PAS Poll 2008

I’d Like Him To Play For My Team! (is it irony that the world’s tidiest footballer is called Messi? Or is that coincidence? Dunno…Alanis?)

Lionel Messi: “the best player in the world whatever those Ballon D’Or muppets might think”; “In a dream world, Messi, in a media world Joe Cole, in a possible world Upson, in a probable world, Jermaine Pennant”; “On a completely realistic tip, I would love to get Vela to Pompey on loan from Arsenal, Jimmy Bullard and Richard Dunne in. Being completely unrealistic, although the parallels between Barcelona and Pompey are quite clear, it would have to be Lionel Messi”; “the bestest player for my 2nd bestest team”
Robinho: “but only for home games”
“I don’t care.”: “I’m not really sure who my club is – Pompey, QPR, Sunderland, Newport IOW? – just so long as David James is in goal…”
Zlatan Ibrahimovic: “can I have him at Carrow Road? Would like to see him forge a partnership with Leroy Lita…”
Steve Gerrard: “great footballer. Pity that he is a hypocritical, odious tw*t”

Up There With Joey Barton (ahhhh, Engerland’s lionheart sweeps the board…with lots of pottymouth words to boot!)

John Terry: “c*nt!”; “paid £250,000 to have his lawn turned into Astroturf to stop his three year old kids cutting up the grass on their quad bikes. Fact.”; “sly evil b*st*rd for sneakily spitting on Tevez in the Euro Cup Final”
Ronaldo: “or anyone with stupid coloured boots”
Ashley Cole: “just keeps on giving in the pr*ck-stakes”
Eboue: “even his own normally mundane, quiet fans pipe up”
William Gallas: “don’t need a reason”
Harry Redknapp: fair enough he went to Tottenham, but did he really have to say all that he said after he went?"

Best Football Moment (’Night Johnboy! You’ve done the double…)

John Terry: “Take that you horrible little c*nt. He started crying before they’d even lost it because for ‘JT’ it’s all about ‘JT’ and not the team – and he couldn’t stop crying and I couldn’t stop laughing. It was a perfect moment of hubris. He will never ever get over it and it makes up for all that ‘Englands brave captain’ crap that the media foist on us ignoring allegations of hugger racism and general c*ntish behaviour”; “seeing JT (C) crying his eyes out after royally f*cking up ‘his’ Champions League final”; “John Terry missing his penalty and Giggs burying his – I nearly gave birth… literally!”
“Beating the Scum at the swamp on their special day…”
Watching my beloved Spurs win a trophy.: “I don’t care if it is the lesser of the cups; it’s one more than three of the so-called top-four”
“When your ten men are beating Birmingham 1-0 in a blizzard and Kevin Phillips, who always scores against you, has a goal disallowed in injury time”
“Moscow 21st May: 3 times and counting, the drama, the header, the misses, Terry spitting on Tevez and then getting his comeuppance, United actually winning a penalty shoot-out, Giggsy winning another trophy … what a career. Pity about Ronaldo’s self-indulgent celebrations … p*ss off to Real Madrid, we have had the best out of you”
“Tottenham’s emphatic, stylish, soul-destroying rout of Arsenal in last season’s Carling Cup semi-final”
“When I realized I had managed the mighty Grunwald to an 18 league match unbeaten run”
“Meeting ‘The Rat Defoe’ in HMV Bluewater and telling him what a good penalty he took the other week when he missed at West Ham…”: “I’ll score next time, I’ll score 3 next time!” – course you will Jermain…
“Arsenal 4-4 with Spurs – I been told even Frankie was laughing when Lennon scored…sorry Pab!”
“Well, Kanu tapping home from a yard to win the FA Cup. Seeing Sol lift the FA Cup. Seeing Jamo run over to us with the FA Cup. Seeing Pompey win the FA Cup at Wembley. But the real moment of the year and possibly of the decade was the first 85 minutes of Pompey v AC Milan”

Worst Football Moment (just goes to show money isn’t everything!)

