2000 and Gr8.

Excess, turkey deaths, champagne, annoying relatives, relatives you like, shit presents, good presents, presents that are funny for like 10 seconds until you realise you could have just got an iTunes voucher, alcohol, awesome movies like miracle on 34th street, terrible films with vince vaughan.

All the lovely things that spring to mind when I think of Christmas. Oh and Jesus' birthday, but the less said about that the better.

Anyway, I know everyone is doing the whole '2008 in lists' 'best of 2008' thang but I feel like being indulgent so I'm doing one too. Switch off if you wish.

I have chosen to call it:

"2008: A Brief Appraisal - Beating the crunch"

MUSICA

My 8 favourite (using two or so words to sum up the brilliance of each) albums of 2008 were:

These New Puritans - Beat Pyramid

*Phenomenology

Frightened Rabbit - Midnight Organ Flight

* Brilliantly Scottish

Foals - Antidotes

* Andy ROddick

Johnny Flynn - A Larum

*Dickensian Adventures

Conor Oberst - Conor Oberst

*Wilburys Revisited

Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend

*Graceland but better

Los Campesinos! - Hold On Now...

*Tweexcore lives

Lykke Li - Youth Novels

*Sexually Provocative

TNP probably leads that field with Frightened Rabbit a close second. Two amazingly different albums.

And my mixtape of 2008...
[I've tried to make it all illegally downloadable but I'm rubbish at that garb so we'll see if it works]

DISCLAIMER: Not all these songs were released in 2008 so don't cry. Also I made this in like 5 mins so don't beat me up neither. I couldn't be bovved to order it properly so it will sound all out of place in places. But do listen loser heads.

1. Melodies & Desires - Lykke Li
2. Andy Warhol - David Bowie
3. The Modern Leper - Frightened Rabbit
4. Eyes Wide Terrified - Johnny Foreigner
5. Line In The Sand - Q & Not U
6. 99 Luft Balloons - Jay Zena
7. Palmitos Park - EL Guincho
8. Leggy Blonde - Flight of The Conchords
9. No Pussy Blues - Grinderman
10. Williamsburg Will Oldham Horror - Jeffrey Lewis
11. Evidently Chickentown - John Cooper Clarke
12. Black Balloon - The Kills
13. Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks - Los Campesinos!
14. Lamb & Lion - The Mae Shi
15. Numerology (AKA Numbers) - These New Puritans
16. Teen Creeps - No Age
17. Get Close - Plastic Little
18. William, It was Really Nothing - The Smiths
19.Dancing Choose - TV On The Radio
20. 2080 - Yeasayer
21. It Could Have Been A Brilliant Career - Belle & Sebastien
22. Let's Not SHit Ourselves (To Love and Be Loved) - Bright Eyes

God that was awful, standards are slipping.

I'm so tired after all that and it wasn't even rewarding. It's the worst written post of my short and unsuccesful career.

Anyway, we'll call this part one. Part 2 tomorrow, with better more interesting content like the credit crunch and Barack Obama and Spooks.

Lovex

Geography

I'm coming out with it, I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY.

However....

It don't matter (has The Rock a.k.a 'Dwyne Johnson' ever spoke truer).

I thought though that I would update the wicked few. I've missed you (me speaking to Blogspot).

I'm back from the 'ol (arguably gay... [more on that later]/ cruise.

And ready to rock the party. Here's what I have before the new year....


1 End of Year Best of Extended Mixtape [anyone who can tell me how to load this to some sort of sharing/downloading site i will felaiche/thank provusively if male]

2 Anectodes

3 News round up (not ina "barack got elcted, credit crunch kind of way")

More I promise....



Has anyone EVER promised more?????

Dropping off the Radar...

Yo.

So I'm going on holiday today. I'll be in Miami in 10 hours. As awesome as this is for me I know you're all going to miss my inquisitive thoughts and cutting rhetoric. So, in the meantime...

