Leersum (December)
Boxing Day at my parents’. Cooked Indonesian meal.

Paris (December)
It’s hard to pick favourites in a year of many highs, but I did like this one a lot. A bit of family. A lot of G. Everything was small and intimate. Saw ‘Handsomest Drowned Man’ again and it worked so much better than in Brighton.

London (November)
Saw Scott Walker’s Drifting and Tilting twice. Lovely time with Hg, Pixeldiva, B. and R. Traveled by Eurolines coach. Really, surprisingly comfortable. And cheap.

Galway (October)
Didn’t like staying in a hostel (hell very definitely being other people), but other than that it was good to get away and I think I shot my best picture of 2008.

Dublin (October)
The Dublin/Galway trip was my ‘summer holiday’. It was freezing, of course, but sunny anyway when the rest of Europe was awash with rain. Had an amazing time in Killiney filming G. and listening to his new songs.

Antwerp (August)
Unplanned trip to compensate for not getting the Lowlands festival photo gig I’d been promised. Bad karma… nearly got my head kicked in taking pictures in this Belgian city. And that’s no joke.

London (July)
Rogue’s Gallery at the Barbican. Only got photo access to the soundcheck. Light was bad, vibe a little dull, but the gig was good. Really enjoyed staying around Brick Lane. Quiet lunch with G. at morose Italian place.

Dublin (July)
Rogue’s Gallery in the Dublin Docklands. Fa-bu-lous experience. Great access all day, fab to hang with Davey, Gugs and G., lovely vibe in the photo pit, nearly killed myself shooting with the 70-200 for four hours.

Paris (July)
Quick trip to see the deafening My Bloody Valentine. Loved it.

Paris (May)
Became my nephew Louis Gustave’s godmother. Pretended to be Catholic. Everything in French of course. Lovely, but strenous.

Brighton (May)
Brighton was relaxed, just enjoying sea, sand and sun. The gig (‘The Handsomest Man in the World’) was unremarkable.

London (May)
Rather fraught and confused start as I was given the wrong medication hours before my flight and I felt poorly and disoriented. Fire alarm at Gatwick on my return.

Cologne (April)
Birthday trip. Didn’t enjoy this much. Party town, stag nights, large groups. No fun on your own. Crap weather too.

Dublin (Feb/Mar)
Sick as a dog, but I went anyway and coughed and sneezed and dripped through a Marc Almond gig (meeting Gini Ball backstage) and lovely dinner with G. at Eden. Also… Bambi!

Dublin (Jan)
No particular reason. Scouted some photo locations. Saw 30 seconds from Mars on a whim.

I don’t think I will be travelling quite this often in 2009.

I didn’t see a lot of gigs, but Leonard Cohen, Elbow, dEUS, My Bloody Valentine, Scott Walker’s Drifting and Tilting and the Rogue’s Gallery shows were very memorable. While many reviewers dwelt upon the alleged darkness of Walker’s Drifting and Tilting, the one thing I took away from the show was its wicked humour.

Musically often impenetrable, these lighter moments were brought to the fore by Walker and show director Ann-Christin Rommen’s staging. Afterwards, Walker’s albums, Drift, and Tilt, didn’t seem quite as ‘difficult’ to deal with and the show stopping ‘Patriot’ became my most played track of the year’s final three months.

Musically I mostly stuck to old favourites, but I enjoyed newcomers Duffy, Rachel Unthank, Sam Sparro, The Aftermath, and welcomed the return of Tricky and Grace Jones. In the last few months of the year, I mostly craved Hi-NRG beats. Hercules & Love Affair, Sparro, The Potbelleez, Ne-Yo and Robyn all scratched that particular itch. I’m not an album listener anymore, my iTunes/iPod is always set to ‘shuffle’, but judging from my iTunes and Last.FM stats, Duffy’s Rockferry was my favourite, or at least the most played.

I spend more time watching TV-series than I do listening to music and genre shows came out on top this year: Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who, The Sarah Connor Chronicles were unmissable. Comedy came second, with 30 Rock and The Office constant features on my list of weekly downloads. My favourite drama series of the last two seasons is still the awesome Friday Night Lights.

I’ll spare you the full list of the shows that I watch, it is endless. I think watching TV-series (and following some of its complex stories) has replaced watching films and reading books for me. I don’t do either much anymore. In fact I haven’t read a book in years, certainly not since I stopped commuting. I find most (Hollywood) movies disappointing and have not made an effort checking out arthouse flicks as I would have in the past. Films I did enjoy this year included Burn after reading (One of the few Coen Brothers films I liked), Iron Man (I’ll watch anything with Robert Downey Jr), Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (same goes for Philip Seymour Hoffman) , and In Bruges.

