have you heard that album. By Lou Reed and John Cale; Songs for Drella? It is really good. Very minimal. It is a sort of tribute to Warhol. Worth tracking down.

One minute left - we have moved onto Roy Fox and his Orchestra. Keep Young And Beautiful.

Right, I'm off. Sorry about rushing today. I'll leave you with these two treats. Bear in mind that the first one was recorded in 1934.

what I did on my holidays was...

Hello again!

We made it up to Northumberland without too much trouble. There was the occasional flurry of snow that looked like it could be trouble but each time you started to think that this could be the beginning of the end the weather eased up and we were back to clear roads. In fact despite the road up to the cottage being quite icy we managed to get right to the driveway without any problems. The driveway however was an inch of solid ice on a not inconsiderable slope, so I opened the boot and got out the shovel and started hacking at the road.

My dad used to say that I had roses disease, that no matter how far into the shit I fell I would always come up smelling of roses, that I was, in short, a lucky bastard. He pointed this out for the first time when, after admitting that I had used what I thought was a piece of spare wood, but was actually the leg of the camp-bed, to make a crossbow, a year before, and left it somewhere, and he had been so angry with me he had told me to "go and bloody well find it" just as a way of getting me out of his sight, I returned twenty minutes later with a bed leg showing no sign of damage from its year in a quarry bar the hole from the nail where I had fixed the bow to its stock. Life can throw a six for you sometimes.

So when, after about thirty seconds of digging, a police Range Rover pulled up and a nice police woman got out to give us two bags of grit, I have to admit I wasn't as shocked by the coincidence as some would be. Life, obviously is a series of ups and downs, but I am no stranger to little bits of luck. Two minutes worth of gritting and gentle digging and we were up the drive and putting the bags in the sledge to drag to the cottage. (of course, having packed a shovel, sledge, two torches, blankets, a flask of Bovril, one of water, food, waterproof trousers, compass, maps, a first aid kit, etc it could also be argued that we make our own luck, but then, when we set off we didn't know what we were heading into and it is always best to be prepared)

The cottage was brilliant, and if you are thinking about going to Northumberland on holiday then click here before making any final decisions. At the start of the week the snow kept us relatively contained in our exploration of the area but it cleared quickly enough and over the week we got to Bamburgh, Seahouses, Berwick, Alnwick, Amble, Newcastle and a few other places in between. Barter Books in Alnwick, which the Guardian recently called the best second hand bookshop in Britain, was very pretty but its stock, although numerous, was often not very good and the stuff that was good was largely overpriced. So much for my plan to blow the Christmas money there. I bought one paperback! Much better was Berrydyn Books in Berwick-upon-Tweed that despite a floor space about a hundredth of that of Barter Books, had books that were actually worth buying and prices that reflected what you were actually buying - old books. A small handful of books were purchased there.

It was a lazy sort of holiday, reading, a few films, a bit of telly, trips out and about, hot chocolates in cafes, that sort of thing; and very nice too. We ended it all with one night at the Yorebridge Hotel. An excellent meal, a wonderful room, a hot tub under the stars (albeit with clouds between us) and perhaps the best breakfast I have ever had in any hotel. A very frivolous and bourgeois ending to a quite frugal holiday tempered slightly by their only charging £1.50 to deliver the Observer to our door when it costs £2 in the newsagents. OK, so subsidised sort-of-left-leaning-papers does not a socialist paradise make, and yes the Hoxton in London gives away free copies of the Guardian, but... no I don't know where I'm going with this either.

So I'm back, refreshed, and ready to return to blogging.

Ex-evil Tory politicians 1: Crusading environmentalists 0

Congratulations are due to a Mr Portillo. It wasn't that long ago, that heady night in '97 when we all stayed up to see him (and Sebastian Coe) lose their seats in parliament, but the last ten years have seen the old goat mellow some. Tonight he was on the BBC travelling across Northern England on a train which was ironic on so many levels, but let us draw a line in the sand and move on to the congratulations.

I work in a town called Todmorden. It is quite a nice place. I like it. It is small enough to have a sense of community, but large enough to support several nice cafés, coffee shops, organic shops, independent galleries and the like. It is also a bit of a cool spot at the moment due to the Incredible Edible Todmorden campaign which has the ultimate aim of making the town self-sufficient in regards to food. The town has really got behind the scheme, there are carrots in the car-parks, herbs on the railway platform, people are keeping chickens, growing veg, and generally enjoying themselves. This activity is bringing tv crews to Tod. A while ago it was Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, tonight it was Michael Portillo. One major thing separated their programmes. Portillo bothered to find out how to say Todmorden (emphasis on the first syllable), Fearnley-Whittingstall decided to call it Tod-MORE-den (which many newcomers do, and technically is acceptable, but nobody who lives there calls it that) And then keep on calling that despite the fact that everybody around him pronounced it differently.

So congratulations to you Michael Portillo, for not patronising fourteen thousand people by trying to posh up the name of their town. If I had to pick one of them to run farming policy in the UK it would be Fearnley-Whittingstall but if I had to be stuck in a lift with either of them it would definitely be Portillo. He may have been evil but at least he isn't almost illegally annoying. I love the River Cottage books but the programme is becoming the food equivalent of Kirstie Allsopp's decoration programme - a very rich person playing at being a bit rural. No. That isn't fair because Allsopp never pretends that she is anything else while Fearnley-Whittingstall is increasingly deranged.

Perhaps Portillo could do a cooking programme. I would buy the book. It would sit proudly next to my Nigel Lawson diet cook book in the beginnings of an ex-Tory minister cook book section. He could explore his Spanish roots perhaps? A plate of Morcillo Portillo anyone?

When a Hoth is enough

Do you all still love this snow?

Jo and I are going on holiday next week. To Northumberland. A little less snow would be peachy.

But no. Down it comes. At the moment it is that hovery crap that hangs in the air like feckless crumbs of a stale cake. Or like volcanic dust.

Snow.

There was an e-mail read out on the radio today: "All my friends who have a go at me for having a 4x4 suddenly want a lift now it's snowing" Clever. So a week or two of inclement weather justifies the long term pollution of the planet does it? What a twit. Let's be clear on this point: A 4x4 is like chemotherapy in that it is a brilliant invention that some people genuinely need. However if you do not genuinely need them, then you would have to be mad to use them. OK, fair enough, that guys friends are hypocrites (if indeed they actually exist) but that does not mean he is not someone who is burning an excessive amount of petrol so he can pretend he is in a Puff Daddy video or a bad guy in Spooks. There is a beautiful irony in the fact that 86% of 4x4 cars in the country are only used for the school run but as soon as we get two inches of snow all the schools shut.

I haven't left the house yet so I haven't been in the newsagents and read the headlines. It will be interesting to see how the Daily Mail copes with the news that thousands of Gurkhas may move to Britain in the next couple of years. They will have to make hard decisions about whether to go with their usual 'promote the military at all costs' stance or whether in this case their in-built racism will win over. I'm guessing something along the lines of: RISK OF INCREASED CANCER AMONG THE MIDDLE CLASS AS HOUSE PRICES PLUMMET DUE TO NEW LABOUR'S PLANS TO CREATE A 'NEW NEPAL' WITH RECORD SNOWFALL AND COLD WEATHER ENCOURAGES RISE IN IMMIGRATION WHILE OUR BOYS STILL DIE IN AFGHANISTAN AND THE BBC PAY ROSS MILLIONS.

I'm sorry, this post was supposed to be about snow. I don't mind it really. I am quite happy for it to snow as long as we can actually get to our cottage. Being stuck in a little house with a large supply of books, looking out over some beautiful countryside, just a short snowy ramble from a bay full of ducks and waders. That will be perfection.

Keep the A1 clear. We're going on holiday!

mmmpre-ordering books

Sometimes you just cannot wait to buy something and have to order it before it actually exists. Of course pre-ordering books is the literary equivalent of camping out in front of a stadium or cinema to guarantee front row seats to Cliff Richard or the new Doctor Who film.* It makes me a nerd. A book nerd.

I can live with that.

