Three hundred and forty-eighth.

So I just finished that Nanowrimo thing. I had to write more than 50,000 words. I ended up on 50,902, and finished a day early. It is going to need a LOT of editing and re-writing, but right now I feel tired and a little bit proud. Deadlines, you see. Deadlines work on me.

The opening sentence at the moment is:

a aa a aaaaa aaaaa.

Had to scramble it before uploading it...

m xx

Three hundred and forty-seventh.

I am spending today inputting text from a book about George Best.

Glad I did all that training.

m xx

Three hundred and forty-sixth.

There are a lot of "best of the decade" music lists going round at the moment, but most of them focus on albums. I thought I'd try to look back and see if I could pick individual songs that have meant a lot to me over the past 10 years, and then boil it down to a 10-song list.

It wasn't easy.

Still, here's what I've chosen for the first half of the decade, from 2000 to 2005. They make me look like a reet softie. But... well... I am one. Ner-ner.

2000: Coldplay - 'Shiver'

In a year that also saw Radiohead go mental with 'Kid A' - 'Everything In Its Right Place' was my only real rival for track of 2000 - Coldplay arrived. I remember seeing this video for 'Shiver' on MTV, and every time that guitar chimed in at the start it made my ears prick up. It still does now. It gives me a lift. It's almost unthinkable to me that 'Shiver' only charted at number 35 and that Coldplay had to wait for 'Yellow' to truly smash them into the mainstream. To me, 'Shiver' hammers 'Yellow' out of the park in terms of song structure and performance. I love the part that Jonny Buckland plays in this song. Withdrawn, subtle and then explosive. (Well, as explosive as you can be in a twee indie song.) His ability to know when to keep quiet is what gives Chris Martin the platform to shine. And everything about the video makes me smile. Martin's infectious grin, the fact that it looks like it was recorded in a back room at their UCL students' union, and the amateurish way you can see the track for the camera to run on. At 4:19 in the video, Martin looks straight at the camera as he sings "you", and it's a real moment that stays with me; a moment that says: "Hello world, we've arrived." Plus: Space Invaders t-shirts. Nice. This song massively influenced my own writing as it did that of countless other people - the number of copycat acts we've had to endure since 'Shiver' was released merely emphasises how incredible this song was and is.

2001: Elbow - 'Scattered Black And Whites'

My sister buzzes through the room leaving perfume in the air, and that's what triggered this... I don't think there's a song or a line that makes me more nostalgic, talking of youth and home in such a beautiful, mournful way that it makes me tingle each time I hear it. It's such an understated, lyrical song: the brushes at the start, the misplaced piano note that seems incongruous at first but turns out to be absolutely perfect, and then Guy Garvey's voice, gruff but sensitive. There was something about its placement as the final track on 'Asleep In The Back', too. Not only is it tucked away (which again makes it feel understated, like a hidden treasure), and not only is it the best sign-off track on any album I've ever heard, but you also have to wade through so much confusion - so much smashed-up indie - to get there, that it becomes the ultimate reward: a reassuring message of hope and peace amid the maelstrom of existence.



2002: Damien Rice - 'The Blower's Daughter'

I think of 2002 and I think of myself in my bedroom in Durham, in the house on Neville Street, surrounded by CDs. It was a year of singer-songwriters for me, and three in particular: Gemma Hayes (nearly picked 'Hanging Around' instead), Tom McRae and Damien Rice. By the time the year was up, I was desperate for some ROCK, but I couldn't help it. So many spell-binding songs, and 'The Blower's Daughter' was the pick of them, a song that has since been overplayed and used in the soundtrack to 'Closer'. But there, in that room, it felt like mine. The way Rice's voice enters, shyly, and hangs on each word until it breaks. Then he builds, builds, so perfectly in time with his guitar before the female vocal arrives to create the counterpoint. Rice was so much more than this song, but there's no denying that it's an absolutely incredible piece of work. So simple and so affecting.



2003: Tom McRae - 'You Only Disappear'

I'm still in Durham a year later, and while I'm listening to Hell Is For Heroes and Million Dead, Tom McRae releases an awesome second album that contained this track. A song so good I had to prevent myself from listening to it over and over again so as not to kill its power. A pointless activity - the song remains as powerful and as moving today as it did back then, and when I saw him perform it live at Northumbria University and then at Islington Academy years later, it retained its majesty.



