quick and to the pointless....

If you're interested in such things, I have just updated my booklist.  It appears to have been eleven months since I last looked at this, and as always, I've had to think long and hard about the books that I might have read in the meantime.  I've probably missed one or two, but I've likely got most of them.

It's not a massively impressive set, to be honest.... but in my defence, at least six of those are whacking great big 700+ page slabs, and they take some reading.  Lots of fantasy too, by the looks of it, which is a bit of a throwback to my youth.  Still, the best book I've read recently was definitely "Goldfinch" by Donna Tartt.  Magnificent.

I've got a bit of a virtual backlog on the go, with a new John Irving and a Paul Auster to read.  Well, to buy and then to read, I should say.  Ah, I'll get to them.  That said, I did see an article the other day that said I've probably only got about 2000 books left in me, so I should probably be choosing them more wisely.  As well as being a depressing thought, that's no way to live your life, is it?  I might read Proust one day, but I'm not going to read any book just because I'm told that I really should.  Life's to short to read for anything other than enjoyment, isn't it?  If that's fantasy, then so be it.

Anyway.  Pointless list updated.  As you were.

handlebars....

On a normal week, I burn quite a few calories through exercise.  I won't profess to be an expert and I'm sure this isn't an exact science, but I plug my age, height, weight and gender into the gadgets I use to track my running and this is the rate of calorie burn that they tell me.

Until this week, a typical week for me might go something like this:

Monday: Running 4.45 miles, 629 calories
Tuesday: rest & injection
Wednesday: Running 3.29 miles, 471 calories
Thursday: Swimming 50 lengths (0.75 miles), 195 calories
Friday: rest & beer
Saturday: Running 4.00 miles, 579 calories
Swimming: Swimming 50 lengths (0.75 miles), 192 calories

(since the problems with my knee over the summer, I've also reduced my running mileage somewhat from the 20-ish miles per week I was managing before, with the addition of a long sunday run).

That totals 2,066 calories.  I also do two or three short sessions in the gym doing some leg exercises, which probably burns off a few more.  Apparently the average man needs about 2,500 calories per day to maintain his weight, so I'm basically doing enough exercise to eat another day's worth of food every week (not to mention that there's also apparently a "halo effect" after exercise where you continue to burn calories at an elevated rate for another couple of hours).

This energy burn is one of the reasons why I basically eat what I want and I'm still relatively thin.

I've started cycling to work last week, and for the last five working days I've commuted on my bike instead of hopping in the car.  It feels pretty good, to be honest.  I've been getting to work for 06:30 this week (for various reasons), and after the shock of the alarm, it's actually been really nice getting on my bike and riding to work just as it starts to get light.  The route is a shade under four miles and takes me about twenty minutes, which is not much slower than using the car.  It's also an awful lot easier cycling to the gym along the canal than it is driving there through the centre of town in rush hour.

I am, of course, burning more calories.  I haven't been swimming this week because of my new tattoo, but here's what's happened since last Thursday when I started cycling to the office:

Thursday:
cycle home -> work.  4.24 miles, 238 calories
cycle work -> gym. 3.79 miles, 232 calories
swimming. 50 lengths (0.75 miles), 314 calories
cycle gym -> home.  1.96 miles, 109 calories
Friday:
cycle home -> work.  3.67 miles, 189 calories
cycle work -> home (via the barber): 4.84 miles, 267 calories
Saturday: tattoo
Sunday:
cycle ride.  28.01 miles, 1,603 calories
Monday:
cycle home -> work. 3.96 miles, 230 calories
cycle work -> gym. 3.76 miles, 233 calories
running club. 4.39 miles, 626 calories
cycle gym -> home. 2.22 miles, 120 calories
Tuesday:
cycle home -> work. 3.94 miles, 204 calories
cycle work -> home (via osteopath). 5.80 miles, 326 calories
Wednesday:
cycle home -> work. 3.93 miles, 201 calories
lunchtime run. 3.32 miles, 488 calories
cycle work -> home. 4.01 miles, 233 calories.

Even without the big cycle on Sunday, that adds up to 4,903 calories: two days' worth of food .  With Sunday's ride that total is 6,506.  It looks like adding cycling to my daily routine will double the amount of calories I burn through exercise.  I didn't go for my usual run on Saturday either.

Um.

I take this data with a pinch of salt, of course.  But even so....I think I might need to start eating more.

In possibly related news, I'm buying a pair of padded cycling shorts.

another year over......

2010 was something of a strange year for me musically: I spent so much time away from home that I didn't really have all that much opportunity to keep up to date with many new releases, and I didn't go to as many gigs as I normally would.  All of this made putting together a top ten for the year somewhat problematic.  Still, I had a go for the annual list that was pulled together over at the Auditorium in the run up to New Year by our very own LB.

My ten chosen records are mostly pretty predictable, with a few late running wildcards from purchases I made right at the back end of the year.  I think they're all pretty good albums, but since I wrote the list I was inspired to try a bit harder to catch up with some new music and downloaded the albums by Arcade Fire, Band of Horses, Sleigh Bells and Steve Mason.  I also spent a bit more time listening to new albums that I bought some time ago, including the two mini-albums released by James and Vampire Weekend's latest.  All very good, and given more time and a fairer listen, I think several of them probably deserved to make the list (the Steve Mason album in particular is fantastic).

Still, for reference, here's my top ten albums of 2010:

10.  “Contra” – Vampire Weekend

2008s “Vampire Weekend” was a joyous affair, introducing us to the band’s glorious “Upper West Side Soweto” style of music, with delirious singles like “Oxford Comma” and “A-Punk”. “Contra” is perhaps a little denser and is maybe a little less immediate. Essentially though, Vampire Weekend are offering us a new album of much the same kind of stuff as last time. There’s some experimentation here, but not too much. And you know what? That’s okay with me. It might get boring if they haven’t moved a little further by the time they record their next album, but you know what? For now this will do just fine. It sounded pretty good as we drove across the Southern Alps in New Zealand, I can tell you that.