So what treats have I pre-ordered? I have pre-ordered two extra special treats. The magnificent Nicola Barker's Burley Cross Postbox Theft (If you haven't read Barker yet, it isn't too late to sneak on an extra resolution this January - Darkmans is the finest novel, well, perhaps ever...) and Tim Lustig's Henry James and the Ghostly which is finally getting a paperback release (which considering it costs about eighty pounds to snare a hardback has saved me a bit of money)

Tim was one of my very favourite tutors at Keele University. It was during his tutorials in the first year that I realised that the last year, making car headlamps while I waited for September and the start of my American Studies and International Politics, was time better spent than persevering with a Genetics course at Liverpool that my heart wasn't in, and that the little money I had managed to save would soon be spent on Hawthorne and Heller and Ellison and Clifford Odets and Paul Auster. Melville, Poe, Burroughs, Kerouac, Plath, Mukherjee, Prager, DeLillo, Morrisson...

Something that so few of us get chance to do at school, and rarely can within science before the post-graduate level, is to search for something other than the most obvious answer. The most important thing you can learn is to question everything you are told. I was extremely lucky as a child in that when I asked my mom** a question to which she didn't know the answer her solution was to take me to the library where we could find out. I was a member of the library when I was eighteen months old. Knowing that it was alright for me to ask questions I grew up inquisitive. I listened to my mom (Realist/Socialist) arguing with my grandpa (Daily Mail reader) about politics and saw that there was more than one way of looking at the same thing. I learned to question, to doubt, to read between the lines, to filter spin and propaganda for whatever truth hid behind them.

It goes without saying that during the sixth-form this refusal to accept that something was one way "because it was" landed me in a fair bit of trouble. The head, and deputy head of the sixth-form (who I have no intention of mentioning) were surprisingly petty and uninspiring men with near to no ability to argue intelligently. They were teachers and so they were right. Even if they were wrong. For example:

One day we had heavy snow. A few of us had taken the wheels of our skateboards and were using them as makeshift snowboards on the bank at the side of the school during lunch time. We had a free period after lunch so we decided to carry on. Miss Archbold, whose Geography class were directly below us, opened her window and beckoned us over. It turned out she was a keen skier and she gave us a few tips about how best to approach our new game. About ten minutes later the head of sixth form ran toward us, red in the face, shouting 'what on earth did we think we were etc'. The following conversation gives you some idea of his debating skills.

Him: What do you think the teachers would say with you acting lot acting the fool outside their lessons?
Me: Well, Miss Archbold said if you go sideways you get up more speed.
Him: ... Go home!

Scintillating come back there eh? There were some very good teachers at my school, Miss Thorpe, Mrs Clarke, Mr Ryder, Chris Mantz, but for some reason the two chosen to be head and deputy head of sixth form were a couple of planks.

Which is all just a very long way round to the point I was making, that those first few tutorials with Tim Lustig, when an ability to question rather than accept became a boon, were some of the happiest moments of my life up to that point, and were a doorway to three years of joyful education. Compare the previous short conversation with one of a similar length I had with Tim as we passd each other in a corridor in the second year at Keele.

Tim: I loved your essay.
Me: Oh. Thanks. I was worried it was a bit too 'out of leftfield'.
Tim: Yeah, It was way out of leftfield. We really enjoyed it.

Imagine that. An education system that creates individuals and not automata. Isn't that a beautiful thing?

* as far as I know there isn't going to be a new Doctor Who film, though I deny I inserted the phrase 'new Doctor Who film' into my blog to increase my readership figures.
** I know you are thinking "mom" is an Americanism but it isn't. It is a West Midlands thing.

Resolution: Revolution

How's 2010 treating you? I am happy, now the charts and round-ups of the last year are now largely complete, to see that as a nation we have largely refused to refer to the last ten years of our lives as "the noughties". Well done us, on that regard, it is a nasty little phrase. No doubt the Tories will dig up the phrase come the general election when they pretend that Britain descended into a pit of loose morals under Labour and invite us to join them in ushering in a new wave of Victorian attitudes and financial selfishness. Just please, don't pretend that we didn't warn you when Cameron takes of his sheep's clothing the night after the election.

I made a snowman today. Two five year olds took the stick I had placed in his mouth to represent a cigar and turned it into his nose. Alas poor Smoky, I knew him...

It seems Smoky The Snowman is not welcome in today's Britain. These are more serious times and a cigar is no longer an acceptable snowman accessory. I should have lovingly crafted a dog shit into an mp3 player I suppose.

***

Have you made any resolutions? These are mine.

1. Be nicer to ol' voley on my comments on his blog. (Having said that if he continues to play the shrinking violet when he is so obviously something of a catch {handsome, intelligent, cultured, funny, etc, etc} then I might just have to slap some sense into him at some point this year)

2. Stop eating Kinder Hippos every five minutes.

3. Replace my older underwear. One of the dangers of marriage is that you start to 'let yourself go' a bit as you are comfortable, settled and happy, and you become free from the pressures of the fashion and beauty industries. However, Jo didn't marry me to see me retiring to bed wearing something that would be better employed lining the bottom of a dog basket; standards should be maintained.

4. Remember that when a library has a sign next to the withdrawn books that reads "fill a bag of books for a pound" that it is an offer and not an order.

5. Bear in mind that I need to have a haircut when it becomes difficult to style my hair how I like it. Not when I look like a bassist from an mid-eighties East German electro-rock band.

6. Lose the belly. Partly for health reasons, but mainly, vainly, so that I can fit into the clothes I want to wear, and people stop looking so bloody surprised when they find out I write and don't, as they had guessed, play darts professionally. I don't want to dress like a over-eager student or anything like that, but it would be nice not to have to buy my clothes in Millets.

7. Stop losing umbrellas.

8. Try to get our garden to a level above that of the Twits, or at the very least neat enough not to affect property prices in the street.

9. Finally realise that although cigars seem like a good idea after a couple of drinks there is actually a very good reason why I don't smoke.

10. Accept that a whole pizza is not a healthy breakfast.

Sorry cities of Britain but...

...it appears you are unimportant.

Allow me to explain.

I read the oddest thing today. Apparently Caryl Phillips believes that the reason for Leeds Football Club having such a loyal following, despite the terrible fortunes of the last decade, is because Leeds "is unique among England's major cities in having only one football club."

Yes, unique. Unless of course you count any of Newcastle, Bradford, Sunderland, Southampton, Brighton and Hove, Wolverhampton, Plymouth, Cambridge, Coventry, Derby, Kingston-upon-Hull, Oxford, and at least a dozen other cities as being in any way major cities.

Oh and of course all these cities, and Leeds too, have more than one football club. They merely have one large football club.

It is fascinating how football can blind the sense of people. Even those of an intellectual capability of the calibre of Caryl Phillips. The beautiful game can make any of us look foolish. For example, I have heard otherwise intelligent people claim that Peter Crouch should be part of the England starting line-up! A lesson to us all there eh?

All's well that ends well

Useless as the first part of the last Tennant-as-Who double bill was the second part was rather spiffing. A very nice farewell for Tennant that was genuinely moving in parts. I stand by everything I said last week - I defy anyone to watch the second part only and feel they are missing important information - but would add that when Russell T. Davies pulls his finger out he can still come up with something special.

Now. If it would just stop snowing for five minutes...

I watched some films

Did you have a nice Christmas? Yeah, it was alright wasn't it?

I watched some films. I watched the very, very silly but still fun Crank (for those of you who are not familiar with this, essentially Jason Statham has to keep his heart rate high or he dies - as I said, very silly, but you can't beat a bit of Statham can you? Can you?) I watched Enchanted (Disney-cartoon-characters-visit-New-York-rom-com) which I enjoyed very much indeed. It managed to be self-knowing and quite tongue-in-cheek without actually breaking the rules or becoming cynical, and Amy Adams was excellent as the Disney princess lost in the real world. I also watched Star Trek which was a quite enjoyable but instantly forgettable pop corn block buster that was hardly worth the massive praise it has received. My thoughts this morning were that it was a bit like Armageddon in that you wouldn't go out and buy the DVD but if it was on television you might sit and watch it again. It turns out that the reference was quite a good one because JJ Abrams directed Star Trek and wrote Armageddon.

