Don't go chasing Polar Bears

The bloke second from the right may well have a Knighthood, but that don't make him the Best

I may not always be the best person to come to for advice (blog posts passim), but I'll always give you a good soundbite; since moving back (just in time - a year later and I'd have ended up like Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) and finding myself in familiar surroundings and in the company of friends old and new, I can look back at the year just gone and say 'Yeah, I think we smashed it.'

As for resolutions to carry into 2018, anyone who knows me will testify that you've got more chance of kissing the Queen's tits than me coming up with any resolutions, let alone those of a New Year variety. That said, the Great Escape from Pickering and my relocation to Nottingham has been done to death (again, this blog is littered with reams of the stuff) so, after today, we won't speak of it again; the files have been shredded and the numbers deleted from my phone. Literally.

Right, I'm glad we've got that out of the way. So, in keeping with the unwritten Blogger's Code, here's 2017 all wound up and ready to play; no Top Tens of this, that and the other, just one list. Here you go:

Best Album: Pugwash - Silverlake

Best Single: Pugwash - What Are You Like

Best Gig: Ryan McMullan - Rescue Rooms

Best Choir: Sherwood Voices

Best Novel: My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent

Best Magazine: Ferment - Adventures in the Global Craft Alcohol Movement

Best Podcast: The Allusionist

Best Indian Restaurant: The Balti House, Hockley

Best Pub: Doctor's Orders, Carrington

Best Caff: Warsaw Diner, Canning Circus

Best Beatle: Still George. Obvs.

Best Best: Ditto

Best Postcode: NG5

Best Blog: We Are Cult*

Best person to follow on Twitter: Neville Southall

Best film I went to see on my birthday: North By Northwest

Best TV Programme (Not just of 2017 by the way): Detectorists

Best TV soundtrack: Johnny Flynn (Detectorists)

Best Boxset/Netflix series I've watched this year: Mad Men. By a country mile

And finally, the Best thing I did in 2017: Move On

* Thank you to We Are Cult - always a riveting read - for reminding me earlier this year just how good McCartney II is. Whether or not 'it's the boldest statement a solo Beatle made during Lennon's lifetime' is another thing altogether. (But it makes for a great strap line.)

Macca - Waterfalls

*And that's where today's Blog Post title came from. It could even be your New Year's Resolution.

Happy New Year!

Holy Mountain

"There's so much joy in that track. My kids love it, and all my mates' kids love it." * [Noel Gallagher, October 2017]

There you have it in two sentences - how you know you've got a hit single on your hands. I've written here on numerous occasions about Noel Gallagher's approach to songwriting, and what I absolutely adore about Noel and his (seemingly never-ending) ability to pen great tunes/riffs/melodies is his brutal honesty. He gives it to you straight - where every influence (intended or subliminal) has come from and how he then pieces it all together. As a thieving magpie he will tell you where each of the stolen gold coins came from and where his secret nest is.

In the case of Holy Mountain he was pointed in the direction of an obscure bubblegum single made in the sixties. The annoyingly catchy tin whistle was lifted lock stock and barrel. So now I've got two ear worms currently living in my head; I think they've taken up squatters rights. Thanks a bunch Noel.

* And I'm sure all his kids' mates love it too.

Noel Gallagher - Holy Mountain  

The Ice Cream - Chewin' Gum Kid

Audience participation

It's beginning to look a lot like panto season. This year Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast are both in Nottingham competing for your hard earned ticket money and booking fee. It'll be the usual helpings of festive silliness brought to you by washed up celebs and wannabe hopefuls; the last time I shouted 'Behind you!' would have been when Bob Carolgees and Spit the Dog were in town. It was a riot.

As a kid with a birthday between Christmas and New Year I would often be lured out of my seat and onto the stage to receive a sweetie proffered by a strange man dressed as a woman. Some things never change.

Talking about audience participation, I found this lovely clip of Johnny Flynn (he of the Detectorists theme song) playing a little club in Toronto. When he announces that his next song is The Water (a duet he normally sings with Laura Marling), a rather brave young woman offers to sing it with  him. 'You don't have to' Johnny tells her, probably dreading a car wreck about to unfold before him; he needn't have worried.

Johnny Flynn - The Water

Magpie

Sorry, I couldn't help myself: Susan Stranks and a real magpie

It won't have escaped your notice that Detectorists is back. TV archeologists will I'm sure, in years to come, if they're not already, be citing Mackenzie Crook's small screen masterpiece as, probably, the finest comedy drama of the 21st. century; amongst the ringpulls and scaffold clips that lie beneath the surface of the Radio Times, Detectorists is a bona fide treasure. The goldest of gold coins. The buried city. The Holy Grail.

And just when you thought it couldn't get any better, Episode 1 ended with this. I won't set it up for you - you'll get it; please just watch (and listen). And fall in love with it like I did.

That's right, 'Magpie' by the Unthanks. Has a soundtrack ever fitted a television programme so perfectly before? I don't think so.
Here are the fabulous Unthank sisters on Later, playing the full extended version.

Watching the Detectorists

Detectorists: must watch TV

I must extend a big thank you to the Bright Ambassador for pointing me in the direction of Detectorists. I don't really need to add much more to his succinct critique of the programme. Only that Toby Jones and Mackenzie Crook, intentionally or otherwise, make for one of the funniest double acts I've seen in a long time. No, what I wanted to mention was the original music BA refers to: Johnny Flynn, in true Dennis Waterman style, both writes and sings the delightful theme tune. And it is so good and so near perfect that you really can't imagine the show working without it.

And as well as being a nu-folkie Flynn is also something of a thesp. He's no stranger to The Globe and The Royal Court and has bagged a fair bit of TV and film work along the way too.

Here's another one of his tunes. Stylishly shot in black and white, and complete with noises off, it's an acoustic version of the title song from Flynn's Country Mile album. Go get yourself a copy. And, while you're about it, catch up on Detectorists - they're all still up on the iPlayer.