It is coming to that time when one arbitrarily numbered lap of the sun by our favourite planet is complete, and another is about to begin. As such and as is the custom for many parts of the media at this time, I intend to compile my own opinions of some gems delivered to us in print, disc and cinema screen format over the year. I'll start with a subject thats never far from my mind, music.

This year has seen some disappointing moments for the music industry, namely a new album by Take That, another dire series of X-Factor and the continued existence of Rihanna. However it has also seen some wonderful highs by some of the more talented bands currently doing the rounds.

Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid

This has to go down as the best album of the year, and maybe of the last few years, which is certainly saying something. It isn't the album for a party, maybe not one for any kind of group rocking out. You won't see the songs appear in best-selling singles lists, and I've no idea how well the band perform it live. What I do know is that musically the album is near to perfect, with even the quieter songs hard to dismiss as filler. The album has brilliant pace throughout with some of the quieter love songs like Mirrorball and Weather to Fly contrasted by cleverly written tales such as Grounds for Divorce and The Fix. It has peaks at both ends, beggining with the alternately quiet and rousing Starlings and winding down with its highlight, One Day Like This. That song deserves a special mention for making my top songs list on its first playing, its combination of strings, build-up to the chorus and amazing lyrics allowing it to be described as truly beautiful.

Hadouken! - Music for an Accelerated Culture

First appearing on the underground grime scene back in early 2007, and releasing random demos, singles and EPs (on a USB stick no less) to a very small audience, Hadouken! managed to get a cult following. Playing small intimate venues provided the perfect atmosphere for people to fall in love with their rough sound of whining synth and sharp guitar riffs, along with their clever rap lyrics providing a commentary on the youth of today and their indie scene. With a lot of build up on the internet they finally relased their debut album in May and it proved just as fantastic as their previous un-coordinated releases. Already a favourite Get Smashed Gate Crash opens the album with loud riffs and and the shouted line "lets get this party started!" The album moves on taking in existing grime classics That Boy That Girl and Liquid Lives, as well as more somber commentaries Declaration of War and Driving to Nowhere. With a brilliant mix of songs which are made for dancing and songs to sit and listen to the album shouldn't disappoint anyone vaguely interested in electronic indie music, and won't struggle to please anyone if it comes on in a club.

The Offspring - Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace

Its hard to believe how long the Offspring have been going, especially considering their sound is still as fresh and polished as their first commercial release Americana, and still almost as punchy as their rougher earlier albums. Indeed with songs like Half-Truism and You're Gonna Go Far Kid being some of their finest songs yet you'd be surprised to learn that lead singer Dexter Holland is 43. So whatever they had, they've still got it, and as well as the punk songs that made their mark this album contains more calm reflective songs that still contain catchy hooks and imaginative lyrics but show another side to the band. Kristy, Are You Doing OK? in particular seems to speak to a rather more somber event in the singer's past, and really shows that there's been a maturing over the last decade of The Offspring.

The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age of the Understatement

As every music journalist to come near the band this year has said, no one expected that Alex Turner of the raucus young-boys Arctic Monkeys would form an acoustic duo, backed by half an orchestra and produce one of the best albums of 2008. Nevertheless that happened and they went on to cement this rapid rise to fame by second-headlining at the Reading and Leeds festivals after just one album. Once again the album has excellent pace, with a brilliant feel of co-operation between the two singers and some brilliant backing sounds from the orchestra. The first few songsa contain enough punchy sounds to make you sit up and take notice, and the rest of the album moves along in its own special way. Sometimes its hard to work out what the band are actually talking about, but when it sounds that good its hard to care. Apparently the two singers are back working with their bands on further albums, but already plan to come together as the Shadow Puppets again, and it would be hard to see a second album being anything less fantastic.

The Pigeon Detectives - Emergency

A refinement of their already excellent Brit-Pop style sees Emergency stand out over other similar releases, with what it lacks in innovation made up for by every song being catchy and inherently dancable. It hasn't yet garnered the singles success that previous album Wait For You had, but unlike that album you don't find yourself waiting for particular songs to come on to enjoy yourself - the entire album is fun and tuneful. As always the lyrics are typically northern, covering the usual themes of relationships, worries and growing up and doing it brilliantly. There's a refined arrogance, despite their shortcomings, to the band that shines through; the British spirit if you will, thats especially pointed in songs such as Keep on Your Dress and Everybody Wants Me. The former in particular has to have one of the best choruses to shout out of any songs released this year, and if you can't shout out your favourite songs, what else can you do?