QPR: “When the penny drops and you realise that Iain Dowie isn’t the right man, after you fail to register a shot on goal in 90 minutes at Swansea, despite the hosts having an outfield player in goal for over an hour”; “After repeatedly watching Ian Dowie & Tim Flowers applauding aimless long balls into the channels during a two-nil home defeat to Derby”
“Losing Robbie Keane to Liverpool. Bench warning at his boyhood club, eh?! What a waste”
“Rangers fans running rampage through my beautiful city cos they’re sh*te”
“When Pippo Inzaghi scored the equalizer for AC at Fratton Park. Although seeing the Milan fans go mental for getting a point at Fratton almost made it worth it”
“Chris Morgan NOT getting suspended for that elbow”
“Driving to Anfield on a Tuesday night to watch Curbishley put ten men behind the ball and get stuffed 4-0”
“Ronaldo’s attempts to wh*re himself to Madrid somewhat took the edge off his achievements over the last two years. I have no problem with him wanting to go or with Madrid’s comedy protestations of honour and decency, but it just went on all summer and showed how detached the modern footballer is. If Ronaldo’s lot is similar to ‘slavery’, then ship me to the plantations right now!”

Top 5 Singles (either we oldies have still got our collective finger on the pulse or the kids these days haven’t got a Danny…)

MGMT: “Time to Pretend”
Kings Of Leon: “Sex on Fire”
Vampire Weekend: “Oxford Comma”
Dizzee Rascal feat Calvin Harris: “Dance Wiv Me” – “number one when Frankie was born!”
Glasvegas: “Geraldine”

Bubbling under

MGMT: “Kids”
Duffy: “Mercy”
MIA: “Paper Planes” – “no one on the corner has swagger like us…”
Elbow: “One Day Like This”
Hot Chip: “Ready For The Floor”
TV on the Radio: “Golden Age”

Top 5 Albums (the NYC boys just got pipped for a double a la the NME and is it just me not getting Fleet Foxes?)

Elbow: “Seldom Seen Kid” – “superb, but I do worry now that having finally got the recognition they deserve they are going to deteriorate, I liked it best when they were a bit more secret”; “the boys from Bury finally get the recognition they deserve but will Guy continue to get fatter and redder? He’s starting to look like Phil Mitchell with hair…”
MGMT: “Oracular Spectacular”
Kings of Leon: “Only By The Night”
Fleet Foxes: “Fleet Foxes”
Neon Neon: “Stainless Style” / Glasvegas – “Glasvegas” (“Best thing out of Scotland since The Proclaimers. Or that £10 a night hooker back in ’98”)

Bubbling under

Vampire Weekend: “Vampire Weekend” (“Fangtastic!”)
British Sea Power: “Do You Like Rock Music”
The Charlatans: “You Cross My Path”
Bon Iver: “For Emma, Forever Ago”
David Holmes: “The Holy Pictures”
TV On The Radio: “Dear Science” (bought after it was mentioned in Pab’s weekly roundup, superb)
Cut Copy: “In Ghost Colours”

Best Gig (a tremendous year for Bury’s finest)

Elbow: Manchester Academy (“just after the ‘Seldom Seen Kid’ came out”); The Grand Opera House, Belfast (“My last gig as a single man, a birthday present from my wife-to-be. Beautiful venue, sitting overlooking the stage in one of those little boxes you see d*cks sitting in at the ‘Last Night Of The Proms!’. Watching a fantastic band bring the whole crowd along with them on their great year. A warm, fuzzy experience that lifted the October gloom. Guy retired to the main bar in the theatre afterwards to see his sister and be fawned over by a rather drunken me. Didn’t seem to like my ‘best band to come out of North Manchester since 10CC’ gag for some reason. A strange kind of manlove?”)
Radiohead: Nimes Arena, France
Underworld: Roundhouse – “So good the knees and back forgot they were 30-something for the night”
Cut Copy: Night & Day, Manchester – “cos it was a Monday, it was free and I had no expectation of it being that great. It bloody well was”
My Bloody Valentine: Apollo, Manchester – “ brilliant white noise finale which I don’t want to do again but was exhilarating at the time”
Bon Iver: “just superb. When you go to a gig you want to see something different to what you hear on the LP. Bon Iver turned the beautifully melancholic ‘For Emma’” into a stomping sing along complete with two drummers!!! and belly laughing humour. I was stunned how they translated to stage and cannot wait for them to tour again!