Listen to: I Think Ur A Contra

9. “Tron:Legacy OST” – Daft Punk

Perhaps it’s premature to include this album on this list, but I can’t resist it. I’m not even sure that I’m going to go and watch the film - as I remember it, the original was a confusing mess – but the soundtrack to the sequel is amazing.

I wonder who came up with the idea that Daft Punk should do the soundtrack first: was it the producers or the band themselves? The Frenchmen are such an obvious choice; it’s as though they only existed as a result of the first film and were born to soundtrack the second. Their whole robot “look” is perfect for outlining in blue neon, and the music they’ve always made is ideal for a film set inside a computer world (albeit I imagine there isn’t a guy in a dog costume with a ghetto blaster featuring in the film anywhere, more’s the pity).

I’m not really sure how to describe this album: it sounds exactly like a film soundtrack, but it also sounds exactly like a Daft Punk album. Does that work for you? Mind you, I should add too that, in places, it also sounds quite a lot like the Blade Runner soundtrack…. Perhaps inevitable with any synth-drenched film score.

Still. It’s an odd choice perhaps, and not a record that will be filling many dancefloors in the years to come, and I’m very much including it here on a whim, but it’s still a very satisfying string and synth-drenched listen. 22 tracks, few much over two minutes long and very clearly a film score. I’m not sure it should work or, even if it did, that I should like it. But I really do.

Listen to: Derezzed.

8. “American VI: Ain’t No Grave” – Johnny Cash

What an amazing journey. Obviously for Cash, whose amazing journey would make an X-Factor judge’s eyes water; but also for the listener. We’ve been with Johnny Cash what seems like every step of his amazing journey from the cotton fields of the Deep South to a disembodied voice from beyond the grave. Cash died in 2003, and released some seven years after his death, this album was always going to be a step too far for many people. Bit for me, the legacy is undamaged by the release of these tracks. When Cash recorded these lyrics, he was pretty close to death, and the listener might fancy that they can hear it in his voice; that reedy whisper is a ghost of the mighty bass it once was and every single note sounds like a struggle from a man literally at death’s door.

For some artists, that might prove to be more than the music can stand, but Cash somehow manages to rise above, and it almost seems that the weaker his voice becomes, the more authoritative his statements on life and upon death.

Make no mistake, this is probably the least impressive of all of the American Recordings that Cash made with Rick Rubin, but this still represents the culmination of a formidable body of work by an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime artist. A true one-off.

Listen to: Cool Water

7. “I Speak Because I Can” – Laura Marling

Laura Marling recorded her debut, “Alas, I Cannot Swim”, when she was 18 years old. Although it was a wonderfully fully formed and accomplished record for someone of her tender years, it drew a large part of its charm from its lack of guile. Take “Night Terror”: are we really supposed to believe that this tiny, slip of a girl would fight anyone, nevermind a nightmare? Bless.

Marling had reached the ripe-old age of 20 years old by the time “I Speak Because I Can”, and had already been the unwitting muse of a breakup record (the fantastic “The First Days of Spring” by Noah and the Whale) and perhaps also the inspiration behind one of the great success stories of the last 18 months (“Sigh No More” by Mumford and Sons). Was Marling going to be better known for the music she inspired from other people than for the music she produced herself?

In a word, no.

There’s no getting away from it: this is a folk album. Folk is fashionable at the moment, but for Marling it is no passing trend, but a way of addressing issues of love, sex, death, depression and heartbreak. With her lovelorn, heartbreakingly clear voice, she’s starting to be compared to artists of the calibre of Joni Mitchell and Nick Drake…. Prematurely, I would say (although remember that Drake only recorded three albums before he died), but another couple of albums like her last two and they won’t be far off the mark. She hasn’t produced a perfect album yet, and this certainly isn’t it, but she’s still so young and clearly still has so much more to offer. A wonderful album by a wonderful talent.

Listen to: Goodbye England (Covered in Snow)

6. “Plastic Beach” – Gorillaz

Their headline performance at Glastonbury this year may not have been everyone’s cup of tea, but I loved it. True, it probably helped that I knew who Mark E. Smith was and recognised Lou Reed as soon as he took to the stage for his four-minute cameo… but I thought that, for a cartoon band, Gorillaz made a surprising amount of sense as a live band. Once the ever-so-slightly tiresome pretext is dropped, Damon Albarn is freed up to really flex his musical muscles, helped by his famous collaborators, but rarely overshadowed.

Plastic Beach is a fantastic album by a band who have rarely sounded more coherent, even as the cameos become ever more diverse and more stellar. Snoop Dogg, Bobby Womack, Mos Def and… er… Mark E. Smith are all simply the icing on the cake of an engine that delivers a surprisingly coherent set of songs. Perhaps the album doesn’t have a standout single along the lines of “Clint Eastwood” or “Feelgood Inc”, but it’s their best album yet.

Listen to: Stylo feat. Bobby Womack and Mos Def.

5. “Hurley” – Weezer

There’s a Facebook campaign trying to raise $10m to persuade Weezer to retire from music because “Every year, Rivers Cuomo swears that he's changed, and that their new album is the best thing that he's done since 'Pinkerton', and what happens? Another pile of crap like 'Beverly Hills' or 'I'm Your Daddy'. This is an abusive relationship, and it needs to stop now.”

Well, it’s certainly true that 1996s “Pinkerton” remains Weezer’s critical highpoint, but it’s a little harsh to suggest that they’ve done nothing worth listening to since then. Not even “Islands in the Sun”? Anyway, whisper it quietly, but “Hurley” may just be the best thing they’ve done since Pinkerton. The cover glories in a picture of Jorge Garcia, Hurley from Lost, and the album pretty quickly settles down into what Weezer do best: quick, punchy power-pop that can all be timed at something less than 3 minutes. So, maybe the lyrics aren’t as good as we know the band are capable of, but this is a fantastic, fun sounding record. Hell, we even get a passable cover of Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida” as a bonus track at the end of the album. What’s not to like?

