In reverse order...

10 - Neon Bible by Arcade Fire

9 - Wincing the Night Away by The Shins

8 - Places Like This by Architecture in Helsinki

7 - Rise Above by The Dirty Projectors

6 - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? by Of Montreal

5 - Candylion by Gruff Rhys

4 - Release the Stars by Rufus Wainwright

3 - In Rainbows by Radiohead

2 - Mirrored by Battles

1 - Friend Opportunity by Deerhoof

Next week, I’m starting full time employment.. I can’t quite fathom it all out at the moment..  Work.. Full time Employment. This means being responsible in the workplace… I hope I remember what and what not to do…

I haven’t decided if I’m going to wear shirts this time.. I think I’ll start off making the effort until the ironing of a shirt at the last minute in the morning has got tiresome… One week then…

The idea of working in an office again appears daunting, especially as it’s one I know very well.. There‘ll be the obvious “You‘re back then?“ conversations to contend with. It kind of makes me feel dirty as I said I‘d never go back to the same office again. I‘ve now said this twice without conviction... Figuratively, I'm just a high-class prostitute who can't say no to a nice Local Government contract....

It’s only for 6 months so I’m sure it won’t kill me.. The money won’t , that’s for sure..  I’m off to the office soon for a preliminary meeting which will be the first time I’ve been in a proper place of work in a LONG time. I have even had a shave for the event..

Anyway, It’s not like I’ve sat on my arse for 7 months watching Jeremy Kyle and living the life of a Jeremy Kyle guest..  That’s because I’ve been building, learning AND creating.

Take a look for yourself:

www.butchauntie.com

As well as sorting out the front-end, it also runs on my custom built Content Management System which I will rambling on about at great length in the ‘Employ’ section soon.. And I also have at least one other interested customer who wishes me to build them something similar which is great news.. Except now I have a full time job too so I‘m now in for a very busy 6 months.. Jobs and Money; just like buses, aren’t they? Maybe this is my penance for all the fun I‘ve been having.

Anyway.. Goodbye 2007.. I can’t complain.. It was a strange old start to the year but  it got better…7 months of unemployed bliss which included a 3 Month road trip round the North American continent with just a few refresher driving lessons beforehand (after a 10 year gap), A great Holiday in Italy with some of my oldest friends along with Best Man duties for Mr Martin Price (I still regret letting Silvia censor the speech - I know I should have given her a fake one! - Now no one will know about the Mushroom/bolonaise/digging up the garden incident), learning another programming language, The end of the Road Festival, A trip on the new Eurostar to Brussels to see Rufus Wainwright AND…. A new Radiohead album…

No resolutions for 2008 although I have plans.. Many, many plans….

Believe it or not.. I actually watched a Jamie Oliver programme on TV last night entitled 'Jamie's Fowl Dinners'. The aim of the programme seemed to be to persuade the great British public that Intensive Chicken farming is bad and we should all be buying free range and organic poultry products, namely chicken meat and eggs.

Now, briefly standing shoulder to shoulder to Jamie on his soapbox, I heartily agree.. I've not bought cheap battery hen produced eggs since I don't know when and for the obvious reasons of being a non-meat eater, i have not bought a chicken in many, many years.. Yes, we should be buying animal products produced from more reputable farming methods... This is one of my main reasons for not eating meat.. instesively farming animals is cruel and inhumane. Some of the foods that are sold and advertisted to us as being 'meat' is criminal which Jamie demonstrated well when he showed us what MRM is, how it is produced, what it looks like and what products it goes on to become a main ingredient of.

One of Jamie's guest did however point out that many people cannot afford to make that choice and so have no option but to buy the more affordable goods that our supermarkets are offering.
Yes. I also agree. I am now climbing down from Jamie's soapbox.

Mr Oliver is wrong to point the finger at us consumers.. It is the supermarkets we should really be bothering as these are the people that are giving the farmers no choice but to farm intensively due to the pittance the Supermarket chains are offering for poultry.. Yes, it cost more for Organic and Free-range but this price gap could be slashed if Sainsbury's, Tesco and the others slashed their mark-up on these goods and/or offered the farmers more money or more incentives to produce organically.

The supermarkets then still say the same thing.. It's not them, it's us demanding cheap goods...No. we are just demanding cheap quality goods.. Like you can get accross most of europe... It's ridiculous what we pay for cheese, wine and good quality fruit and vegetables compared to say Italy and France...