Worst Gig (on the whole it appears it was a good year for gigs with no one particular artist serially offending…)

Mark Ronson: “Utter rot”
Elton John: “Could have gone with the girlfriend. Listened to Magnolia paint drying instead”
Morrissey: 02 Wireless Festival – “started good then bored me enough to leave early”
Vampire Weekend: Academy, Manchester – “played the LP, dull as dishwater”
The X Factor tour: “no I didn’t see it, but this sh*t has to stop! Evil Simon Cowell now seems to think he owns Christmas…”
My Morning Jacket: “Going to see them in Brussels only for them to cancel after you’ve booked your travel, and then going to see Asian Dub Foundation while there instead to make up for it only for them to finish at 9.45pm when you only arrived at 9.40pm…”
The Specials: Bestival – “my ears bled and my eyes filled with tears”
Echo & The Bunnymen: Echo Arena, Liverpool – “it promised so much, ‘Ocean Rain’ played with the Liverpool Philharmonic… Macca was p*ssed, it was bad”

Mixtape Must (One person commented “choose one song? How arbitrary…” but I had to whittle it down to an i-Pod friendly playlist! Good to see/hear we have a catholic taste! I challenge you to source and collect this little lot!)

“You Got The Love” – Crazy P
“Everybody Everybody” – Suffragette Suffragette
“Sick For Toys” – Sugarcubes
“I Found Lovin” – The Fatback Band
“Everyone Nose” – N.E.R.D
“69 Police” – David Holmes
“A-Punk” – Vampire Weekend (“hey hey hey! afro beats and cardigans”)
“Energy Flash” – Joey Beltram
“Numb” – Jay Z
“Vicar In A Tutu” – The Smiths (“Manchester does rockabilly in the best possible way!”)
“I Hear Music In The Streets” – Unlimited Touch
“Cpstyre” – Donk Boys
“Temptation” – New Order
“Peg” – Steely Dan
“Over & Over” – Hot Chip
“There Is A Light That Never Goes Out” – The Smiths

Two Bands – A Fight To The Death! (amazingly out of all the zillion bands out there, two got matched up several times!)

Scouting for Girls vs The Feeling
Mika vs The Feeling
Megadeth vs Scouting for Girls
Scouting For Girls vs Bowling For Soup – “bad bad bad bad noise for Next jumper wearing Mondeo driving tw*ts”)
Razorlight v Scouting For Girls
Razorlight and Coldplay – “can only one of them die?”
Pete Doherty v Jonny Borrell – “let’s hope one kills the other and then kills himself for the sake of humankind”
Keane vs Coldplay – “with a choice of celery or spring onions as weapons”
Any bands that Pab plays at “Oh Yeah? What’s Normal Then?”@ Bluu
The remand wing of Strangeways Choral Society ( “must be one” ) v Snow Patrol
ZZ Top v The Commodores – “just for comedy value”

Best Radio Show (DAB rules! It turned out to be more about the station rather than the DJ…)