The Facebook campaign, incidentally, has raised about $100. Weezer, true to form, have offered – if a target of $20m is reached – to do the “deluxe” breakup. I don’t think we have to worry too much.

Listen to: Memories.

4. “Interpol” – Interpol

Not many bands do atmosphere like Interpol. Tense and edgy on their majestic debut, “Turn on the Bright Lights”, Interpol have matured with each successive album, polishing their icy, detached style with an air of definite menace to greater and greater commercial success. Bono’s back injury may have put any plans the band may have had for world domination on hold (Interpol were the support on U2’s cancelled tour), but I’m not sure that stadiums are Interpol’s natural habitat. They’re creatures of the night for sure, and they need to be heard in dingy, darkened clubs (and they were good again at Rock City last month too).

Interpol will always likely be judged by the impossibly high standards they set themselves with their debut record, and in that respect, their fourth record falls short again. There’s no shame in that, though, and this is still a fine record with much to recommend it: “Memory Serves”, “Summer Well” and “Barricade” are easily as good as almost anything the band have done, and the album as a whole has a sustained atmosphere of bleakness and depression. Right up my street. Not as good a record as Interpol have done, but still a very fine record indeed.

Listen to: Summer Well.

3. ‘Postcards from a Young Man” – Manic Street Preachers

You could probably argue that Manic Street Preachers have been two completely separate bands in their career: in the early days, they were an urgent, wordy, punk band driven on by the slogans, lyrics and restless intelligence of Richey James Edwards. After Richey’s disappearance, they became a different band: a much more anthemic band writing wistful rock songs that gained them huge commercial success. Of the two bands, I have always preferred the edgier earlier work. “Everything Must Go” is a fine album, but for me “The Holy Bible” has always been their masterpiece.

Predictably, when the band returned to Richey’s lyrics for 2009’s “Journal for Plague Lovers”, I was hooked, loving the densely packed, elliptic lyrics of songs like “Marlon JD”, where every line seemed almost like a cryptic crossword puzzle packed with references and significance. “Postcards from a Young Man”, by contrast, is an album by the other Manic Street Preachers, a return to the more considered, audience friendly music of all their finest work as a threepiece.

I still prefer the other Manics, but there’s much to recommend this album: the band have now got nothing to prove to anyone. They’re comfortable in their own skins, and they sound it. This is a grandiose, sweeping album, drenched in strings and big gestures. Nicky Wire said he was aiming for a sound like “Heavy Metal Tamla Mowtown”. Well, I don’t know what that would actually sound like, but if it does sound like this album, then it sounds pretty good to me. I do wish Wire would stop taking lead vocals on songs though. We all love him to bits, of course, but he’s not half the singer that James Dean Bradfield is.

Listen to: (It’s Not War) Just The End Of Love

2. “The Defamation of Strickland Banks” – Plan B

I didn’t even think this album was worth listening to. Why would I bother with an album by a British rapper, no matter how well received it seemed to be? Plan B just didn’t sound like something I would be interested in, so I gave it a miss. In fact, I only listened to the album at all because of a song recommendation by the guy who sits at the desk next to me. Gary doesn’t really strike me as much of a music fan: he’s from Blackburn and he’s mates with a guy in Ian Brown’s band, but aside from a love of all things Manchester typical in a man of his age, he’s not exactly cutting-edge. I don’t know why, but he recommended that I listen to “Love Goes Down”. Conscious that I’ve been out of the country for large portions of 2010 and have missed loads and loads of good music, I reckoned I didn’t have much to lose by giving it a go.

Oh my goodness. This was NOTHING like I expected. I’d heard rumours that this was more of a soul than a rap album, but I didn’t believe it until I listened to the whole album. It turns out I had heard bits and pieces of it before, but would never in a million years have connected it with Plan B.

Odd though it sounds, the last time this happened to me was when the Streets released his debut album, and in spite of thinking it would be the last record in the world that I would be listening to, never mind buying, I found myself sucked in by the energy displayed in a single track that I heard playing in Selectadisc to the extent that I had to ask what it was and had my preconceptions of both the music and of what I would and would not like shatterered.

This album is staggeringly good. I’m sure it works beautifully as a concept album, with a story that flows from one end to the other, but to be honest I’m just revelling in each song as it comes. This isn’t rap, this is Northern Soul, for goodness sake. The surprise of the year for me. I love it.

Listen to: Stay Too Long

1. “High Violet” – The National

2007s “Boxer” is one of my favourite albums of the last ten years, without a shadow of a doubt. I was slow to latch onto The National, but once I found them, there was something about them that chimed with me almost immediately: I’ve always been a sucker for gloomy guitar bands, and Matt Berninger’s deep bass baritone seems to suit the mood almost perfectly. Where fellow New Yorkers Interpol have a singer who sounds like an undertaker reading from a legal textbook, Berninger has the bruised, weary voice of the hopelessly and perpetually disappointed romantic. I love it.

There’s no great progression in sound here, no great leap forward from “Alligator” or “Boxer”, the two amazing albums that precede this one. Perhaps the greatest achievement of the band is that this doesn’t seem to matter. They’re doing the same sorts of things that they were doing before, only better and with far, far greater intensity. These are personal songs, almost claustrophobically so, and the band aren’t compromising for anyone. This isn’t an attempt to be a BIGGER band, it’s an attempt to be a BETTER band, and I think they do such a great job that they may very well end up with both.

2010 was also the year where I finally got to see the band perform live. They’re a band to be listened to in a darkened room if ever there was one. Somehow though, even in the middle of the afternoon at the hottest Glastonbury anyone can remember, the band still pulled it off. Brilliant record. Brilliant band. One of the best.