I like films don't you? I have neglected the cinema this last year or two and I really should remedy that. Both Star Trek and Enchanted would have looked better on a larger screen than on my Asda-own-brand tv. (Actually that has been delivering widescreen loveliness for six years now without a qualm, and was two hundred pounds well spent. Thanks telly.)

Star Trek possibly needed the big screen. Enchanted works on any size because it offers more than spectacle. It has a brilliant central performance, it has better jokes, it plays with, and gently pokes fun at, Hollywood conventions, it engages with your emotions; it is a lot of fun. Star Trek is fun, but of a more disposable kind. Star Trek is far more closely aligned to what a modern big-budget movie has become, slick, clinical, shiny.

The one thing Star Trek did have was the magnificent Eric Bana. The problem of course with having the only character you didn't want to slap for being a bit of a cock as the bad guy is that you set up something of a moral dilemma for your audience. I knew exactly who was going to survive, obviously, but that couldn't stop me secretly hoping that if Earth couldn't be destroyed then at least that obnoxious little shit of a Captain Kirk would be fed into some sort of space-age food blender.

This could well be my last post of the year. Everyone have a good night tomorrow. See you next year, at the dawn of The Glorious Decade.

Another hour I cannot get back...

Was that the worst episode of Doctor Who ever?

If Russell T Davies has one claim to greatness (and he probably doesn't) it is his uncanny ability to convince you that this time it will be different. We are all beaten dogs falling for the offer of a bone even though the newspaper print is still smeared on our trusting faces from the last smack. Every time. Every time I watch Doctor Who I think that will be the last time.

Actually that isn't true. I was enjoying the first series until I noticed it was just the same episode over and over. And it has been good. Sometimes. The bit where Tennant's Doctor said goodbye to Rose was good. Often the first half an hour is good. The first Christmas special with Tennant was good.

I used to think that maybe it was the trying to please all audiences that was the problem. A case of trying to please everyone meaning that things had to be simplified (for young children) but then I saw Torchwood which mentions sex and violence but doesn't actually have story lines any more complicated or sophisticated than Doctor Who ever does.

There seems to be a rule now in British television that everyone watching must understand what is going on at all times. Gone are the days of The Prisoner or The Singing Detective; everything must be explained. Everything must be linear. OK, I'm sure you can all think of an exception but my point is that shouldn't Doctor Who at least pretend to be more than emotional music and loud noises? Should there not be even an attempt at story? Is it legitimate to spend the entire first hour of two hours of television building up to the second? Did anything happen tonight that could not have happened in four or five minutes? Did June Whitfield serve any real purpose?

And I love David Tennant, I really do, I am looking forward to his Hamlet tomorrow night (insert your own jokes about my looking forward to his "Hamlet" here) but I am tired. Tired of watching him trying to put life into hackneyed lines, into scripts devoid of poetry, devoid of life.

At this point I may as well point out I am well aware that Davies doesn't write all the episodes. It is a pity that the likes of Robert Shearman and others don't get to wield the pen more often.

Part two is on New Years Day but I think I might make it my resolution to just stop hoping that it will be worth watching. But then I am interested to see what the new doctor will be like, and it will be Tennant's last episode, and it might be a good one, and...

I'm going to watch it aren't I? Damn you Russell T Davies! Damn you to Galfraxian Seven!

The greatest man who ever lived?

I have just made this noise uuuhuhuhuhuhuhhhhhhhhhhhhhuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucheeheheehhhheese

then this noise ohyesssssshusssshucheeeses

then this one mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmuhuhhcheeseheeheheuuu

The reason for all these odd sounds was a delivery that arrived at my doorstep this morning from Neal's Yard Dairy containing their cheeses of December (Isle of Mull Cheddar, Ardrahan, Spenwood, and Colston Basset Stilton) wrapped in straw and a wonderful heady aroma.

The box also contained a note: Happy Christmas, love from ____ (anonymity rules mean we will have to say Vole at this point)

Of course I now run the danger of all my Christmas presents paling in comparison with this delicious and very generous gift. Frankly who cares. I have some amazing cheese and isn't that the real meaning of Christmas?

So a huge thank you to the Vole from myself and also from Jo, who so wisely noted upon being informed about our delivery that you were great. A sentiment with which I whole-heartedly concur.

I'm off work for three days, I have some Cannonball Adderley playing (Somethin' Else), I have a big box of cheese. Yesterday I bought a joint of beef that would easily feed a family of six but that will only ever be asked to satisfy two bellys. I am literally full of good cheer. Even the snow is starting to look good.

Snow: A Beautiful Inconvenience

Yes it looks nice and all that but Jo and I were going to her parents for Christmas and that plan is now up the spout. Sometimes I have to remind myself that snow isn't a load of old crap. Especially when I have to trek to Todmorden today for one last day of work. I really don't want public transport to grind to a halt leaving me forced to walk the six miles back through a foot of snow in the dark tonight with all the Christmas food shopping (but I pissing well will if I sodding well have to)

Actually do I even like snow? I mean yes it is pretty but so is a volcano and I wouldn't want one of those in my back garden. Snow is no good for animals. It breaks things. It's cold.

There is, I suppose, a correlation between hating snow and owning your house. Someone who rents will think "doesn't the snow look beautiful on the rooftops? It has turned our street into a glittering winter wonderland" where as someone with a mortgage will be thinking "that'll be playing bloody havoc with the guttering."

It is snowing now. More snow. Well snot to that! Snow can shit right off as far as I am concerned. Who asked for you snow? What's that? Everyone? What? Everybody in Britain wants a magical white Christmas? I'll shut up then eh?

Stupid snow.

Cynical Ben's Dozen: 12 Stars of 2009 (in no particular order)

Barack Obama

Not a lot needs to be said here. The year started with a bang here. The important thing of course wasn't about race or history it was that the American voters chose hope and change over fear. Obama was the personification of that hope. And while Copenhagen may be something of a failure, we are at least recognising there is a problem now instead of coming up with silly expressions like "axis of evil". Obama is another step on a long long road, but at least we have started travelling in the right direction again.

Christopher Reid

Not one, but two new collections from Britain's greatest living poet (OK one of, but he's my favourite) A Scattering is a series of poems dealing with the loss of his wife and The Song of Lunch a long poem about a, perhaps inadvisable, meeting of old lovers. Reid has a great range and a fearsome imagination. He is surprisingly overlooked by many though.

Robert Owen Brown

"the gastro pub they forgot to renovate" is a great quote to describe The Angel, a rather unglamorous pub in a crappy end of Manchester, run by Robert Owen Brown. The food (as anyone who remembers his work at the Bridge will know) is fantastic. A true modern Manchester food hero. He once roasted a turkey in a filing cabinet you know.

Hope Powell

The final against Germany may have been a step too far but this year cemented her place as the second most successful England manager after Alf Ramsay. Yet another brilliant campaign, that despite the sort of injuries that normally set the men's team into chaotic self-destruction, saw England exceed expectations in Euro 2009. A move to managing a men's team now seems all but inevitable.

The Staff at Rochdale Infirmary Day Surgery Unit (and by extension the whole of the NHS)

Many thanks to the staff in Rochdale for removing the lump in my head. It is much appreciated, and the painless aspect was a pleasant surprise.

The NHS is Britain's greatest boast to the world and its crowning achievement. Anyone who belittles it is an idiot. Of course it costs a lot of money, how could it not considering what it does? Those who plan to dismantle it are the same who would dismantle the BBC, the postal service, etc and did dismantle the railways, the power industries etc. Be careful what you wish for in the forthcoming election.

The staff at Neal's Yard Dairy, Covent Garden

Those people really know their cheese.

Kate Feld (The Manchizzle)

Whether it was blog meetings, Rainy City Stories, the workshop with Suzanne Batty, Rainy City Stories Live, the Manchester Blog Awards etc it seemed that so much of the great things happening in Manchester had one thing in common, and that was Kate.

PJ Harvey

Another year, another excellent album. A Woman A Man Walked By, recorded with John Parish was another highpoint in all but faultless career.