Radio 6: “Phil Jupitus”; “I can’t believe I’m saying this, as I hated it to begin with, but I’m going to have to go with George Lamb”; “Queens of Noize”; “Adam and Joe” – “I still can’t distinguish who’s voice belongs to who… I think it’s one man actually”; “surprisingly funny for smug poshos”
R1: “Zane Lowe”; “Colin Murray – not as annoying as you may expect for a scouse-loving muso”
R5: “5Live show when Mark Kermode is on doing film reviews”; “Fighting Talk – Steve Bunce, John Rawling and Henning When are superb. My favourite line this year about yet another Geordie messiah was ‘Keegan is like a Geordie Halleys comet – his brief appearances come round like clockwork and are harbingers of another Geordie meltdown’”
Talk Sport: “Andy Townsend and Mike Parry – does this mean I’m getting old?”; “Porky Parry, and Alan Brazil on talk sport – god, I’m getting old!”
Revolution 96.2: The much missed daytime show
R2: “Radcliffe and Maconie weekdays, 8-10pm. Great music, great guests, great sessions and very funny. Though I can never get on The Chain”

Best Read (close category this one, but The Wire strikes again!)

David Simon: “Wire fans should check out the republished ‘;Homicide: A Year On The Streets’”
David Peace: “The Damned United”
Charlie Brooker: “most of the people I read are dead. This is the voice of sanity” / “it’s like my husband in print form..”
Pab: “Oh Yeah? What’s Normal Then?” emails – yes, I’m a crawler
David Mitchell: “in the Observer”
BBC Sport website: “the live text football facility – hilarious!”
Roberto Saviano: “Gomorrah”
Giles Smith: “in the Times, writing on football – and his book of collected articles from the same. Absolutely brilliant!”
Evo magazine: “glossy pages of decent car related info/pics done in a mature manner”
Short List: “it’s free and full of brill stuff”
Russell Brand: “My Bookywook – highbrow”
The End Of Mr Y: “unexpectedly good – a rollicking read about existentialism, god, quantum physics, science and philosophy – but I really liked it as the edge of the pages were black”

Best Film (by far the largest winning vote, and yep, I haven’t seen it…)

No Country For Old Men: “how films should be made”; “I was trying to rack my brains to remember other films that I’ve managed to stay awake through but since the kids came along going to the cinema is not really a good use of a night out and after 10pm I am pretty useless when it comes to DVDs!”
Cloverfield: “total film marmite like Blair Witch was, but I loved it”
Smart People: “Intelligent, funny film with a great cast and watched it in a private cinema all of our own (not that kind) on honeymoon. Aw !”
Wall E: “I no longer go to grown up films!”
Dark Knight: “Heath Ledger, top performance, and no he doesn’t deserve an Oscar just for being dead”; “Heath Ledger – Australian cinema’s Ian Curtis”
Burn After Reading: “even though nothing happened”
Juno: “great sound track & classic lines. It could almost be a British film”

Best TV programme (Whaaaaat???! How did “The Wire” not win you fools!!)

Heroes
The Wire: “why would anyone want to leave Baltimore?” SH********TTT!; “next year we will have to watch something else… it was indeed ‘all in the game’. Marlo’s ‘My name is my name!’ moment was utterly terrifying…”; “now, then and forever! We ‘did’ the whole of Series Five in 3 days. Hmmmm, the final episode – discuss…”
Never Mind The Buzzcocks: “Simon Amstell is very good”
Lost: “I’m still hanging in there, the answers to what the f*ck it’s all about are just around the corner”
Gavin & Stacey
Harry Hill’s TV Burp
Mock The Week: “Frankie Boyle is the man!”
Lead Balloon: “Jack Dee at his hilarious best, a West London Curb Your Enthusiasm plus you get to see places you go to a lot on TV”

Best Website (it’s taken over our lives!)