Listen to: Anyone’s Ghost

---

Biggest surprise from that lot was definitely Plan B..... it just gets better with every listen.

And for fans of lists (i.e. me), here's what my Last FM thinks are my top played artists/songs/albums of the last 12 months.

Artists:
1. Johnny Cash
2. The National
3. Vampire Weekend
4. James
5. Interpol
6. Elbow
7. Daft Punk
8. Eels
9. Fleet Foxes
10. Flight of the Conchords

Songs:
1. "Ring of Fire" - Johnny Cash
2. "I've Been Everywhere" - Johnny Cash
3. "Les Champs-Élysées" - Joe Dassin
4. "Afternoon Delight" - Starland Vocal Band
4. "Ready for the Floor" - Hot Chip
6. "Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)" - Peter Sarstedt
6. "Oxford Comma" - Vampire Weekend
6. "The Fear" - Lily Allen
6. "New York State of Mind" - Jay-Z
10. "Handlebars" - Flobots

Albums:
1. Johnny Cash - "The Man In Black"
2. The National - "High Violet"
3. Vampire Weekend - "Vampire Weekend"
4. Daft Punk - "Tron:Legacy OST"
5. Elbow - "The Seldom Seen Kid"
6. Band Of Skulls - "Baby Darling Doll Face Honey"
7. Vampire Weekend - "Contra"
8. Gorillaz - "Plastic Beach"
9. Fleet Foxes - "Fleet Foxes"
10. James - "The Best of James"

....Flight of the Conchords still hanging around just outside the top 10 of songs/albums too.  I'm so not bored of them quite yet.

[cautionary note: although interesting, this isn't an exhaustive catalogue of what I've listened too as Last FM doesn't catch everything]

Hmmm.  Interesting.

Anyway.  Now go and find out what LB and Bedshaped put in their top 10 lists for the year over at the Auditorium....

[/pointless lists] 

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

Well, before we head off on the next leg of our trip, I thought it was high time we had a pointless list of some of the things we've seen so far.  With that in mind, I've had a bit of a think about our time in Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand and San Francisco and I've come up with a list of my highlights.  It goes without saying that we saw some amazing stuff, and much of the list is probably entirely predictable, but I think that the things that I'm really going to remember are some of the more intangible things and are as much about the people I've met as the places I've been.

So, not in any particular order:

> Cape Otway on the Great Ocean Road / Smith Mill in the Grampians

People flock to the 12 Apostles and London Bridge on the Great Ocean Road, of course.... and they're nice enough, but there are several equally splendid places elsewhere along the road with a fraction of the visitors and none of the hustle bustle.  Cape Otway is a great example: it's only a short detour off the road and down a short stretch of unsealed road, but we seemed to have the place virtually to ourselves.  There were koalas in the trees, a beautiful stretch of beach with some rugged coast and a lovely walk in the virtually untouched forest that hugs the cliffs.  We spent a lovely few hours there swimming in the Southern Ocean and walking a stretch of the Ocean Road track, and we pretty much had the place to ourselves.  Stunning spot.  The Grampians are only a relatively short drive up from the end of the Ocean Road, but they're well worth the effort.  Just a few kms from the town of Halls Gap, we stayed in a national park campsite for the grand price of Aus$13.

 
Yes, we had to put up with the bush toilet (probably best if you don't ask) and the bush shower (a bucket on a rope with a shower head attached that you filled with creek water and did the best you could).  It was a great night.  We gathered firewood, cooked over an open fire, tried to dodge the mosquitos and woke up to find a family of kangaroos browsing through the campsite.  Wonderful.

> Streaker Hot Sauces

We picked up the half-empty bottle of "Lava" chili sauce from our English neighbours on our first night in our New Zealand campervan at Akaroa.  They were leaving for Australia the next day and were clearing out their van.  From amongst the box of salt and pepper and olive oil and things like that, I picked out the hot sauce, and it turned out to be an inspired choice: fiery, smoky and delicious, adding a real boost to pretty much every bit of food we made, whether that be noodles, soup or lunchtime sandwiches.  We soon ran out, but we couldn't find the stuff anywhere, and the habenero and kiwi fruit sauce we did find was nice but just wasn't the same.  As chance would have it, shortly before we made our way to Auckland for our flight out, we found ourselves a stone's throw away from Whangarei Heads and the home of Streaker Hot Sauces.  We were a little ahead of schedule and it looked like a nice drive, so we made the 60km round-trip out to the headland, past lovely views of the ocean and signs warning us to keep dogs on a leash to protect the local Kiwi population.  What we found when we arrived was a family home, with a couple of kids on their Easter Holidays watching "Spider-Man" and their dad chopping wood out the back.  Brent was delighted to see us and thrilled that we had travelled for his humble, homemade chili sauce.  We were delighted because we picked up another couple of bottles and the welcome news that Brent would be more than happy to post us more as and when we needed it.  He also gave us a bottle of his new flavour to try.  Wondering why this is one of my top ten memories?  You need to try the sauce.....