2004: Brand New - 'Sic Transit Gloria... Glory Fades'

2004 was a key year. I'd graduated and was in London studying for a post-graduate qualification in magazine journalism. At the end of the year, I did work experience at Rock Sound, and it changed my life, opening my eyes to vast landscapes of music I hadn't heard before (which it is still doing today). It was a year of big guitar band tracks, from The Killers (look how many hits that's got...) to Blink-182, but it was also the year when emo started to emerge, loud and proud. Out of the deluge of bands that invaded my life, including The Early November, Underoath, Emery and Dead Poetic, this song by Brand New was probably the best, and one that has stuck with me throughout the decade. The video remains one of my favourites of all time. It's like a miniature movie.



2005: Minus The Bear - 'Pachuca Sunrise'

As I reflect back on 2005, I realise it was a fantastic year for music. I remember hearing the Arctic Monkeys for the first time - walking down to Atlantic Records to pick up a CD, 'Fake Tales Of San Francisco' on my iPod. There was also the subtle beauty of Ida's 'Late Blues', which remains one of my favourite songs of the decade. But there is no disputing how big an impression Minus The Bear made on me in 2005. I still consider 'Menos El Oso' one of my favourite albums of all time, and I love 'Pachuca Sunrise' so much that we played it at our wedding. It moves through phases of beauty and staccato aggression, and while I consider the video a bit of a let-down, it remains one of those songs that I can only dream that I'd written.

m xx

Three hundred and forty-fifth.

Ok, so I can see how Junky or Junkie or however you want to spell it has influenced a whole tranche of writers, but coming to it now in my life, it leaves me feeling a bit blank. The whole point, of course, is that it's very matter-of-fact about drug taking, revealing the physical motivations behind seeking out that next fix but hiding the emotional ones. It's supposed to be matter-of-fact, cold, hard and lacking in any kind of moral compass. The book is supposed to be hollow. That's what it's trying to say. Doesn't make it any more fun to read, though.

m xx

Three hundred and forty-fourth.

Note to self: if you're reading this back in the future, never forget how bored you were.

m xx

Three hundred and forty-third.

The thing is, you can type "YAWN", but that's not really the noise you make when you actually yawn, is it? No sir, it's not.

Anyway.

YAWN.

We went to see Kasabian last night and then I had to write the review. It kind of negates the joy of only being a five-minute walk from the Echo Arena when you then have to stay up until 1am writing 400 words that will subsequently be hacked to pieces. But hey ho. Up here my alarm goes off at 6:45am, so today I feel reet bleary.

Kasabian were impressive. Shame about their tittish fans, though. Ohhh it's such a cliche to talk about Kasabian's fans, and I don't judge the band by the company they keep. But really. Cups of beer were flying all over the shop - we even got splattered in the seating area right at the back of the arena. The lads in front of us were smoking pot, sniffing poppers and god knows what else, and they were drunk enough to start with. One of them turned round and teased us for being boring and sitting down, rather than standing up and dancing like a muppet for the three songs that he knew. We laughed it off for a bit, then it became tiresome, especially when he started cracking onto Catherine with the line that she should be with him instead of me because he was "less boring". "She's bored mate," he said to me. "She wants some excitement in her life." I believe that was the point when we told him to fuck off.

You're always going to get dickheads at these gigs; dickheads who walk through Liverpool after the show chanting "GET LOOSE! GET LOOSE!" at a volume that they believe is commensurate with the size of their penises, and I refuse to let them tarnish what was a quality gig. Kasabian were better than the Arctic Monkeys live, which surprised me. The former are improving with their experimentation; the latter seem a little bit lost, like they're trying to escape their stardom. I guess it's a cost of being media darlings - the pressure increases at the same rate as the pile of riches - and perhaps Kasabian, by being maligned by the press, are about to sneak under the radar to the very top. They certainly have the live show and the songs to achieve it. We - and they - could do with fewer muppets chucking lager, but it seems that if you're going to be good enough to sell a lot of albums, unfortunately the muppets come as part of the package.

m xx

Three hundred and forty-second.

DM Stith - BMB. Gives me the creeps every single time.

m xx

Three hundred and forty-first.

The problem with this book is that I have absolutely no idea how seriously to take it. Or any part of it. The merging of fictional and real worlds is fascinating and cleverly executed, but what is the point? Is it just an elaborate joke? Is Bret trying to make a mockery of those of us who are keen to know about his past and what makes him tick? Or is it just a device to - yet again - disorientate us and lure us into a Stephen King-inspired horror?

I guess Lunar Park is all of these. And it is effective, it is scary, but it's also a mess of signs and ciphers that you realise, once you're over halfway through, will never tie up neatly and will therefore leave you with a confused message. Is Bret baffled and consumed by his past or is he just pretending that he is? Where do the author and the protagonist overlap and where do they differ? Too many questions. Too many, and I'm tired. If it's all about confusion of identity, then it's a readable success. But it is also the first Bret novel I've read that I don't feel compelled to read again.

m xx