My final wishes are for 2009 - that more bands would move into new and interesting areas, unconcerned with commercial success and producing music that breaks out of the set genres. That more people would make the effort to discover these bands wherever they may be, rather than just buying the latest manufactured band tripe. Finally, that bands would stop putting unncesesary "The"s at the start of their names - you have more imagination than that!

To anyone reading this, let me know your thoughts, whether I was right or wrong or just any you wish to add to the list.

It is said that 13th is “unlucky for some”, but most likely only for those condemned by their peers for using such an obvious cliché in their writing. Hmm. This 13th of December was in fact far from unlucky, as it brought with it a great surprise in that my ex-housemate Beth returned secretly from her year abroad in Italy to come and visit us. It was a well kept secret on behalf of the one person who knew, leaving some amazing surprised faces and high pitched voices (mostly of the girls).

After this surprising turn of events the rest of the night also proceeded excellently, the first proper night out I’ve had with plenty of my friends here in a long while. Even the rather poor music at the club didn’t distract, and it ended with some excellent choices of cheesy Christmas songs. If I was to have to give a “thought for the day” at this point it would be the very obvious one that no matter what’s happening its always better with your friends. Hopefully the rest of advent will bring more excellent times with my friends.

The title originally read days 9-11 but I feared my blog may suddenly become part of some crackpot Da Vinci Code-esque conspiracy regarding the twin towers. That and it’s actually the 12th and I’m just a muppet.

So the title of Christmas, that seems a strange one when we’re exactly half way through the advent period. But it is true - since getting my advent calendar on Monday (and subsequently failing consistently to write more on here) things have seemed a lot more Christmassy. The snow managed to melt, meaning leaving the house no longer significantly decreased my life expectancy which is good. There followed decorating the house (or partially so) which never fails to improve the spirit present within the walls, and also provides some much needed light to a house which, though pleasant to live in, could be called dingy at times.

Finally came yesterday’s excitement of Christmas cards and the college Christmas formal - meaning the first roast potatoes and turkey of the festive season. Christmas cards are always fun, as I still remember the fun of writing and posting them in the little post-box at primary school and that’s basically stayed with me (not the post-box, stealing it would have been mean). These days I go one step further and make them all myself, though less mucking about with PVA glue and glitter than most home-made cards - I do them all on the PC. That isn’t to say no love goes into them, its just digital love rather than art-and-craft love - far more 21st century. In fact it allows a great deal of personalisation and this year (as with a few years ago at 6th Form) I made cards featuring a photo of the recipient, but somewhat Christmasified. According to my Writer that word doesn’t exist, but in true rebellious blog form I will use it anyway. Ha!

The Christmas formal was as excellent as ever (if you can say ever after having only been to one before yesterday’s). A brilliant tradition of the Christmas formal (as well as everyone getting festively drunk) is the singing of the 12 Days of Christmas, and this year we got to be the “3 French Hens” table, meaning signing during most of the verses which is always fun. My aim for next year is to get on the “5 Gold Rings” table, who get by far the loudest (and most adaptable) verse of the song. See, even classic Christmas tunes have politics behind them. I have a video of the singing which I shall get onto YouTube promptly, but due to what is known as “being an idiot” I managed to stop and start the recording halfway through, meaning I need to find a way to convert .mov files to .avi without losing sound quality (which I’ve never managed yet) so that I can use Live Movie Maker to splice them together. Funs!

Here’s us engineers enjoying some festivity and trying to forget just how much work we have to do next term!

I actually have an advent calendar - the question is does that mean this blogvent calendar will be ending? Find out tomorrow…

I was away for the duration of this weekend, visiting my cousin’s and more importantly their new dog (Todd the Springer Spaniel) in the Lake District. On Saturday we went on the same walk I did last winter visit, the Dodds. We started further away from the end of the old coach road than usual due to large snow drifts, and the snow was unsurprisingly persistent all the way up the hill. In places we discovered (usually through amusing falls) that the snow was waist deep, and that it takes remarkably little time to bury a drinks bottle or body. Other parts of the drifts were much more frozen, so much so that on the way down we discovered no-sledge sledging was much faster than walking, if far more painful. We only realised at the end that we actually took longer to get down than usual, due to the fact that we kept climbing back up for another go. Ah childishness!

The photo I’ll share from the walk (today at least) currently adorns the background of my computer, and was taken near the end of the day. It’s a rather nice sunset on the distant High Street ridge, with the sponge monkey's’ favourite friend hanging in the sky above.

Of course I couldn’t mention a 5 month-old puppy without including a photo, and luckily I took plenty. Here’s his usual pose.

Finally my most profound thought of the weekend came today whilst watching people in Newcastle station, and that thought is that despite being alive for over 20 years I have yet to find a conclusive definition of sanity that concurs with observing the behaviour of most people that consider themselves sane.