Yes, Jamie Oliver did attack the big 3 supermarkets for their absence on the show (and a previous show this week) to publicly defend themselves. He even attacked his beloved Sainsbury's (who he later apologised to) but his main aim was still trying to persuade his 'darlins', 'treacles' and 'sweethearts' to spend more money rather than asking the Tesco and Sainsbury's fat-cats to.

If the cheeky chappie chef had more conviction he would have baked his Sainsbury's contract in his quiche and declared war on his ex-overlords by gassing all the major-bigwigs who did turn up (and kidnapping the others before the show) instead of those poor chicks... But did he???

No he just asked us all to be more middle-classed about it all...

I admit it. I cannot play scrabble. I’ve tried and I’ve played, and I’ve tried, played and I’ve lost and tried and played. Tried, played, lost, scratched my head, played, tried, lost, played and ultimately failed to ever win a game of Scrabble.

It doesn’t make sense. I should, by my reckoning be excellent at it. I read a lot, I have good Vocabulary, reasoning and spelling skills as well as knowing plenty of useless terminology, but I can never  un-jumble those scrabble tiles to spell anything worthy of appearing on the board. I see this is as a real flaw in my personal make-up and character and  I’m embarrassed that I can’t win or even compete in a contest at it. I also know I’m pathetic for thinking this. A pathetic loser.

I also assume for the same modest reasons as in the previous paragraph that I should also be an expert at Countdown but I am also a dunce when it comes to forming words longer than four letters long. The numbers round I can do in seconds flat without fail every time but then the dreaded Conundrum leaves me feeling clueless. I have never guessed it correctly. Not once. Ever. I don’t even convince myself when I shout out the answer half a second after hearing the contestant say it as if it was on the tip of my tongue all along..

The only crossword I ever completed was in the back of a company magazine and was so ridiculously easy that I felt that my company were trying to trick me into taking part in a secret subliminal team building exercise and so I angrily accused them of patronising me and my fellow comrades which was probably taking it a bit too far which I soon realised and so I then felt stupid and thus, lost a part of my soul in the whole process AND I failed to exercise my brain which was the whole point of me completing the stupid bloody crossword in the first place.

Now Sudoku is a totally different matter. I’m a whiz. But I don’t want to be good at Sudoku. I want to be good at Scrabble. I’ve always assumed it’s something you have to play to master. If you learn certain words and terminology soon you’ll be getting those consistent 40-50 pointers. I’ve always been a firm believer that if you want something that much, you will get it.

The only thing I’ve ever got good at is cheating. I played on Saturday night in the pub and got trounced. Realising early on I was in trouble, I scored a dubious 66 pointer and totally convinced even myself that ‘quizzed’ was spelt with just one Z and if it wasn’t for my good heart, I would have got another handsome score with ‘Tierk’; but claiming this was a type of German World War II Tank which the small dictionary we were playing with had emitted was possibly taking it a tad too far. I would like to take this opportunity to apologise for my cheating and for my temporary darkish mood that I was in for a brief five minutes afterwards. I would like to… But I won’t..

I think that my problem is that I think too big. I don’t want to just win, When I beat someone I have to look intelligent, slightly smug but also and very importantly, I have to look slightly surprised because you surely didn‘t expect to win, especially as you hardly bothered to try. If I can’t have this winning scenario every time then I can’t be bothered and I am happy to lose.

Walking past a staff kitchen I overheard one middle-aged woman explaining to another middle-aged woman the difference between 'Goth' and 'EMO'.. I don't really know the difference either but she clearly knew and she was well aware that her own son was 'EMO' and not 'Goth' and she was well up to date on the intricate differences between the two.

Music Fads, Fashions and cultures are 10 a penny now and just seem to blend into each other. We need to know where the boundaries are!

