It seems fitting and right that the first day of 2013 begins bright and sunny, with barely a cloud in the sky and less wind than has recently been blowing around.
This sort of day is hardly uncommon for the British winter, but yesterday was truly grim. I popped out briefly to find myself a new pair of jeans (holes having been worn into the upper inside leg of both blue pairs I own) and, on the way back home, the light, pervasive drizzle turned briefly into an outright deluge - something like the one I experienced a while back where the water seemed to be coming down in sheets. That had tailed off back to light drizzle before the bus delivered me home, so I wasn't actually caught out in it, but it was still pretty surprising.
Gratifyingly, the tarpaulin on my roof is still keeping my flat dry. I'd been worrying recently that all the wind might have dislodged it to the point where water would be leaking in again but so far, so good. Really need to take some bleach to my bedroom ceiling, though...
With such a massive selection of possible things to do over New Year's Eve, I ended up doing what I usually do - watching Jools Holland - because I couldn't decide between my other options... My sister borrowed the three TransFormers movies because one of her friends wanted to do an all-nighter with her kid(s), and thought they might be suitable material, and that inspired me to look into my movie collection for similar material. I ended up with seven possible options, some of which would take most of a full day to get through. Another option was playing videogames all night... but I haven't been paying much attention to videogames recently (despite looking around desperately - and, thusfar, fruitlessly - for the TransFormers: Prime videogame on Wii). I made some progress in Project Zero II some time ago, but it got really spooky and I still haven't quite got the hang of the controls - or the slow pace of it - so I haven't returned to it since.
So Mr Holland's Annual Hootenanny seemed like the best choice, and turned out to be brilliantly entertaining while I was up. I had to give up around 1am because I'd developed quite a nasty headache that really seemed to be demanding rest, but what I saw of the show was cool. My sister will probably be kicking herself, because one of the guests was Adam Ant, so perhaps I shouldn't mention that to her... Petula Clark seemed like an odd choice for a guest, but fitted in quite nicely with the scope of the show and the range of old and new music on offer. She also proved a point that often pops into my head about music: if a song is good, it remains good whichever genre it's reappropriated by - her version of Gnarls Barkley's Crazy was truly awesome (see also that Country & Western version of Word Up used in the VO5 ads (not to mention the version by KoRn), the Johnny Cash cover of Nine Inch Nails' Hurt and, of course, Nine Inch Richards' Closer to Hogs).
Less impressive was the collaboration between Professor Green and Emili Sandé, Read All About It... Considering my penchant for mashups between rap and just about any other form of music, it didn't come across well live on the show. Emili Sandé was good, but the Prof. just came across like a petulant and ranty teenager. The recorded version works somewhat better, even though it seems like a watered down and self-indulgent version of Eminem's collaboration with Rihanna, Love The Way You Lie. Both are largely rap, with a properly sung chorus by someone who can actually sing, but perhaps the subject matter is more generally open to empathy in the latter.
Anyway... that was last year (sort of - it might have been this morning, but it was before I went to bed)... And there's so much to look forward to in 2013...
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