Heston Blumenthal

Without doubt the publishing sensation of my year was the Fat Duck cookbook. It is irrelevant that I will never be able to cook anything out of it this is a mammoth celebration of one man's food philosophy, part autobiography, part food-porn classic, part science textbook.

Kim McGowan

A fellow shortlisted blog for Best Personal Blog at the Manchester Blog Awards, Kim writes two excellent blogs, introduced me to the book Findings by Kathleen Jamie and is undoubtedly the nicest person I have never met.

The Plashing Vole

In a year when I gave up on the Guardian where can I turn when I want a left-leaning stance on world events? The answer is provided by the Vole who I agree with almost everything in general terms and almost nothing in the particular. His prolific blogging takes in the personal, the private, the political and the pant-wetting indie. I read his blog every time I am online and there is always something worth reading. He is a word machine. He also has an especial good humour and is wonderfully patient with my often incredibly rude and argumentative comments

Jon Snow

The man is a legend.

A guide to modern parenting in Chadderton

A heavy snowfall is a great opportunity to get out and play with your children. Everyone likes making snowmen and having snowball fights. Here's a tip you might not of thought of though. The banks that line the main road, on which cars are struggling against icy conditions, are ideal to take three year-olds sledging on!

(Seriously I saw Britain's worst dad actually doing this today. What is it with England and snow? Why are we so stupid? Another favourite today was all the drivers that had their lights on this evening but hadn't actually been bothered to brush the inch thick layer of snow off the front of them first)

Hello again

I hope you enjoyed that little journey through my record collection. Normal service will now resume. in other words, I will be back with the moaning soon...

Oh, and most of the videos will go from the chart soon. I'm just going to leave those less well known acts that could do with the publicity (not that my blog is going to give them much of that)

So here we go then with...

Part Ten 10 - 1

10 - Dizzee Rascal - Boy In Da Corner - 2003

Now of course, Dizzee Rascal is the biggest pop star in Britain, but it all started about six years ago with this incredible debut album. It is hard to believe that this album is six years old because it just hasn't aged, and it is still yet to be surpassed in terms of sheer invention.




9 - Justin Timberlake - Future Sex/Love Sounds - 2007

Has anyone except Scott Walker made such a successful transformation from teeny bopper to respected artist? This is possibly the best pure-pop album ever recorded. Prepare for him to take over the world in the next ten years or so.

8 - Bonnie Prince Billy - ease down the road - 2001

Realistically it could have been one from about half a dozen because despite his being unnervingly prolific Will Oldham manages to keep the quality consistently high.

7 - Björk - Medúlla - 2004

Almost entirely a capello this album is not only unique in Björk's catalogue but in music. Björk seems to get better with each album

6 - Roots Manuva - Run Come Save Me - 2001

(apologies on the poor condition of what is possibly the finest video ever made)

Superb stuff and a truly British Hip Hop.

5 - Ryan Adams - Gold - 2001

Another one who could have had six or so entries in the top hundred if I hadn't limited myself to one per artist. Gold is perhaps his masterpiece but his work is the sort that almost everyone will have a different favourite.

4 - Luke Haines - The Oliver Twist Manifesto - 2001




Greatest living Englishman? Haines is a genius miserablist who makes perfect record after perfect record.

3 - Portishead - Third - 2008



The most welcome return for any band in the last ten years was certainly the peerless Portishead. These two songs show perfectly how with Third they made their sound simultaneously more ugly and more beautiful. A frighteningly good record.

2 - PJ Harvey - White Chalk - 2007




PJ Harvey's refusal to record the same record twice leaves her constantly searching for new ways to make music. With White Chalk she completely changed the way she sang, turning her voice into a weird child-like spectral wail. The songs on the album are similarly haunting and the end result is an album like no other

1 - Outkast - Speakerboxxx / The Love Below - 2003

If I were asked to pick one album to sum up this decade it would definitely be this sprawling messy, occasionally patchy, occasionally beyond perfect, mixed-up masterpiece.




A band blessed with not one but two genius songwriters. (A Hip Hop Beatles?) This album is really two, with Andre 3000 taking one side and Big Boi the other. That they compliment each other so well is a tribute to them both. OK the skits become tiresome but this double album set is incredible really. The most fun ever committed to plastic and an album that easily compares with the greats from the sixties and seventies. A triumph of an album




There you are then that's the lot. Hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did listening back to all the songs.

Nearly there...

Part Nine 20 -11

20 - Rufus Wainwright - Want One & Two - 2005

Released separately and as a set and thus justifying my being able to put both albums in the 100. Wainwright's furiously intellectual baroque-pop masterpiece stretches from the simplicity of The Art Teacher to the sumptuous production of songs such as Oh What a World with its use of Ravel, from the speeded up Cohen-and-Spector of 14th Street to the mournful and angry Gay Messiah. It is a rare beast in being a double album that doesn't need trimming down to a single disc.

19 - Cherry Ghost - Thirst For Romance - 2007

Cherry Ghost have a new album out in the new year and, depending on what direction they have taken, it may end up one of the big sellers of 2010. This singles off this album, despite not exactly setting the charts on fire, are slowly entering the public consciousness via their near ubiquitous use on television (most bizarrely on The X Factor). Whatever success they do get will be well earned though if they can match the quality of this record that quietly and calmly gets under your skin and stays there.

18 - Lady Sovereign - Jigsaw - 2009



Back from America, free from her record label, and basically back to square one, Lady Sovereign returned with an album that was a bit of a classic. Gone were the American influences, replaced with a particularly British sound. Cure samples, references to The Specials, songs about food. Brilliant

17 - Johnny Cash - American III: Solitary Man - 2000

Cash is, or more accurately was, the finest interpreter of other peoples songs to work in any genre of music. The American Music Recordings albums secured his place as one of the greatest singers of the twentieth century. All of them are essential listening.

16 - Jane's Addiction - Strays - 2003

Jane's Addiction seem to release one album per decade and each of them would be in their respective top twenty. It is like with each album they look at the current rock scene and say "oh, you all do that now, we were thinking of, more like...this?" and everyone else just has to watch as they deliver another flawless record. It can't be that long to wait for the next one...

15 - Hot Chip - Made In The Dark - 2008

A healthy reminder that dance music and pop can play nicely together and still be fun. While bands like The Prodigy explore darker and darker territory, Hot Chip provide an album that puts a smile on your face and sets your feet-a-dancing.

14 - Adem - Love and other planets - 2006



I think this is the highest ranking concept album. A set of songs based on the astronomical universe. Adem's voice often sounds on the verge of cracking but its weakness gives it an emotional punch that far stronger singers never attain.

13 - The Jarvis Cocker Record - 2006



The fact that this clip is not from TOTP or Jools Holland but Newsnight speaks volumes. Jarvis Cocker is a one off. The Pulp albums are aging far better than almost any off their contemporaries and this record proved there was going to be more classics to come. It stands comfortably beside Different Class and This Is Hardcore.

12 - MIA - Kala - 2007

"I got more records than the KGB"

You know sometimes you will be sitting in a cafe and you will notice that at every table people a speaking a different language and it feels all vibrant and exciting, well this is that buzz as music. The album bristles with variety and hustle-bustle. It is constantly surprising.

11 - Tom Waits - Blood Money - 2002

Shock Horror! Tom Waits doesn't make the top ten! I know you all thought that he would be number one. So who on earth will be in the top ten?...

Shall we do one last one tonight and the top twenty tomorrow? OK, here's...

Part Eight 30 - 29

30 Dave Graney - Hashish - 2005




Technically one half of a double album with Clare Moore on the other disc but I'm going to ignore that and put this half in at thirty.

29 - Glasvegas - Glasvegas - 2008

"When you say that I'm no good and you feel like walking
I need to make sure you know it's just the prescription talking
When your feet decide to walk you on the wayward side
Climbing up upon the stairs and down the downward slide
I will turn your tide
Do all that I can to heal you inside
I will be the angel on your shoulder
My name is Geraldine I'm your social worker"

I listen to lyrics intently when I listen to music and the first time I heard this song those words really caught me out. That last line turns what appeared to be a dark love song into something completely different. There are similar surprises, both lyrically and musically (uses of Beethoven and You Are My Sunshine amongst others) The complete package makes this album stand head and shoulders above Coldplay and the like, especially as it is a debut.