> Dinner with friends

Some of my happiest times whilst away were the ones that I spent with friends.... be that Des and his family in Hong Kong, our distant relatives in Melbourne or an internet acquaintance in Gympie.  Des looked after us like royalty when we were in Hong Kong, and we ate in fine restaurants until I thought I would burst.  The best night though was the one we spent round at his flat, and where I read the Gruffalo with his son, we ate a delicious meal that involved dipping bits and pieces into a broth and we fell asleep in front of England vs Wales at silly o'clock in the morning.  Melbourne was similar.  We were in town for less than 24 hours between landing from Launceston and driving out on the Great Ocean Road, but Boris & Judy still picked us up at the airport and made sure that we went out for a splendid Italian meal with them and then refused point blank to let us pay.  Nice people and a lovely evening. Our day in Gympie was perhaps the best of all.  I'd first "met" Deb via Bookcrossing in about 2003, and when I was last in Australia had posted her a book.  She contacted me out of the blue when I had announced here that we would be travelling around the Southern Hemisphere, and invited us to pop in if we happened to be passing Gympie on our way down Queensland.  It wasn't until we were actually making our way down from Cairns to Brisbane that we actually decided to take her up on her kind offer.  It started raining when we were a few km outside Gympie (on the Sunshine Coast, of course....), and it pretty much didn't stop for the 24 hours we were there, but it didn't matter.  Deb and Jaimie live a little way out of town in a house called "Margaritaville", and we were warmly greeted, fed booze and then taken out to a lovely restaurant in Gympie to help celebrate Deb's birthday.  It was my birthday the following day, and before we left to head on to Rainbow Beach, I was treated to some freshly made coffee and bacon and eggs straight off the BBQ.  Lovely people - Jaimie even booked the hotel for us in Brisbane - and I hope very much to be able to repay the favour if they ever make it over to the UK.

> Kaikoura

Given that we saw whale, dolphins, seal and albatross in the waters here, perhaps it's no surprise that this makes the list.... and the wildlife is certainly a big part of it, but actually, Kaikoura makes the list by dint of being a lovely little town in a beautiful part of the world.  Kaikoura is a narrow peninsula of land sandwiched between snow capped mountains and deep canyons in the sea.  The wildlife here attracts millions of people a year, but the town itself remains surprisingly unspoilt and we spent a very pleasant three days here whale watching, swimming with dolphins, walking the peninsula and generally chilling out and enjoying our first prolonged spell of sunshine since we'd arrived in South Island New Zealand.  The Whaler is a nice pub too, even if we didn't win the quiz.

> Exeter Hotel, Adelaide

It's a small bar on Rundle Street in Adelaide.  It's an old building, and it used to be a hotel, but it has retained many of its original features, including old wood-fronted chiller cabinets with clasp doors.  The barman and other clientelle were nice, but it's appeal, plain and simple, was the draft Coopers that it sold, all in chilled "Adelaide Pint" sized glasses (425ml.  Inexplicably different from an Imperial Pint, but a civilized serving of beer nonetheless).  They had pale ale, dark ale, stout, clear ale, mild ale.... I'm a pale ale man, but it was delicious and a lovely old pub.  I drank a lot of beer on my travels, but the Cooper was the best and it was served best here.

> Oamaru

We'd originally planned to spend the day walking around Aoraki / Mount Cook and camping in a DOC campsite near the mountain, but the weather closed in and the prospect of a campsite with no hot water or electricity was rather uninviting, so instead we hot-footed it back across the country towards Dunedin.  We stopped in Oamaru in the pouring rain, but from unpromising beginnings in a rather run-down town that exists primarily to service the surrounding farms, we had a splendid time.  The catalyst was the tour we took from the campsite that took us proudly around the little town, showing us the actually-not-all-that-impressive highlights.... but the real piece de resistance was the town's penguins: both a colony of Yellow Eyed Penguins and the little Blue Penguins.  The Blue Penguins in particular were brilliant.  It was a foul night, but we rolled up to the little purpose-built visitor's centre and sat and watched as these tiny little penguins came home for the night huddled together in little rafts and made the sprint for the beach as they closed on the shore.  I'd seen penguins in passing in Tasmania, but this was the first time that I'd had a proper look at them, and it was magical.  Our tour guide for the evening was bursting with civic pride throughout, and it was infectious.

> The Otago Peninsular

Another one that's all about the wildlife.  In one afternoon I saw Royal Albatross with 3m wingspan soaring above the cliffs and feeding their chicks; I saw a colony of Fur Seal with their pups in a nursery of rock pools on the cliffs; I got up close and personal with some 400kg male sealions from a distance of about 3m (and a solitary female hiding in the grasses on top of the dunes); I watched Yellow Eyed Penguins returning from the sea for the night.  Some of the people we were with moaned like hell throughout, but I thought it was a fantastic way to spend a day.

> Cradle Mountain

We'd been warned that it rained in the Cradle Mountain National Park on 8 days out of 10, but we struck lucky and had two gorgeous days.  We didn't attempt a summit climb, but we did go on a couple of splendid walks through rugged gorges, round tranquil lakes, past waterfalls and up to stunning viewpoints.  We also went on a night drive where we saw kangaroo, pademelon, wombats, possum and even a glimpse of a Tasmanian Devil.  Best of all, probably, was the little pademelon who liked the smell of the pasta we were cooking in our cabin and asked to come for dinner.

Beautiful spot.

> Diving on the Great Barrier Reef 

I could easily just say diving generally, but the 2 days we spent in Cairns in the pool and the 3 days out on the reef were just magical.  Our instructor was good, the group was good fun and the diving itself was magical.  I dived with sharks! Just awesome. 

> Doubtful Sound

One of the wettest places on earth, but also stunningly beautiful.  Doubtful Sound is a tranquil place of towering cliffs with cascading waterfalls and clinging rainforest, and deep, peaty water.  We spent 24 hours here and it was splendid.  The weather put paid to us kayaking Milford Sound, but the tranquility on Doubtful left a lasting impression on me.  Captain Cook may not have liked the look of it, but I most definitely did.

Pointless list, I know.... but there you go.  Not a bad way to spend 12 weeks.  Off to Cape Town on Saturday.

if it's not rough it isn't fun...

And so 2010 is upon us.  Before we can entirely consign 2009 to the dustbin of history though, there is one final task we must undertake: the selection of the Earworm of the Year.

So what is an Earworm?

“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.

How often do you catch yourself humming a song that you can't recall hearing and actually don't really even like very much?  Yup.... that's an earworm. I don't think I'm any more susceptible to them than anyone else, but I do like to try and keep a track of these tunes as they float across my brain during the course of the year, and I'm always interested to hear what's been playing on other people's internal jukeboxes.....