Google: “I use it everyday!”
www.fiso.co.uk: “for indulging extreme nerdism”
www.pitchforkmedia.com
www.altsounds.com: “’cos I work there”
www.jarsandbottles.co.uk
www.engrish.com: “This came my way around the time of the Olympics. It’s a bit wrong, but it’s very funny”
www.TheTruthSeeker.co.uk: “anarchy the world over is just round the corner – as soon as those aliens land, anyway”
When Saturday Comes: “especially the ’Weekly Howl’ mailout”
KUMB: “it’s not naughty it’s Knees Up Mother Brown – West Ham fan site”
www.designertoystore.co.uk
Betfair: “Imagine a world without it, no thanks!”
Pabspace.co.uk: “when it’s updated of course!”
www.hypem.com: “Every day, thousands of people around the world write about music they love and it all ends up here”

Most Desired (ahhhh I see how “Heroes” won now…you shallow shallow people!)

Megan Fox
Angelina Jolie: “this year and every year”
“Alice Glass from Crystal Castles”
Keeley Hazel and Kate Winslet and Cheryl Cole: “I know, I shouldn’t, but I do!”
“Someone to put Vinyl onto an i-Pod for me”
“Charlize Theron still rocks and Blake Lively (Gossip Girl) is easy on the eye. Also have a sneaky pash for Abbey Clancy despite that accent. Rachel McAdams, Evangeline Lilly & Megan Fox also work for me. Is that enough for a married man ?”
“An iPhone, just waiting for my contract to run out”
“Alexia Chung (again) and the girl from the Dizzee Rascal video caught my eye for a good part of the summer”
Sophie Howard & Cheryl Cole & Malene Espensen & Amanda Redman: “oh so shallow but truthful”
Caleb, Pete D, Brandon, Matt B: “basically most lead singers from most indie bands!”
“I want a projector for our front room…: stuff all that 42 inch plasma nonsense”
"any East European Premiership footballer…: apart from Berbatov!"

A Revelation (a good year – here’s a few eye openers…)

Spain: “finally won something at football”
Juande Ramos: “must have friends in high places – Tottenham flop to Real Madrid saviour. Unbelievable!”
Obamamania
The Transformation of Cheryl Cole: “think how much the country would have loved her even more if she had dumped that kn*bhead of a husband”
“didn’t expect to break down on the M25 in the snow, in APRIL!!”
Feta cheese omelette: “A culinary revelation”
“trying to break into the Austrian mental asylum the Josef Fritzel inbred kids were being kept in”
“to have 2 car accidents… 1 with Scotty Aslett, which was close to being the equivalent of the Munich air crash for Grunwald F C”
“I didn’t expect virtually every gig I want to go to in Manchester would be on a Monday or Tuesday night. This will hopefully not be the case in 2009”
Hull City
“giving Pete Doherty a cigarette in Reading on a Tuesday morning in June – bizarre!”
“No sun. And that I really missed it”

2008 Rocked ’Cos… (Kids! Kids! Kids!)

“It was a damn good year for albums”
“could enjoy the Euros without England bloody stressing me out and therefore also without the inevitable dropping off of interest around quarter-final time”
“3: The Magic Number, another Double and on personal note, the true highlight: getting hitched to the lovely Clare, fantastic three days in the fine county of Donegal with Pablo on the wheels of steel ! ( more crawling )”
“A wicked £3mill villa overlooking the sea in Ibiza, totally secluded, with games room and the works for just £300 each for 15. The grown-up way to ’ave it!”
“30th birthday in Vegas”
“I moved to LONDON”
“football, beer and women…same as every year!”
“My family name lives on with arrival of a baby boy!”

;

“the girlfriend moved in – whoo-hoo, no more ironing!”
“3 amazing festivals with amazing people! And I met Ian Brown AGAIN!!!”
“I went to more than a gig a week…”

Fine for 2009 – (it seems the “C-Crunch” can jog on…respeck!)