28 - Lucinda Williams - Essence - 2001


Williams has one of the best voices in music today. It sounds as if it is being broken as she sings. She also writes songs good enough to back it up. Superb.

27 - Joanna Newsom - Ys - 2006

Another love-it-or-hate-it pick that I just happen to love. The shortest track on the album is over seven minutes long. All five songs are long rambling stories (there are twenty seven pages of lyrics) accompanied by harp and part of an orchestra, and sung in an other-wordly childlike voice. Oddly it didn't get a lot of airtime on commercial radio.

26 - Polar Bear - Held on the tips of fingers - 2005




Where would the list be without a difficult jazz record eh? I saw Polar Bear for the first time on television when they were the token jazz band in the Mercury nominations. I wish that performance was on youtube as it was outstanding. They don't make things over-complicated for the sake of it but aren't afraid of discord either which is always a healthy mix in my opinion.

25 - Bruce Springsteen - The Rising - 2002

Rather like Ebeneezer Goode, Bruce Springsteen has always been "very much maligned and misunderstood". He has always been a chronicler of America and not its apologist - Born In The USA for example actually being about the Vietnam War. The Rising was written and recorded in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and Springsteen was perhaps the first major artist to tackle the subject. The Rising is still the best treatment of a difficult subject.

24 - Chuck E. Weiss - Old Souls and Wolf Tickets - 2002

I love this album, but for an impartial voice, click here.

23 - Kings of Leon - Because Of The Times - 2007

As possibly the only person in Britain who loathes Sex On Fire I am glad I can quantify the statement with the fact that despite being amazingly non-plussed by both it and the last album I do love this one and Youth and Young Manhood. Maybe only every other album will be good. Like Star Trek films. Except they are all rubbish.

22 - Gorillaz - Demon Days - 2005

OK so if you are counting that is three albums featuring Damon Albarn now (it would be four but I decided against the Monkey album on the basis that it is technically a Gorillaz release even though it isn't. All of his albums deserve their place though, especially this one in which the cartoon band moved on even further from their brilliant debut.

21 - Arcade Fire - Funeral - 2004

You all know this one eh? No arguments here I'm sure.

As Jo is staying with Alison tonight I may as well do...

Part Seven 40 -31

40 - Elvis Costello - The Delivery Man - 2004

We're into the top forty and it's another great-return-to-form-album. This time Elvis Costello and his magnificent The Delivery Man. He's back, and this time he's a little bit Country. Costello has never been afraid to try out different genres and let's face it with varying success. These songs though not only suit his voice perfectly but are also among his very strongest.

39 - Pearl Jam - Riot Act - 2002


Pearl Jam started the decade in the worst possible way when on June 30th 2000 at the Roskilde Festival nine fans were killed as the crowd rushed toward the stage. The band, affected by the tragedy were on the verge of splitting for some time. The album that followed their decision to continue is inevitably strewn with contemplations of mortality and the sound is softer and more folk-led than before. It is one of their finest albums.

38 - The Good, The Bad & The Queen - 2007

A truly beautiful album and proof, if proof were needed, that Damon Albarn is the finest musician of his generation.

37 - System Of A Down - Steal This Album! - 2002

A guilty pleasure I'm afraid. I love a bit of System Of A Down. They remind me of opera in the way that they are both technically silly and emotionally affecting at the same time. Steal This Album! is essentially the remains of the Toxicity recording sessions but it is a quality album in its own right. I know most of you will hate me for saying it but this is worth a million Belle and Sebastians and I hope my children take this sort of route through their teenage years ahead of the moping in kitchens at parties path mapped out by Murdoch and his fellow bed-wetters.

36 - Gwen Stefani - Love Angel Music Baby - 2004

"Let me here you say that shit is bananas B-A-N-A-N-A-S"

I love this.

I knew the first time I heard What You Waiting For? that it was the greatest single ever recorded but I was worried that the album would be a couple of singles and a lot of filler. It wasn't. It was fantastic. Absolute pop bliss.

35 - The Bandits - And They Walked Away - 2003





Say what you like about Liverpool it can't half turn out some quality music. Though quite how the fun The Zutons are massive but The Bandits weren't is beyond me. If you own a Zutons record but don't own this look at yourself in the mirror. Say you are sorry. Say it.

34 - Fuck Buttons - Street Horrrsing - 2008

Some will say "it's just noise" and it will be hard to argue with them. But what beautiful noise. This is an album that demands to be listened to. It is not ideal for dinner parties shall we say.

33 - The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America - 2006





Possibly the least cool looking band in the world (almost no costume or makeup was required in the making of the video) but they produce a sound that cool-wise is clearly more than the sum of its parts. The Hold Steady follow in the footsteps of Springsteen, telling stories of America but in the good way, not the Bon Jovi way (who am I kidding, I love Livin' on a Prayer, but you know what I mean)

32 - So Solid Crew - They Don't Know - 2001

The history has been airbrushed and Mike Skinner gets all the credit for the current uk music scene but the truth is that not only was this album released twelve months earlier its sound is a much bigger influence on todays music than The Streets ever have been. Patchy in places it may be but this is still one of the most important British albums of all time.

31 - Anthony & The Johnsons - I am a bird now - 2005

This is a heart-breakingly special album and one of the very few deserving Mercury Prize winners. A unique talent.

Thanks for the nice comments, keep them coming as we move onto...

Part Six - 50-41

50 - Duels - The Bright Lights and What I Should Have Learned - 2006




I promise not to litter the top fifty with cruelly ignored British guitar bands but this one really does deserve a mention. Leeds band Duels make intelligent and interesting pop, unlike, say, Travis. There, I've said it.

49 - Britney Spears - The Singles Collection - 2009

The only greatest hits that makes the list. Britney is the artist of this decade but despite four of her albums being in the twenty fastest selling of the last ten years it is her singles that cement her place as this decades defining pop musician. Beyoncé may have the peerless Crazy In Love but there isn't much to back it up with. Britney has Born To Make You Happy, Oops! I Did It Again, I'm A Slave 4U, Boys, Toxic, Everytime, Do Somethin, Womanizer...plus nearly twenty others. OK it's factory produced pop but also proof that that isn't always a bad thing.

48 - The Twilight Singers - Blackberry Belle - 2003

No this didn't get in the list so people using a search engine to search for "Twilight" found my blog - I'm not that desperate to get more readers (seehotgirlsnakedfreepicsearnmoneyfornoefforthavesexwithgirlsinyourareanow)

The Twilight Singers were the band that Greg Dulli formed after Afghan Whigs split up and this is the album that gets closest to reaching the heights of their three classic albums Gentlemen, Black Love and 1965.

47 - Oasis - Don't Believe The Truth - 2005

It is a oft told tale that Oasis are rubbish now. What a load of cobblers. This is a great little album. OK so they never rewrote the history of modern music but if you stop thinking about them as some sort of supposed magical group and just rate them as songwriters they are actually a very very good band. The problem is that because of the Beatles comparisons (which of course they are most responsible for) people think "well if Definitely Maybe and What's The Story... are your Please Please Me and With The Beatles then where is your Sergeant Pepper?" There was never going to be one, why can't you just be grateful for the music.

46 - The Television Personalities - My Dark Places - 2006




Their/his first album for eleven years was well worth the wait. This album, as those of you who watched the clip will probably find it easy to believe, "takes a couple of listens" before you can get to grips with it. It has humour but it really is, in places, horribly dark. Ex-Girlfriend Club is never going to be anybodies 'first dance' for instance. A broken masterpiece.

45 - Seu Jorge - The Life Aquatic Studio Sessions - 2005

An album of David Bowie covers played on acoustic guitar and sung in Portuguese sounds like the recipe for a novelty record. Not, however, in the hands of Seu Jorge who gives the songs new life (and apparently changes the lyrics quite considerably)

My copy of this album is currently in the house of a very good friend who is going to move to Dublin soon. I fear I may miss them both very soon. At least it gives me an excuse to go and visit. Which is nice.

