it's gonna be, a lonley lonley day

I'm not sure if i am still classed as a matinee artiste anymore but I've been doing their year end poll and thought I would post my favourite songs of the last twelve months here . I don't think they were all released in 2007 infact I know they all weren't , but this is the year they let themselves known to my ears. In no particular order



1. The Clientele - The Queen Of Seville - This song sounds so lavishly expensive, diamonds, pearls, gold and silver. His voice is incredibly velvety, somewhere girls and boys must be swooning over it. Does it remind anyone else of Luke Haines or Green?

2. Sodastream - Warm July - I only just discovered them this year and then they went and split up a few weeks after I saw them play one of my favourite gigs. This song reminds me of painting Georges new house in Durham last summer and the journey back, wanting to race back to my ex-wifes so I could see Neave before her bedtime, but I usually found myself stuck in traffic at Nevilles Cross, singing along to this. Oh, how I love my iPod all those songs at the touch of a button or two.

3. Darren Hayman - Caravan Song - One of my biggest regrets of 2007 is not sticking around to watch Mr Hayman's performance at the Indie Tracks festival, I was shattered and just wanted to sleep so I buggered off early.Monday morning in the car on the way home after the festival, I just kept playing this song over and over again, the kind of song that makes me want to sing along to it at the top of my voice , I wish I could write a song that would have that effect on people.

4. A Smile and a Ribbon - Book Cover - Another band from Indie Tracks who were head and shoulders above the Fat Tulip sound-a-likes that everyone else seemed to be going crazy for at the festival. The opening lines of this song have been my own personal theme tune since first hearing it.



5. The Go! Team - A Version Of Myself - Almost shambolic and with a childlike beauty that stopped me dead in my tracks when it popped into my head while itunes was in shuffle mode. I feel terrible admitting it but I've been ripping CD's straight to my MacBook and listening to them on that before the CD actually makes it onto my CD player. I never thought I would ever do that .

6. Horowitz - Pop Kids Of The World Unite - Easily my favourites from Indie Tracks, their punky fuzzy wuzzy pop songs stole my heart while watching them, and if I wasn't quite so sensible but a younger and much dafter version of myself I would be spending my redundancy on starting a record label and I would want Horowitz to be on it. I guess though I better hold onto that money just incase those painting jobs don't come in for a while.

7. Cherry Ghost - 4 A.M. - I've been listening to far too many sad songs this year, songs that remind me of what I once had and that make me wonder if I will get anything like it again. The upbeat countrified feel of it still can't cheer me up, but I keep playing it over and over.



8. Jenny Lewis with The Watson Twins - Melt Your Heart - Another sad one with oh so true opening lines that also became a theme which I have had recurring through my days this last year. This one could easily make me cry if I listen to it too much.

9. Parker Lewis - Wasting Time - This band were introduced to me in the last week of the year , they have got loads of great tunes but this one has all the ingredients that I like .. a lazy vocal drawl , jangly guitars and oohwoohwooh backing vocals that embed themselves in your head, oh yeah and they are Swedish.

10. Duke Special - Last Night I Nearly Died - Apart from reminding me of my 6 day hospitalisation this year I do still think it's an almost perfect pop song, nothing much more to say about it.

the snow fell down

Nothing like a snowball fight and a bit of sledging to make you feel alive, even if my fingers did feel as if they were going to drop off.

i've got a chip on my shoulder, i've got a hole in my soul, got a heart that is broken and a story that has already been told

12.00 p.m. today was the deadline for when I had to let my employers for the last 24 years know whether I wanted the pittance of a redundancy they were offering me. I said yes. I don't fancy the alternative, which is to be transferred over to a private company who could send me to work where ever they want me to. So the plan is to start my own Painting and Decorating business, probably the only thing I am good at. So I should be really seeing has thats all I've been doing since I left school. It's all I have been thinking about the last few months and all over Christmas , lots of sleepless nights, a big decision, that I really didn't want to make but it's done now. So if anyone reading this needs a spot of decorating done and you live in County Durham , I'm the man for the job!