I propose it’s time we had a small booklet detailing all the different music sub-cultures out there so that we can all keep up with the changing times.. The less clear cut cultures where there are obvious cross-overs can be explained with amazing Venn Diagrams that would come as cut out and keep posters as well as instructions on how to spot a Goth/EMO/Indie Kid in the revision notes section. So come on you people at the Guardian, forget your booklets on Greek Myths and Monsters and gives us a something to help us in these thoroughly confusing modern music times…

Monday – Goths

Tuesday – EMO

Wednesday – Indie (old Skool)

Thursday - Metal

Friday – New Wave Indie

Saturday – New Rave

Sunday – Grunge

Monday – Punk

Tuesday – Post Punk

Wednesday – Acid House

Thursday – Alkali Tent

And so on.. This supplement could actually run all year and then you’ve got the book to sell at Christmas too! Not only can it be a guide for us ignorant music listeners but it can also be used to educate 11-12 years olds on what musical culture/genre options they have when they reach teenage years so children have a few years to prepare their teenage Goth/EMO look…

This is why I don't like psychics....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2198928,00.html

This was an article in the Guardian back in October by Mr Jon Ronson but I missed it at the time... I've just read it and it's still pretty relevant especially with the McCann case due to go on indefinitely...After reading, you may want to visit this site too:

http://www.stopsylviabrowne.com

That is all...

“Hi I’m Alex James and I’m a farmer”

- Are you sure, I could have sworn you were a bit of a media whore… Face it, if it’s a panel show, reality show or a radio programme about cheese, you’re up for it!

“In a former life I played bass guitar in a band called Blur”..

- Yes! And you were great at it and that’s what we want to remember you by.. And your cheese, I’m sure it’s very good! I’d quite like to try some..

Sorry Alex.. But as you quite rightly pointed out on the Panorama special about cocaine last night, you were out of your depth. “Kate Moss and Amy Winehouse weren’t up to the job but Alex James thinks he is” snorted a stupidly smug presenter  as he introduced Alex who started the show off in the safe confines of his farmhouse in his rather fetching farmers threads (they really suit you!) before setting off for the rather dangerous parts of Columbia which along with Peru and Bolivia produces 75% of the worlds cocaine.

To be fair, he bravely took on the challenge to meet Politicians, Farmers, Drug Barons and Drug Mules for Panorama whose producers believed was the most qualified man for the job due to his past reputation for being a man that likes to party hard. I’d agree if that was the only criteria that I would use to choose someone to do an in depth report. but what about some form of Journalism skill too? It’s all fine sending someone who until recently was a consumer of cocaine to see how it has torn a country apart but couldn’t he have been an independent observer? Panorama has been accused of dumbing down over the past few years and we caught them red handed last night.

It wasn’t Alex’s fault.. Far from it. He really was brave walking round coca plantations owned by some of the most ruthless men in the world and he was obviously deeply shocked by the culture surrounding the production of cocaine which most casual users of the drug could now think about while waiting to use a toilet cubicle in those trendy bars along Upper Street where they will quite happily snort chemicals off a toilet seat that is used 500 times a day by people with no toilet etiquette (eugh!). It’s a Shame most of them won‘t see the programme. Anyway, Alex did well to show us how most of us would cope with a situation like that. Shocked, scared and lost for words.

Unfortunately though Mr James lacked the ability to ask probing questions and to not stumble over his words. Fair enough, he had been blown out of the water at what he’d seen. Which is why a researcher or a journalist should have been at hand to give Alex a pointer in what questions he should be asking. The Translator had his work cut out for him as he had to translate sentences like “Cocaine is the grease that oils the cogs of the Rock ‘n Roll industry”  and the President who spoke very good English having to contend with an Interviewer failing to find the right words for his two questions.. I wonder what he thought of the Cheese?

We should be sending a coach load of ignorant celebrities who take cocaine (if you don’t know who you are…. We do) to Columbia to see the horrors for themselves. We could throw them off the planes that spray the plantations with pesticide, thus killing two birds with one stone and then we can watch them to see what they do… There’s an idea there for the next series of ‘I’m a celebrity’….


Anyway.. Sorry Alex.. Can't wait to try some of your cheese and I hope the next blur album is better than the last..

On my way to work this Morning, I was spat on. Not deliberately I might add, I just happened to be in the way when someone wanted to clean their throat of mucus when walking up a busy high street. They didn't bother to look. They were very carefree about it. The Woman then laughed and gave a half-hearted apology as I wiped myself clean.

This is the second time this has happened in as many weeks.

"What did I say?" - People have asked...

I didn't say a thing. What's the point? Why Should I waste my time having a confrontation with someone who simply doesn't have an idea of what common courtesy or decency is? It's just going to frustrate me even more.. I can shout "How dare you!" and a whole host of expletives but nothing will sink into these people. It's just best to avoid morons altogether.

It's easier just to blog anomously about it.