On a personal level, while the economy plummeted, my health improved steadily and I lost quite a bit of weight and dropped from a size 18 to 12. To compensate for no longer being able to tuck into Chinese roast pork and other such delicacies, I picked up a serious on- and offline shopping habit, partly necessary as I had to replace my wardrobe, partly pure indulgence. (Six pairs of new shoes? Really?) Consequently I rekindled an interest in fashion and started reading fashion magazines and websites.

I finally got a job that seems to agree with me, in a place where I can learn things. I made a bit more money, spent it even more. I travelled a lot. Four great trips to Ireland, three to the UK, three to Paris and two trips to Cologne and Antwerp.

I’ll remember walking along the Salthill promenade in Galway, hanging out with Ben in Coffee @ Whitecross Street, becoming my nephew’s godparent in the Eglise de la Trinité, sitting in a park in Brighton with Stuart, looking for chickens in Gav’s garden in Killiney and, of all the time I spent with him this year, our mad dinner in that dingy cellar in L’Ecurie in Paris.

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In 2009 I hope to continue doing well in my job, which is going to change slightly as our project moves out from development to production. I’ll have to travel less, because I really can’t afford what I did last year. I need to pick up the camera again, didn’t do enough of that in 2008. I intend to stick to my food regimen, drop another stone or so and hopefully be taken off even more of my medication.

U2 is releasing a new album and will be touring, so that’s going to create a bit of work over at u2log.com, even if I don’t know why I’m still doing that. Whedonesque.com will enjoy a traffic spike as Joss Whedon’s new series Dollhouse will start airing on Fox on February 13. But there are other things afoot on Planet Prol that eclipse Whedon (easily – I’ve kind of lost interest, really) or U2 (just as easily) which are going to be as time consuming as they will be rewarding. I can’t wait to tell you more about that.

Engage! So say we all!

Drifting and Tilting – The Songs of Scott Walker
Barbican Theatre, November 13, 14, 15

review to follow

• Twitter Patterns –
• Kill your pet puppy – Great source of punk / wave singles downloads
• Drifting and Tilting – The Songs of Scott Walker – Gavin Friday – Official Site – "Gavin Friday will perform as guest vocalist at the world premiere of 'Drifting and Tilting – The Songs of Scott Walker', live performances of songs from Scott Walker's albums including Tilt and The Drift."
• Mealographer – record your meals, set goals, track your diet –
• gooseGrade – Let readers correct your spelling.
• Field Notes — “I’m not writing it down to remember it later, I’m writing it down to remember it now.” – Oh teh purty
• Nasty as they wanna be? Policing Flickr.com – "The job always comes down to finding the fulcrum in the teeter-totter, the balance that benefits both the individual and the community,"

The UK trailer makes Scott Walker – 30th Centry Man sound like a thriller. Already it’s looking better than the Leonard Cohen tribute film.

While MiG the most ‘theatre’ of all and not in a good way, it’s J.D. who understands the theatre of rock. Check out his performance of Pink Floyd’s ‘Money’. The guy has vision. I’m also digging the rhinestone megaphone that he uses in ‘Pretty Vegas’, the song he co-wrote with Andrew Farriss. Well, I would, wouldn’t I? His performance of ‘By my side’ was subtle and I love the voice. That hint of Elvis that everybody hates so much? It’s a good thing. Elvis doesn’t have the patent on it. It’s Scott Walker. It’s Bowie. Totally floats my boat, anyway. I’ve been humming ‘Pretty Vegas’ for the last couple of days.

MiG’s the next to go. Too feminine, too sweet, too theatre, too squeaky clean. An ill fit with the Farriss brothers. Then it’ll between Marty and J.D. And Marty? Maybe an audience favourite, but he’s just completely wrong for INXS. The grunge voice and the arrogance cum naivety in thinking he can change and lead this band, come on. His idea that INXS invented ‘dance rock’ and that he can make them compete with the new new wave bands… please. Convoluted much? Poor sod, I nearly cacked myself when he started to ‘explain’ the music business to OB:INXS.

My money’s still firmly on J.D.

Maybe Suzie can join Fleetwood Mac now she’s eliminated. That’s where she belongs.