44 - The Flaming Lips - Embryonic - 2009

I admit that Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots features the majestic Do You Realise?? but I have limited myself to one record per artist and this album is the more rewarding complicated listening experience. They have really turned the oddness up to 11 on this one. It is the demented genius of the early albums played through the production of the recent ones, and I like it. I like it a lot.

43 - Jean Leloup - La Vallée Des Réputations - 2002




If you thought Canada was all about Alanis Morisette and Bryan Adams if you wander over into Quebec you might bump into Jean Leloup who is a little bit more fun musically. I came across one of his albums when I was about fourteen and had been left alone in a French record shop and decided to just buy some stuff based on how good they looked. I have loved him ever since. Thanks to Amazon I have started catching up on his back catalogue. This album I bought in Perpingon, a couple of years ago, before we had the Internet. Possibly Jo thought we should get a computer so I didn't drag her round dozens of record shops next time we were in France.

42 - Von Sudenfed - Tromatic Reflexxions - 2007

Mark E Smith and Mouse On Mars joined forces to create this noise-fest. You will either love it or hate it.

41 - Morrissey - You Are The Quarry - 2004

I am going to go out on a limb here and say that this isn't only his best solo album but his best record period. I imagine the odd Smiths fan would disagree but I find You Are The Quarry has that bit of grit, that bit of balls, that his other work sometimes misses over forty-five minutes. Clearly lyrics have never been a problem, he is the descendant of Betjemen and Larkin and often compares favourably with them but musically he can at times be, how can I put this, a bit, well, wet. On this album he has a bit more soul, a bit more gut. The results are, for me, a career highlight.

Because I'm enjoying myself, let's carry on...

Part Five 60 - 51

60 - Royal Trux - Pound for Pound - 2000

Sadly there isn't much Royal Trux on youtube but if you like The White Stripes then you very well may like Royal Trux. It is a similar sort of lovely shambles.

59 - William Shatner - Has Been - 2004



Unfair? Check out this...



oh the man can do no wrong. Anyway, a clip from the actual album...



The man is a genius

58 - Leonard Cohen - Dear Heather - 2004

Perfectly complimented by Anjani Thomas, Cohen strides miserably into a fifth decade of brilliant song writing.

57 - Snoop Dogg - R&G (Rhythm & Gangster): The Masterpiece - 2004

Snooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooop. More varied, more inventive, funnier and far, far cooler than Eminem, Snoop is the real big dog(g) of hip hop. He is one of the few who can claim to be both originator and innovator. The Neptunes production is faultless as usual.

56 - Beirut - Gulag Orkestar - 2006



Beirut's Gulag Orkestar is an attempt to fuse Eastern European folk music with Western pop music by the grandson of jazz legend Eddie Condon. The result is a sweeping sketchbook of an album that makes you want to drink espresso and discuss Wittgenstein in an overly ambitious arty kind of way.

55 - Midlake - The Trials of Van Occupanther - 2006

A bit of classic rock revivalism if you will. This could easily be an album from the Seventies but that is kind of the point. It is a late evening album, even a last album of the night album.

54 - Flight of the Conchords - Flight of the Conchords - 2008

The problem with comedy records is that they don't stay funny for ever and usually the music isn't actually that good. Flight of the Conchords are both funnier than most and brilliant song writers. The songs stand repeated plays because the humour enhances the music rather than giving it a reason for existing. It is also the perfect album to do the washing up to.

53 - Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head - 2002

It has been eight years since this album and we are still waiting for evidence that this wasn't a fluke. Coldplay became very Hollywood, very quickly and perhaps they will never make a record as good as this again. Consequently it is easy to forget that is a rather special record.

52 - Babyshambles - Down in Albion - 2005

I know I have lost at least a couple of you here. It is a popular British pastime to discuss how much of a 'cock' Pete Doherty is while at the same time trying to pretend that you get your 'proof' of this from a more reputable source than the gutter press. Like Amy Winehouse he is perpetually hounded by paparazzi whilst having what would kindly be described as "a dependence on potentially harmful chemical substances" and perhaps we should as a nation give them a bit of a break eh? Regardless of how much money they do or do not earn we do not own them.

Whatever your opinion on the man it should have no relation to your opinion on his work - unless you want to go through history removing the work of people with unsavoury lives, bye bye Lewis Carroll, tata Byron, farewell Edgar Allen Poe, Charlie Chaplin, etc etc...

OK you might not like the music either, but I do, so it's on the list

51 - The Polyphonic Spree - The Beginning Stages of... - 2001

Absolutely fantastic for eight tracks and then topped off with fifteen minutes of crap chanting. Take away the chanting and you only have twenty eight minutes of album. So I can't justify it making the top fifty. Sorry.

We've got a lot to get through before Christmas so today is a double header. Here is...

Part Four 70 - 61

70 - Bloc Party - Intimacy - 2008

It's almost as if Brit-pop never happened and bands still had ambitions to be the best in the world instead of "just playing what we like and if anyone else likes it that's a bonus". Bloc Party really should be bigger than they are, or possibly were as the future of the band is in doubt.

69 - J Mascis + The Fog - More Light - 2000

Former Dinosaur Jr front man produced by Kevin Shields from My Bloody Valentine. Need I say more?

68 - CSS - Cansei De Ser Sexy - 2006

"kiss me I'm drunk, don't worry its true" "you are so talented I'm in love" this is all perfect art-pop right here. When this came out I thought, if only for five minutes, that CSS might become the greatest band ever. It didn't happen, but what a debut.

67 - Michael Jackson - Invincible - 2001

While he did spend most of the year trying to avoid going to prison, dangling his children over balconies and dying at a tragically young age, Michael Jackson did also manage to record this and sell 13 million copies of it. The last studio album is far from the heights of Off The Wall and Thriller but still worth checking out.

66 - Juana Molina - Son - 2006



The clip is a good introduction to those of you not familiar with Argentina's only entry in the top 100 being an interview with sound clips recorded about the same time as this album. I saw Molina live before hearing her on record and it took a while to accept that the cd wasn't going to be able to match the excitement of watching someone build songs as you watch. It is still an exceptional album though.

65 - Lee Hazelwood - Cake or Death - 2006

Diagnosed with terminal cancer the year before Hazelwood new this was his last album. He revisits some of his classics (Boots, Some Velvet Morning) and introduces some new songs too. Death hangs over the album, it is ever-present, and yet the album somehow manages often to be funny and light. It is almost like Hazelwood is laughing not at but with death. A good trick if you can manage it.

64 - Amy Winehouse - Back to Black - 2006

Less jazzy than the first album, Winehouse concentrated on making a soul album for the twenty-first century by re-reading the rule book instead of ripping it up. The results are rather good. Rehab, Back to Black and You Know I'm No Good are modern classics, and if you shop around you can still find copies of the version of the album that doesn't have Valerie on it.

63 - Cold War Kids - Robbers and Cowards - 2007

I should hate this album on principal because it was brought into our house via some shop assistant in Fopp Records chatting up my wife and trying to impress her with his love of cool music. It is poetic justice then that she never listens to the cd while I do.

62 - Sparklehorse - it's a wonderful life - 2001

This album saw Mark Linkous collaborating with PJ Harvey, Tom Waits, John Parish, Nina Persson and several other talented individuals. The results are good as the singing foxes above prove.

61 - Cat Power - The Greatest - 2006



Now that ladies and gentlemen is a voice is it not? Listen to the clip and think "oh that's what the hairs on the back of my neck are for." A truly beautiful album.

on we go with the countdown...

Part Three 80 - 71

80 - The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers - 2006

It would be fair to say that Jack White has had quite a busy decade with the White Stripes, The Raconteurs and now The Dead Weather. Controversially I have chosen this album ahead of any of The White Stripes ones because I feel this works better as an album (and also because The White Stripes are a poor man's Royal Trux - see No. 60)

79 - Billy Corgan - The Future Embrace - 2005

I can almost anticipate the comments from Smashing Pumpkins fans. Almost nobody liked this album, only 69,000 sales after the huge success of the Pumpkins. This album got the usual traitor/Judas rubbish from fans that any musician who dares to do something other than churn out similar album after similar album so often receives. The funny thing is though is that it is actually a good album.