“Blur reunion album”
Everything Everything: “Possibly Manchester’s most original band ever”
The Watchmen film: “the graphic novel was brilliant so don’t f*ck it up!”
Rory McIlroy: “get your money on the NI golfer in Race to Dubai, PGA tournaments and maybe even each way in the Majors if he holds in the Top 50”
“Put your money on money being worthless by the end of the year. Start growing beans to trade with”
“£20 accumulator on Man U, Reading, Leicester, Wycombe to win their divisions 2008/09 can still get you £500ish”
“Due to the global credit crunch Man Ure are unable to service their massive debts and are liquidated. The swamp is turned into a supermarket where the eldest chuckle brother works as chief trolley attendant”
The Rifles new album: “well overdue release in Jan 09”
“Blake Fielder-civil will die!!!”
“I could be a creep and say PAS 2009 but I think that only bright side of the impending economic meltdown would be if it made football affordable again and broke the tedium of the Big Four”
“Even without financial pressure I predict Aston Villa are going to crash the top 4s party and stay there in 2010”
“Get on Portsmouth to go down…”
Moz: “new album and seeing him on his 50th birthday”
“It aint Lady GaGa – she sounds like Shania Twain for goodness sakes! It’s bound to be Fleet Foxes…that Simon knows his music”

And finally

Worst Film (Pab, you cannot delete this category… I have reinstated this to vent my spleen!): Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull – “absolutely f*ckin dire! It made my eyes bleed – a toxic mixture of p*ss and venom as they totally and utterly f*cked up what had previously been treasured childhood action films… wrong wrong wrong!”

And here are Pabs selections!

I’d Like Him To Play For My Team!

Ashley Young: Swap for Theo Walcott please

Up There With Joey Barton

Emanuel Pogatetz: Utterly risible thuggish individual

Best Football Moment

John Terry fluffing his lines in May
Arsenal v Man Utd in November
Turkey v Czech Rep in June
Carlos Vela’s 2nd goal vs Sheff Utd in October

Worst Football Moment

Losing at home to Hull
The ridiculous points deductions in League 2
Liverpool vs Arsenal in Champions League QF
Losing 3-0 away at Man City
Eduardo’s broken leg
The Rangers invasion of Manchester in May – legions of p*ssed up Weegie chavs literally p*ssing everywhere from 9am to 9am. The city’s landlords made a killing though!

Top 5 Singles

“A-Punk” – Vampire Weekend: genius 3 minute indie-pop anthem despite its rinsing on daytime R1
“Geraldine” – Glasvegas: just bliss!
“Stuck On Repeat” – Little Boots: forget Lady “Emperor’s New Clothes” GaGa, here’s the future of electro-pop perfection! It’s quite right big noises are being made about this ex-Dead Disco little lady…
“You Belong To Me” – Hercules & Love Affair: don’t remember the glorious fabled house tunes from 1989? This is a facsimile.
“Kids” – MGMT: the midnight tune of NYE – apt & fitting for quite a few of us this year!

Bubbling under:

“Kiss With A Fist” – Florence & The Machine
“Township Funk” – DJ Mujava
“Oh! Vanity” – The Charlatans
“Dance Wiv Me” – Dizzee Rascal
“Space & The Woods” – Late Of The Pier
“Grounds For Divorce” – Elbow
“L.E.S. Artistes” – Santogold
“The Shock Of The Lightning” – Oasis
“Paris” – Friendly Fires
“Paris Is Burning” – Ladyhawke
“Time To Pretend”- MGMT
“Paper Planes” – MIA
“I Lust U” – Neon Neon
“Open Letter To God” – Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip
“The Promise” – Girls Aloud
“Some Way Through This” – Black Ghosts
“Hitten” – Those Dancing Days
“We Are Shining” – Christopher D Ashley
“Letting Go” – Team Waterpolo
“Beat Control” – Tilly & The Wall
“Crimewave” – Crystal Castles
“Oh Girl” – Cut Off Your Hands
“Undercurrent” – Royal Treatment Plant