But Earworms of the Year?  Well, as I said last year:

"This list isn't trying to capture the finest songs released in the last twelve months. Nothing as simple as that. What we're trying to do here is more akin to alchemy than it is to science; we're trying to bottle all of those fragments of tunes that have floated across our heads over the last year and we're trying to distill them into a coherent list. It's an impossible task, of course, and ultimately one that's doomed to failure.... but by condensing down the contents of every Friday's "Earworms of the Week" column for 2009 and with the help of your votes over the last couple of weeks, we can at least make an attempt to bottle that genie".

How about we tilt at some windmills then?

Ladies and Gentleworms, after literally hours of pointless labour over a giant spreadsheet with some 380(-ish) different songs by 300-odd different artists, it is my great pleasure to present for your Earworming pleasure......

Earworms of the Year 2009

24. "In My Life" - The Beatles 

I bought "Rubber Soul" when the newly digitally remastered Beatles albums were re-released.  It might be a statement of the obvious, but it's an absolutely superb album.  This song in particular stands out for me.  As I said when I picked this as an earworm back in September:

"Johnny Cash does a cover of "In My Life" on one of the American Recordings albums.... and having an 80-odd year old singing wistfully about the people and places he has known has an obvious resonance. But fucking hell, the Beatles were 24 years old when they wrote this. 24! How much did you know when you were 24?"

Just an amazing song.

24. "Everything in its Right Place" - Radiohead

Released in 2000, "Kid A" is being heralded by some critics as the album of the decade.  Well, it's not my album of the decade (which can be found here), but this is a pretty fine song.  For all the bleeps and electronic noodling on this record, you sometimes forget just what good songs Radiohead weren't quite able to hide.

24. "Between the Wars" - Billy Bragg

OK, so I'm sure not that many other people will have had this song stuck in their heads this year.... but they should have.  The man's a legend.  A very welcome earworm indeed.

23. "Marlon JD" - Manic Street Preachers

"Journal For Plague Lovers" was my album of 2009 by some distance.... a real return to the kind of form that the band were showing with the "Holy Bible" in 1994, released just before the disappearance of Richie Edwards.  Before he vanished, Richie left the band a cache of lyrics, and it's only now that the band have had the courage to put those words to music.  It was a brave decision, and one I think that has been entirely vindicated.  This is my favourite song off the album, although I could almost have picked any of them.  I have absolutely no idea what the song is about, but it hardly seems to matter.

22. "Make Your Own Kind of Music" - Mama Cass

Famously used in the fabulously disorientating opening sequence to the second series of Lost, my love of this song has far outlasted my ability to watch the tv show.

21. "So What" - Pink  

Is it just me, or has Pink got far less annoying and far more interesting as her career has progressed?  She was never a really major irritant, in spite of what "Get The Party Started" might have led us to believe, but dare I say that she's definitely gathering together a bit of credibility?  Still, she's got her rock moves.  She doesn't need us.

Do you see what I did there?

Oh, never mind.

20. "Halo" - Beyonce

My wife, so she informed us last night, is not in the least bit gay..... but if she was, then Beyonce is the one that would do it for her.  Something to do with the definition on her thigh in the video for "Single Ladies".  Well, I don't really know what to say about that. What I do know is that Observer Music Monthly decided that Beyonce Knowles was their artist of the decade.  Perhaps I've had my head in a bucket, but I'm not really familiar with this song, and neither do I find it as catchy as some of her other records that haven't made this list.  Still, several people voted that this was the one that had stuck in their heads this year, and that was good enough for this song to make the top twenty.

19. "King of the Road" - Roger Miller

As South Park said, you can blame Canada for this one.  We started singing it - for who knows what reason - in the car on the way down to the airport to fly out to Calgary last March, and we sang it for much of the following ten days.

Nope.  I've no idea why. Catchy though, innit?

18. "Wired for Sound" - Cliff Richard

My mum is a Cliff Richard fan, and I used to have to tolerate listening to some of his albums as we were driven around the place as kids.  Funnily enough, although I have strong memories of songs like "Devil Woman", I have absolutely no recollection of this song.  He's much maligned these days, and he was something of a laughing stock even back in the days we used to tease my mother about liking him,  but this is an absolutely corking record.  If you need a bit of perspective on the man, then Bob Stanley wrote an excellent piece in the Guardian back in September about how we'd got Cliff all wrong and that actually he was a genuine rock'n'roll pioneer.  He doesn't help himself, of course, and songs like "The Millennium Prayer" actively invite our scorn, but this record alone should serve as a reminder that the man had some talent.

....and, of course, the song's also got one hell of a video of the great man rollerskating through Milton Keynes shopping centre wearing a clunky old Sony Walkman....

17. "Bulletproof" - La Roux

The sound of the 1980s is alive and well then.  Less shrill than their debut single, "In for the Kill", but at least as catchy.  I don't know which feckless fool Elly Jackson is singing about, but if I was them, I wouldn't try coming back.  She seems pretty formidable to me.

16. "Earth Song" - Michael Jackson

"Thriller", "Say, Say, Say" and "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough" all had their backers, but unfortunately for my poor ears, this song received more votes.  Damn you all.  Have you not got ears?  This record is absolutely bloody monstrous.  Michael Jackson may have died in 2009, but is that any excuse for inflicting this on me?  Of all the songs that we could pick to represent the man's career, why do we have to choose this one?  I heard Jackson had died when I was sitting outside my tent at the Glastonbury Festival, and almost immediately afterwards, I heard this song being played on someone's radio.  It's barely let up since. Where's Jarvis Cocker when you need him?