78 - Laura Cantrell - When The Roses Bloom Again - 2002

Cantrell, blessed with a singing voice reminiscent of Lurleen Lumpkin, is one of the acceptable faces of Country Music. Not alt-Country or Americana (where there are many, many treats to be found) but straight-down-the-line Country. She doesn't over produce her records and isn't a right-wing uber-patriot which helps of course, but mainly it's the songs and the voice.

77 - Anjali - The World of Lady A - 2003

I often wonder what the state of modern music would be now if bands like Voodoo Queens (Anjali Bhatia's band) Mambo Taxi and Sidi Bou Said had got the publicity that bands like Oasis, Cast, Northern Uproar and Stereophonics got. Essentially more people would hear albums like this and maybe there would be no Kaiser Chiefs. If you do like the Kaiser Chiefs then ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I apologise if I ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh offended you with those comments ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh etc.

Oh and I could only find one clip on youtube and although it was one of the albums finer moments it was being used to accompany clips from One Tree Hill which I found enormously depressing so here is a link to Amazon instead where you can buy the album for (currently) £1.34.

76 - Jim White - No Such Place - 2001

One of the few albums on the list that I can occasionally get away with playing in the car this is a cracking little album. Jim White has a similar sort of autobiography as Tom Waits (a mixture of fiction and stranger than fiction) and a similar love for the song as tall story. Musically they are miles apart however, White being a sort of cerebral alternative Country kind of guy.

75 - Doves - Kingdom of Rust - 2009

I saw Doves live earlier this year in a forest in Cheshire and had the event been the victim of a terrorist attack I don't think there would have been a single school in the North West of England that wasn't missing at least one Geography teacher. It is fair to say that they won't be collaborating with Steve Reich or MIA any day soon but they do what they do very well. They are that little bit more melancholy, that little bit less precious than Elbow and as such beat them to the list.

74 - Stephen Malkmus - Stephen Malkmus - 2001

The Pavement 'reunion or not' thing is largely academic as long as Malkmus is still working in my opinion. Let's face it if he just released his solo stuff as Pavement records the only difference is perhaps more people would buy them. Pavement was all about Malkmus and his uncanny lyrics anyway so why the excitement? All of which is my clumsy way of saying that this album is as good as the Pavement stuff, and frankly much better than Terror Twilight.

73 - Muse - Black Holes and Revelations - 2006

I was never a big fan of Muse before this album and I don't like the new stuff either. In a nutshell not silly enough - just right - too silly with Black Holes and Revelations being just right. There is the undeniable influence of Queen but without sounding like Queen (a crime they are currently committing) This album is silly, yes, but a lot of fun too.

Oh, and we'll come back to Britney later of course...

72 - Embrace - Drawn From Memory - 2000

Included as a warning. After the success of the first album Embrace decided to be a bit more experimental on their second album. A lot of the Brit-pop/ post-Brit-pop bands did this, and they all got stamped on for doing so by the critics and the fans. All together now WE WANT MORE OF THE SAME. Embrace went back to ballads and produced a couple more good albums (and one bloody awful one) but this album is the what might have been. Kids, please, let your bands try to do new stuff.

71 - Brian Wilson - presents Smile - 2004

Thirty odd years in the making and never about to be the Smile that was lost in a storm of drugs, fire, madness and ego but still, on the whole, worth the wait. Brian Wilson was undoubtedly the Icarus of modern music and we should be grateful that the fall didn't kill him. Be honest - can your grandfather do this?

My albums of the decade continued...

Part Two: 90 - 81

90 - Kasabian - Empire - 2006

One of the better practitioners of the post-Brown/Ryder scally-rock sound, Kasabian gave the 2006 indie scene a bit of much needed swagger with their second album. It is easy to forget with all the Coldplays and Travis's and Belle and Sebastians but music is allowed to come with a spoonful of attitude.

89 - Velvet Revolver - Contraband - 2004

If ever an album did exactly what it said on the tin it is this one. The lead singer of Stone Temple Pilots with most of Guns 'n' Roses and the drummer from Wasted Youth - that will probably rock then. And rock it does, steering clear of both ballad and thrash to create an album of good songs that just happen to be fast and loud. A fine piece of metal.

88 - Miss Kittin & The Hacker - First Album - 2001

Another odd video, this one even more French than the Jack one. At least Miss Kittin is actually French I suppose. Actually I have no idea if this is a genuine video or not. Anyway. Miss Kittin is one of the more well known elements of the electroclash scene. OK perhaps well known is stretching it a bit. This album is kind of an evil twin of the La Roux one, dark, nasty, spiteful, disposable.

87 - Cassette Boy - The Parker Tapes - 2004

This video isn't from this album but it gives you a good idea of how Cassette Boy works. The Parker Tapes is 99 tracks of silliness from the innocuous to the extremely dark all of it created by splicing bits of recorded audio together.

86 - Bert Jansch - The Black Swan - 2006

Who would have thought Beth Orton would have managed to sneak into my top 100? She appears on a couple of tracks on this album from Jansch who has been working in folk circles for four decades or so. Unlike the Ray Davies album this compares well to the early stuff. Perhaps a career in folk, with its focus on tradition, is easier to sustain than one in pop, which is all about the new and fashionable?

85 - Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - Ballad of The Broken Seas - 2006

The Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra for the twenty-first century? This time in reverse though because with this album it is Campbell who writes most of the songs and Lanegan the voice that breathes light into them. On other records Campbell's breathy vocals are a little uninspiring but floating behind Lanegan's gruff dirty-old-man everything starts to work.

84 - Radiohead - Kid A - 2000

It is rare for a band to take popularity as permission to experiment or to become less accessible. Radiohead are perhaps unique in doing it three times. The leaps of imagination and artistry from Pablo Honey to The Bends to OK Computer to Kid A were breath taking (how many bands can you name with a similar career path over their first four albums) and they deserved the critical and popular rewards of their
bravery.

83 - Yann Tiersen - Amelie Soundtrack - 2001

A soundtrack album consisting largely of instrumentals played on the accordion that is essential listening? Strange but true.

82 - Maximo Park - A Certain Trigger - 2005

The thinking persons Franz Ferdinand? I have a lot of time for art pop, especially when it mixes the arty with the everyday. What chorus of the last ten years has the resigned elegance of "What happens when you lose everything? You just start again. You start all over again." Warp records struck gold again.

81 - Girls Aloud - Chemistry - 2005

You didn't think I would have a top 100 without Girls Aloud did you? They certainly deserve their place in the chart no matter what you might think. How can you argue with Biology or Watch Me Go? You can't. You just can't.

For what it's worth, here are my 100 albums of the decade

Part one 100 - 91

100. Ray Davies - Other People's Lives - 2006

I have to admit that this album is patchy at best. Where it does shine though there is a hint of the genius that made The Kinks one of the all time greats. Very few musicians are great over their whole career, and Davies certainly isn't one of them, but sometimes watching our heroes fail, or fade, makes interesting listening. There is a big drop off in quality from Village Green to this, but that is what makes it interesting. It is an exercise in mortality and Davies knows it.

99. More Fire Crew - More Fire Crew CV - 2002

Again this is not a perfect album, but in Oi and Still The Same this cd featured two absolute classics which raised the game for British Hip Hop at the start of the decade. Those two tracks alone are enough to see CV make the top 100.

98. Blur - Think Tank - 2003

Arguably the best band of the nineties, Blur, limped into the twenty-first century offering one last album that few would label their best. It isn't even a last hurrah. Even at their end though they had more ideas per song than most of their successors have in an album. Damon went on to many a great project, Alex makes rather fine cheeses, there was a reunion tour, will there be another album? Ever? We can but hope.

97. Calexico - Hot Rail - 2000

Championed by Uncut but shunned by radio stations Calexico deserved more from the last ten years than they got. Hot Rail is a mish-mash of influences that come together to sound like the soundtrack to the best Spaghetti Western never made.