Top 5 Albums

“Glasvegas” – Glasvegas: Up there with Stone Roses, Strokes and Arctic Monkeys for best debuts of all time. Conjures up the kind of atmosphere where Jesus & Mary Chain meet Phil Spector – Phil pulls a gun, Jim smiles, and William pulls a knife…
“Seldom Seen Kid” – Elbow: those people at Mercury are rarely wrong…awesome abum!
“Beautiful Future” – Primal Scream: if you loved “Screamadelica” you’ll cherish this! It’s like Weatherall and the boys have grown old with you and they still know how to stir your ears. And it’s got “Uptown” on it.
“Crystal Castles” – Crystal Castles: I tried very hard to resist this harsh crass sound but it breaks you down and makes you submit to its brilliance. Thanks for the birthday pressie Karl!
“Vampire Weekend” – Vampire Weekend: the “go to” album of 2008. I still detest that “Blake’s Got A New Face” song though…

Bubbling Under:

“Modern Guilt”- Beck
“Youth Novels” – Lykke Li
“Beat Pyramid” – These New Puritans
“Third” – Portishead
“Stainless Style” – Neon Neon
“Twenty One” – Mystery Jets
“Santogold” – Santogold
“Antidotes” – Foals
“Dear Science” – TV On The Radio
“Oracular Spectacular” – MGMT

Best Gig

My Bloody Valentine @ Apollo, MCR: they were giving out earplugs to protect from the outdoor festival rig belting out a wall of white noise…the 25 minute version of “You Made Me Realise” is what it’s probably like standing beneath a NASA rocket launch. Amazing and completely mental
Lykke Li @ Night & Day, MCR: and she did a cover of “Can I Kick It?”. She did.
Glasvegas @ Academy 3, MCR: so good I thought they were miming!
Foals @ Academy 2, MCR: infectious math rock rules!
The Little Ones @ The Roadhouse, MCR: we got to sit stage left cos Chelle was v pregnant!

Worst Gig

Echo & The Bunnymen @ Liverpool Echo Arena: what a wasted opportunity to do something great with an orchestra but “The Cutter” and “The Back Of Love” were fab
M83 @ The Ruby Lounge: only cos of the “can’t-see-anything-sh*t-venue”, they were brilliant!)

Mixtape Must

“Sweet Talkin’ Guy” – The Chiffons: if this doesn’t move you you’re not human. Or a dancer.

Two bands you would like to see in a fight to the death!

Cage The Elephant vs Razorlight: Die Christians die! Die Borrell die!

Best Radio Show

Zane Lowe: yes it’s populist, but guess what? It’s good! And yes, you CAN get past him being an annoying antipodean…

Best Read

“If You Liked School You’ll Love Work” – Irvine Welsh: short story collection ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. Skip to the last story and you’ll find the genius that is “Kingdom of Fife”. Arguably his best ever.

Best Film

“Juno”: thought it might have been the Business Class suite on the flight to NYC that made it good but I watched it again and no, it’s just a good film
“Cass”: the best hoolie film made since “The Firm”

Best TV programme

“The Wire”: if you didn’t or haven’t, you really need to! I doubt anything will ever come close to this masterpiece.
“Outnumbered”: Hugh Dennis in brilliant comedy shocker! All made by the kids being encouraged to ad-lib apparently…

Best Website

Oddschecker: betting is great. And if you’re gonna, make sure you get the best price yeah?!

Most desired

An old skool Saturday hangover spent on the sofa with Mr Stelling and stodgy snacks. Frankie is having none of it though…

A Revelation

“I’m really proud of Lisa balancing on one leg for 20 mins…”: Mrs F gets caught up in BB. Obviously her brain was frazzled with pregnancy…
The rise and rise of the antipodean music scene: Ladyhawke, Cut Copy, Cut Off Your Hands, Empire Of The Sun, The Presets, Muscles, the Modular label…
“The Bolt” at the Olympics: proper jaw-dropper
Hearing a lion roar

2008 Rocked ’Cos…

Saturday July 12th @ 6.36pm. Nice one Chelle!

Fine for 2009

Jack Wilshire
Florence & The Machine
Little Boots
Carlos Vela
“The Damned Utd” film
La Roux