Follow this...

http://goodstuffoffthecuffallthetime.blogspot.com/

Listen to this (real loud)...



Get in the mood for this...



And someone design Charlie and I a flyer for a clubnight called Heartbeats. We'll kiss you in a special place if you do...

Keep it real. I'll bring you back some presents but they'll be rubbish because the exchange rate is WANK.
x

Chi City.

P.S Get well Adam

Blehhhhhhh...

I'm sorry I'm shit. Whenever I think about my blog I just get this guilt in my stomach; it's eating away at me. Um, the Ultimate Killing Machine was unveiled last night live. The results - interesting. More later...

For now, I'm in love...

Cheer Up Adam...

My friend Adam is ill. He might have glandular fever, but currently it's just tonsilitis.



Glandular fever, I think, is when you swell up so you look like a blueberry, like Violet in Willy Wonka. Roald Dahl, it emerges, was actually a visionary pre-cursor for the teenager's favourite illness.



Anyway, Adam seems all sad because he's at home bored and people are forcing him to watch The Hills. So I thought I would do a post to try cheer him up.

This is his favourite video...



This is one of his favourite songs...



He likes...



and...



Here's a message from Bret and Jermaine to cheer you up...

Postcards from Italy...

Aaaaah.


So I went to a shit house-party last night. On the shit scale it was pretty near shit. It weren't even as good as this one.



Now I'm hungover.
However, on the bus this morning I was listening to Charlie's ipod. The sun was shining, I was hungover and I was listening to Gulag Orkestar on these crazy headphones that made it like a soundtrack to my life. It was like an epiphany. I think with epiphanies your meant to realise something but I didn't but it was still super loco.

v

Anyway, I've lost any eloquence I never had so I'll pipe down.

Charlie showed me this...

ESSAY.

So, I have had to do literally no work all semester and just as I was getting all complacent and ready to return to leafy Surrey for the yuletide period Monsieur Manchester has come and kicked me dans the proverbial balls. I got an essay for Monday which I am dreading. Footnoting, referencing and all the jazz that comes with it, I can't be bovved. Who cares what the core elements of liberal thinking in international politics are. Well, Francis Fukuyama does but let's not get any 'End of History' chat going down. This is neither the time nor the place.



In additionata, Manchester is fricking freezing at the moment. I'm mulling over lodging a formal complaint to the Met Office, or to the Gulf Stream, I havn't decided which yet. Maybe I will write both, or maybe organise march. 'The Say No To Rain Campaign' or 'I'm Too Old For Cold'. If we get enough people we could get radiators installed on every street light or something. Imagine that.

Look how warm this fella looks...



So yeah, its cold and I have work. Boo hoo

The Ultimate Killing Machine

Holla!

Now you're probably thinking that the reason I ain't posted nuffink for the last week is just down to the fact that i am simply a DISGRACE A pointless, functionless excuse of a human being i.e. All I do is get drunk, listen to Stephen Fry podcasts and eat 7p Asda noodles whilst neglecting University work. However, the doubters have got it all wrong. In fact I have been away under a false identity, holed up in a secret guitar/ukulele/kazoo hybrid research facility in Saigon manufacturing what can only be described as the future of music for the past week.
This isn't entirely true, if anything it took around 10 minutes with the help of my friend Adam and I had indeed just been doing the above (Fry,noodle,drunk etc). But as my father insists upon saying almost constantly, "Let's not let the truth get in the way of a good story".

So yeah, it's known to most as The Ultimate Killing Machine but I know him simply as Fred West. He's amazing, and he's being debuted next week live. He's pretty psyched the cheeky little fucker...



Anyway, he still requires a bit of work: the kazoo's not as sturdily attached as I would like and I havn't written on him yet but otherwise I'm pretty pleased. It kind of feels like all the dreams I had growing up have finally manifested themselves in the form of a guitar/ukulele/kazoo crossover.

Satisfaction