96. Gogol Bordello - Multi Kontra Culti vs. Irony - 2002

Wikipedia describes Gogol Bordello as a multi-ethnic Gypsy Punk band from the Lower East Side of New York City. It is as good a description as any I suppose. This album, from 2002, is a good representation of what they are about which is mostly fun and very good music. You can't argue with that really.

95. La Roux - La Roux - 2009

In For The Kill was without doubt one of the singles of the year and the album largely backed it up. Eighties synth-pop right down to the not quite in tune vocals but made with one eye on the present too, making the album sound both retro and fresh. Freshtro maybe?

94. Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not - 2006

Arctic Monkeys were "the new (insert band here)" for quite a while before they became just the Arctic Monkeys, but the one band that they never seemed to be compared to, that I thought they were quite like, was The Wedding Present. They had a similar ability with both lyrics and guitars and had a lead singer blessed with a comparable dry delivery. And while they may not yet have reached the heights of a Bizzarro or Sea Monsters it is hard to deny the charm or the energy of their debut.

93. Saul Raki - Boxcar and I - 2001

I don't really know much about Saul Raki. I think he is French. He like Ennio Morricone. He made this album. That's it.

92. Jack - The End Of The Way It's Always Been - 2002



Perhaps if Jack had spent less time making such bloody awful videos they might have been the next Pulp, or at the very least the next Gene. As it was they remained largely unloved but unfairly so. They were a great band, perhaps too European in outlook to break out during the era of Brit Pop.

91. Martha Wainwright - Martha Wainwright - 2005

"I will not pretend, I will not put on a smile, I will not say I'm alright for you..." Wainwright is a counterweight to everyone who thinks that an acoustic guitar has to be accompanied by that hand-behind-one-ear-folk accent that ruins so much music. Instead of a voice as an instrument and mask you get the voice as truth. She is a singer-songwriter who actually has something worth listening to, which is becoming increasingly rare nowadays.

Bye bye Facebook

If anyone is wondering why I am not your friend on Facebook any more it is simply because I have deactivated my account. Changing every users privacy settings to 'open' overnight indeed! It was quicker to just close my account than it was to change all the settings back. The site only exists to sell advertising space now anyway.

On Loyalty

Last year my friend Big Bad Bob made a list of things to do before he was thirty. Last year I accompanied him on a trip to see red squirrels, he organised a hot air balloon flight (weather permitting should happen soonish) and joined him in an attempt to complete the KFC challenge...



In short things were done. He is the inspiration behind my Glorious Decade project - 100 things to do in the next ten years.

This is all introduction to the issue at hand. You see, one of the things on both of our lists is to see Manchester United play at Old Trafford so we thought we would go together. Now those of you who are not totally involved in the world of football may not realise that going to see Manchester United play isn't quite as simple as buying tickets and turning up. Due to the huge interest in tickets there is, there is a system to make things easier. In short you join a club "One United" and members of this club apply for tickets. If too many people apply there is a ballot. If not enough tickets go on sale to the public. So the general public may get to see a dead game at the end of the Champions League group stages but if you want to see Man U play Chelsea or Liverpool then you are going to have to join One United. So I joined...

And here is the rub:

You see it costs £30 to join. Now that is exactly £30 more than I have spent on Walsall (my team) in the last decade. So who do I actually support? Financially I support Manchester United. I certainly could name more United players than Walsall players (I did a quick check 29 United players, 1 Walsall player) I don't have a favourite Walsall goal, I do have a favourite Man U goal (Ronaldo's cheeky back heel against Villa which made me laugh out loud with joy it was so gloriously impudent)...

Do you see where this is going...

Am I becoming a Manchester United fan? Am I already one?

When my welcome pack turned up with my book, dvd, badge, keyring, pen etc (and all really nice, not plastic) I got all excited. My membership card is in my wallet and my keyring on my keys. I am planning to go and see the reserves (free to members) with John in the new year...

It is a logical conclusion to my considering myself as being 'from' Manchester I suppose. Things I imagine will become clearer after I go to a match. Or two. Or...

John sent me a text earlier today saying that One United members have been put in a free draw to see who will play centre half in the next game. I had to tell him. I have already won the draw. I will be lining up to some guy named Charlton?

A Guilty Pleasure: A Dirty Secret

Right, first off, Vole...avert your eyes...

Have you ever torn a book in half? I love doing it.

You can look again now.

You will be reading a book that is poor. You will be reading a book that is quite frankly boring drivel. You will be reading, for example, The Hobbit. You will get to the bit with the riddles. You will put it down and start something else. You will but not I. I will think to myself "Not good enough Mr Tolkien. Not good enough by half" and proceed to rip its spine in half, chuckle provocatively and then lean back in my chair like a second rate bond villain.

Not always of course. Some books just go to the charity shop. I am having a bit of a clear out at the moment and the unread Pratchett's are all going to end up at the hospice shop in the village. Pratchett is a decent writer but I have read a few and I don't want to read anymore. If I was immortal I would, but there is so much to read and so little time. He is no Nicola Barker.

Some books though...sssssssnnnnaaapppp...teeeeeeaaaaaaarrrrrr...lob.

Yes. That's right, lob. Right into the recycling pile. You can say what you like about the sanctity of the written word but some of Philip Roth's more recent work is far better off being turned into toilet paper or those little wraps of card that keep small tins of tuna together than it is being skim read then left to grow dusty on a bookshelf somewhere.

Does the world need another copy of Wodehouse's collection of golfing stories?

Now you'll say: but someone will read them. Don't be so destructive. But who do I give this to. Yeah, that's right, this:

Why do birds sing? by David Rothenberg.

Billed as "one man's quest to solve an everyday mystery" it looked like an interesting popular science book. Unfortunately

Oh. Oh. Unfortunately...

David is "not satisfied with conventional scientific wisdom" here are some quotes...

"I'm not going to argue for or against anyone who says beautiful birds and beautiful songs are proof of Gods works"

"So sexual selection is based on female choice, is it?"

"So Darwin was no cultural relativist."

"science needs to show that it ain't easy"

"Back home I try to listen again to human music, but it doesn't seem right."

"The science is, of course, inconclusive. Sure, forests are being cut down in North American breeding grounds, and in tropical wintering areas as well...There are half as many wood thrushes as there were forty years ago, but there are still fourteen million of them. Species that thrive in small open tracts and tiny forest patches and lawns are doing better than ever."

Do you want to borrow this book? Sorry, I appear to have bennnnnd...creeeeeeeaaaaakkk.... SNAPteeeaaaaaaaaarrrr...fling.

I have a friend who would read this book. Hate it. Tell me how bad it was. And then he would put it on the shelf with the rest. Good or bad, all books are on display. For example, if you visit him you will see a seam, about two foot thick, of Tolkien. This lump of intricately planned and incredibly dull fantasy lying in such a prominent place is perhaps the reason he remains unmarried. The tragic irony is that he doesn't even really defend them, he doesn't even really like them. They are just there because he has read them.

Imagine you walk into a room. It is full of books.

Now...due to her tragic early death, Dorothy Molloy only wrote one book of poetry before she died, two have since been published posthumously. These thin volumes, excellent though they are, will be missed by your eyes as you scan the shelves. You will however notice the Tolkien. How could you miss it? There are twenty eight volumes. You will think "that's a lot of Tolkien". You will then think "this is a man who really, really, likes Tolkien" You will then think "I may just remove my womb from this vicinity, lest it be polluted."

You will be wrong. He doesn't really like Tolkien. He would fill your womb, and indeed your life, with joy and happiness. He is just afraid to rip a few pages. He is just unable to double stack for psychological reasons. He just needs a woman's touch (not literally, oh well, while you're there eh?) in the decorating. Someone who rates baubles and Midwinter and paint over badly used paper. He needs to hear the following:

"Tear that copy of the Silmarillion a'twain and I will marry you. Break that copy of the Lost Tales in two and I will spend my life with you. There will be Radio Four. There will be cheese and organic vegetables. There will be that bloody awful twee folk that we both like so much, but please, for me, snap a book or two"

He is a fine, fine man, he would be a great husband and an excellent father, but unfortunately J.R.R. Tolkien is blocking his cock.