15. "Daniel" - Bat For Lashes

A song dedicated to the hero of the "Karate Kid" films.  Natasha Khan is most often described as sounding like Kate Bush, but here she sounds more like a kind of ethereal Stevie Nicks.  But in a good way.

14. "Fight for your Right" - Beastie Boys

Originally released in what?  1988?  And it's still popping up as an earworm?  Not bad work for a record that the band themselves were quickly tired of and keen to distance themselves from.  Still sounds pretty good to me.

13. "Bonkers" - Dizzee Rascal

I think the funniest thing that I saw in 2009 was whilst we were at the Glastonbury Festival standing at the Pyramid Stage watching Dizzee performing.  Just in front of us was a bunch of white teenagers, and there is surely nothing funnier in the world than watching white kids bobbing up and down, waving their hands around like gangtas and singing "woop woop dat's da sound of da police".  It's so, so wrong and yet so, so funny.  Dizzee himself was pretty good, although I have to say that I've never really been that impressed with this record.  Yeah, it's catchy, but it just seems to be a little bit too pleased with itself and a little too aware of it's mainstream appeal.  It's calculating rather than joyous.  Still, lots of people do seem to like it and Dizzee's gone overground.

12. "Crying Lightning" - Arctic Monkeys

Lead single from their "difficult" third album, I suppose this is fairly typical of the band's new material: it features Alex Turner's typically well-observed lyrics, but is set to a far less immediate tune than normal and takes some listening to before you can really say that you like it.  As it happens, although I'm still to be convinced by the album as a whole, I really do like this song.  It's worth it just for that sustained lyrical theme about a bag of pick n'mix.  You don't get that from Noel Gallagher, do you?

11. "The Fear" - Lily Allen

Well, well.  Who would have thought that Keith Allen's daughter would have been able to move away from sunny, derivative, disposable songs like "LDN" and "Smile" and produce something as good as this?  Initially I wasn't sure what to make of this song, thinking that perhaps it was entirely cynical and not half as clever as it thought it was.... but actually, after listening to it for a while, I conceded that perhaps it was actually as clever as it thought it was after all.  I'm still inclined to think of her as a bit of an idiot, but she's given me pause for thought on that too. 

10. "New Rose" - The Damned 

Released in 1976, this is the single that is popularly supposed to have launched punk..... so quite what it's doing in a list of Earworms in 2009 beats me.  It's a good song, but.... go figure.  That's the beauty of earworms for you.  How many other "best of" lists for 2009 feature this, eh?  You tell me that.

"Is she really going out with him?"

Classic.

9. "Virginia State Epileptic Colony" - Manic Street Preachers 

Another song from "Journal for Plague Lovers"and another set of lyrics by Richie that might as well have been written in code.

"They sit around tables rendered dumb
Coloured sticks of chalk are passed around
Today the doctors allow the illusion of choice
Tomorrow the necks split, there is no voice"

They clearly mean something, but perhaps the only person who could tell us exactly what is legally dead.  Hmm.  Hats off to James Dean Bradfield for -- as ever -- taking these absurdly dense lyrics and making them catchy.  No mean feat.

8. "Empire State of Mind" - Jay-Z feat Alicia Keys 

I'm not a massive fan of Jay-Z, and I found large portions of his set at Wembley in September very dull ("Bounce, bounce...."), but this love song to New York has been for me probably the song of the year.  It's joyous, uplifting and .... most importantly of all for an earworm.... it's insanely catchy.

7. "I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris" - Morrissey 

 Morrissey is maddening.  After years in the wilderness, he's probably as commercially successful now as he's ever been, and yet for me "Years of Refusal" was enormously disappointing.  His voice sounds better than ever, but so many of the songs tread over old lyrical ground as Morrissey is apparently determined to leave no slight unremarked and is incapable of letting go of old grudges.  That said, this song illuminates the whole record and I can't get enough of it.  It's only 2 minutes and 31 seconds long, and it certainly doesn't outstay its welcome.  Beautiful record, beautifully sung. 

6. "Carol Brown" - Flight of the Conchords  

Yeah, so it's only a comedy song; a pastiche of Paul Simon's "50 Ways to Leave your Lover".... but just as they did with "Robots" last year, Bret and Jermaine have once again produced a record that I simply can't shake out of my head. It's funny; it's charming.... it's bloody catchy.

5. "Remedy" - Little Boots 

Tipped last January by the BBC ahead of acts like White Lies and Florence and the Machine as the Sound of 2009, Victoria Hesketh has gone some way towards fulfilling that promise with a very successful year: the album reached number 5 in the charts and this single peaked at 6 in the UK singles charts.....And now a song in the top 5 of the Earworms of the Year?  It really doesn't get much better than this.  This song has been nagging away at me for months... I'm not sure I would ever say it was one of my favourite songs of the year, but it's been a pretty constant earworm since it was released in August.  Apparently I'm not the only one - no one voted this as their top choice, but plenty of people listed this in their top 5.

4. "Paparazzi" - Lady Gaga 

Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta is many things, but she is certainly pretty hard to ignore, as I think the rest of this poll is about to prove.....  Of all her songs, I think that this one is my favourite.  It wasn't the biggest hit, peaking at number 4 in the UK chart, but for me it's been the most persistent earworm.  For a song that's ostensibly about a stalker, there's a distinctly wistful, melancholic air to it that - for me - lifts this song far out of the ordinary.  This is not just pop music, it's not just a big dumb chorus, this is something that I think is aspiring to something more than that.   Or perhaps I'm overthinking it and it is just about a big, dumb chorus?

3. "Bad Romance" - Lady Gaga

Into the top three, and it's Gaga again... this time with a UK number one single and featuring a video showing Gaga apparently being drugged, kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery (what else?).  I personally don't think the song as a whole is up to much, but the chorus is a weapons grade earworm of epic proportions:

"Ra Ra-ah-ah-ah
Roma Roma-ma
GaGa
Oh la-la
Want your bad romance"

She's an evil genius and I salute her.

