I’m still avoiding the whole end of year review thing, which makes that five years on a run now, because it’s still not fun; even though reality continues to be a big ball of negativity I want to say something positive - fuck knows why, but I guess that is just the downside of being human. And by far the best thing that has happened to me this year is getting the girls’ old pink stereo for the kitchen; Getting the kids’ cast-offs is working out well for me.

Since I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time in the kitchen I mean this quite sincerely, I’m genuinely chuffed to have a crappy kid’s stereo. It’s actually not that bad - it almost goes to eleven - although I have discovered the speakers are not capable of handling Fingathing.

I have been able to dig out some of my CDs from where my life is stored (the cupboard under the stairs), clear a little space in a cupboard in the kitchen, and keep a selection of them there instead. I listened to far more punk/ska than I remembered, it seems. Also, it turns out that I didn’t get too old for everything on Radio 1 either (some of the evening shows can still be good), we had just been having a long distance relationship.

A love for music is an odd thing. You simply can’t express or convey how important it is to you, or how much you have missed it, to anyone else. They either don’t care, do care but not about what you care about, or don’t believe you care as much as they care. I don’t know why this is, it just is.

Anyway, this crappy pink stereo really is the best thing about this year.