Ciao 2012

Well, following a bout of insomnia I have found myself with a couple of 'Best of...' lists. 2012 was similar to 2011 for me in many ways, only with higher highs and lower lows. Let's start off with the resolutions I made last year and whether I followed them up or not:

- write more, try and do something creative at least once a day an' shit
- take more photos, events should be documented more thoroughly an' shit
- keep a more comprehensive record of books and films read and watched an' shit
- be brave an' shit
- maintain correspondances an' shit
- review a cooked veggie breakfast once a week

Eloquently put. I did write more, though certainly not to the extent of doing something creative once a day. I did take more photos; nowhere near as in the past but certainly more than last year. I am proud of the record I have kept of films and music, though I need to step this up again in terms of books. I might have been brave in some respects but certainly wasn't in others. Still room for improvement there. Probably failed on the correspondences (though I can spell it correctly now). Failed miserably on the veggie breakfast one. This is definitely the most important thing for me this year, and I shall be putting up a manifesto as my next blog post.

So, let's be positive and award 2012 a silver star. Good effort. Room for improvement, but certainly progress made from 2011.

Now let's hit some lists. As part of my comprehensive record keeping I have noted down what I deemed to be my 'New(ish) Musical Discovery of the Month' and 'Food of the Month'. So, here is what tickled my varying tastebuds in 2012:

January:      Francois and the Atlas Mountains & Colman's Mustard
February:    Belle and Sebastian & Cider Vinegar
March:        The National & Cookies
April:          Of Montreal & Aubergine
May:           Misteur Valaire & Linda McCartney Sausages
June:           Fleetwood Mac & Black Olives
July:            Lykke Li & Boiled Eggs
August:       PSY & Roast Vegetables
September: Django Django & Avocado
October:     The Proclaimers & Honey
November:  Grandaddy & Roast Potatoes
December:  Suede & Sausages-in-Croissants

See the pattern? Look hard enough, you will see the pattern. This leads seamlessly into my top songs of the year.

Music:
1. PSY - Gangnam Style
2. Robbie Williams - Candy
3. Frànçois & the Atlas Mountains - Les Plus Beaux
4. Amanda Palmer & The Grand Theft Orchestra - Want It Back
5. Arctic Monkeys - R U Mine?
6. Of Monsters And Men - Little Talks
7. Django Django - Default
8. Foals - Inhaler
9. British Sea Power - Machineries of Joy
10. Blur - Under the Westway

Here marks an obvious improvement on last year; a list that only contains one track from MOR radio! And even then, Robbie's comeback was deemed too irrelevant for Radio 1. If that's not a glowing recommendation, I don't know what is. These 10 tracks are so strong that there's not even room for Engelbert Humperdinck's masterful Eurovision ballad. Good year for music then, I'd say.



Film:
1. The Muppets
2. The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists!
3. Life of Pi
4. Chronicle
5. The Artist

I managed to watch more films this year than last, but due to an aversion to the Duke of York's cinema that developed midway through the year I tended to favour the bigger, less exciting venues to watch films. I'll try and rectify this this year. The top 2 films here are two wonderfully inventive and hilarious family films that I would recommend to anyone. In fact, those top 4 I would venture were criminally underwatched (so much so that I had to go see Chronicle on my own). The Artist was criminally overwatched, though still a decent and warming enough flick. Dishonourable mentions go to A Dangerous Method and The Woman in Black, for both taking great source material and creating two very dull pieces of cinema.



Gigs:
1. Electric Six @ O2 Empire
2. Frànçois & the Atlas Mountains @ Green Door Store
3. Misteur Valaire @ Blind Tiger Club (Great Escape)
4. British Sea Power @ The Haunt (either Krankenhaus 1 or 6)
5. The Proclaimers @ G Live

I've mentioned a couple of these gigs previously. It was a year of discovery new bands in the live setting, and also seeing a couple of long-term favourites stepping it up big time.



Books:
1. Patrick Ness - Chaos Walking trilogy
2. Dave Gorman - Vs. The World
3. James Herriott - The Lord God Made Them All
4. Clarice Lispector - The Hour of the Star
5. Margaret Attwood - The Year of the Flood

Again, I was lax at recording my book reading, so much so that I almost forgot that I read Ness' Chaos Walking trilogy in rapid fashion midway through the year. One of the most compelling series I have ever read, it improves book by book and climaxes with an ending that affected me on an emotional level far more than any ending I can remember reading. For fans of young adult literature (an awkward but convenient genre), with particular biases towards science fiction and fantasy, I would suggest you find yourself a couple of free hours and get going on this, so that when they eventually come out with a film adaptation you'll be able to moan about how inadequate it is quite happily.



Achievements:
Shitloads of achievements, yo, but all over-shadowed by the fact that I didn't get started on my veggie breakfast blog.



New Year's Resolutions:
1. Just keep swimming.
2. Start on that bloody breakfast eating next week.

“Of course what I felt then as an ape I can represent now only in human terms, and therefore I misrepresent it, but although I cannot reach back to the truth of the old ape life, there is no doubt that it lies somewhere in the direction I have indicated.”