2. "Killing in the Name" - Rage Against the Machine 

Not for the first time, Rage Against the Machine were our only hope against evil chart domination... only this time we didn't need them to save us from Joe McElderry (who didn't receive a single vote in this poll, as it happens).... we needed them to help hold off Lady Gaga from a remarkable 1-2-3.  As it happens, it was a ridiculously close run thing, with positions 2,3 and 4 only separated by a mere 1.5 points.  But, just as they did in Christmas week, Rage did it.  You might think that their vote was a byproduct of the campaign that saw them reach the Number One slot in the Christmas singles chart, but actually this is a low level background earworm for me all of the time, and made its first appearance in an earworms list in 2009 as early as April, making another appearance in August, long before the rush of airplay in December that brought in the votes for this poll.  Lest we forget though, this is a brilliant record.  Originally released in 1992 but sounding as fresh today as it did then.... Zack de la Rocha spits out those sixteen 'fucks' and one 'motherfucker' with a real passion that's missing from far too much music.  Best number one single ever!

1. "Poker Face" - Lady Gaga

Inevitably.

In spite of having her vote split across no fewer than five different songs, this came top by an absolute country mile, with nearly twice as many points as Rage Against the Machine, and more points in total than last year's runaway winning song too.  I think it's the highest scoring song we've ever had in these lists..... all of the points coming from voters as -- amazingly -- I didn't include this song in any of my own Earworm lists in 2009.  A fitting winner, actually, as Gaga has been my guilty pleasure all year.  She's brilliant, even if -- or perhaps because -- she does produce atomically powerful earworms.

I give you the Earworm of 2009.... Lady Gaga.  The year was undoubtedly hers.

As ever, thanks for all your votes over the last few weeks -- more than ever before --  and a special thanks to all my Guest Editors over the last twelve months. If you're interested in guesting in an earworm slot this year, then drop your name in the comments box below or send me an email to the address in my profile and we'll get something scheduled. It's all very well me listing the contents of my head here every week, but it's your contributions that really make this interesting, and I'm endlessly fascinated to know what's trapped in anybody's head at any given time. I don't care who you are, if you've had a go in the past or if this your first time here... all are welcome to have a go in 2010.

The Earworms of the Year Roll of honour.

2005 Coldplay - "Speed of Sound"

2006 Gnarls Barkley - "Crazy"

2007 Rihanna - "Umbrella"

2008 Elbow - "One Day Like This"

Here's to earworms and to earwormers everywhere.

2009? That was the earworm that was.

Happy New Year everyone.

rock and roll ain't noise pollution....

I think there's just time to squeeze in one more list before the Earworms of the Year countdown tomorrow, don't you?

How about a quick "best albums of 2008" countdown?

Over at The Auditorium, we've been counting down our albums of the year for 2008, and I thought it was worth putting the whole of that list up here - not least because I think it's interesting that between the three of us, LB, bedshaped and I have come up with 28 different albums from 30 picks, with LB and me both picking Coldplay, and bedshaped and me both picking Elbow. Just goes to show how different things float different people's musical boats, eh?

That list in full then.

Number 10s.

Santogold - Santogold (bedshaped)
James - Hey Ma! (ST)
The Killers - Day and Age (LB)

Number 9s.

Billy Bragg - Mr. Love & Justice (ST)
Sigur Ros - Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust (LB)
TV on the Radio - Dear Science (bedshaped)

Number 8s.

The Feeling - Join With Us (LB)
Glasvegas - Glasvegas (bedshaped)
Metallica - Death Magnetic (ST)

Number 7s.

Scars on Broadway - Scars on Broadway (bedshaped)
Laura Marling - Alas, I Cannot Swim (ST)
Alphabeat - This is Alphabeat (LB)

Number 6s.

Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend (ST)
Royworld - Man in the Machine (LB)
Estelle - Shine (bedshaped)

Number 5s.

Paul Heaton - The Cross-Eyed Rambler (LB)
Albert Hammond Jr - Como Te Llama (bedshaped)
Coldplay - Viva La Vida (or Death and all his Friends) (ST)

Number 4s.

Britney Spears - Circus (bedshaped)
White Denim - Workout Holiday (ST)
Neil Diamond - Home Before Dark (LB)

Number 3s.

Flight of the Conchords - Flight of the Conchords (ST)
Coldplay - Viva La Vida (or Death and all his Friends) (LB)
Kings of Leon - Only by the Night (bedshaped)

Number 2s.

Keane - Perfect Symmetry (LB)
Goldfrapp - Seventh Tree (bedshaped)
Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid (ST)

Number 1s.

Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid (bedshaped)
Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes (ST)
Tina Dico - Count to Ten (LB)

Amazing how three people can hear the year so differently, isn't it? The write-ups are all well worth a read, anyway. LB went to a lot of trouble compiling that lot and adding pictures and links and stuff.....

Other end of year lists:

Mike's albums of the year
LBs singles of the year (50-21)
LB's singles of the year (20-1)
Your chance to vote the top 50 singles of 2008

Happy New Year to everyone. I'm not sure that you could really say that 2008 was a vintage year for music, exactly - in my view, lots of the really big releases were either not worth bothering with (Oasis, Kaiser Chiefs, Madonna....) or disappointing (Keane, Snow Patrol, Killers, Kings of Leon). Having said that, any year that brings me the divese likes of Bon Iver, Laura Marling, White Denim and the Fleet Foxes can't be all bad. Besides, it was also the year that I went retro and (re-)discovered the delights to be found in the back catalogues of AC/DC and the Clash, and you really can't argue with a bit of classic rock turned up to 11, can you?

I'll finally put 2008 (and all this pointless cataloguing) to bed with the Earworms of the Year post tomorrow......

Here's to a great musical 2009! May all your earworms for the coming year be enjoyable ones.

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.