Back from a lovely vacation to London et Paris. Selected highlights:

• seeing family, both long-lost and not-so-long lost
• going to see my beloved -- beloved -- West Ham United at Upton Park for the first time in 18 years (they dominated the game only to concede the tieing goal in the 90th minute) and introducing my wife to the experience and a few of the salty characters jamming the pubs before kickoff (cheers Cormac, if you're reading this!)
  
• finding records I never even would have thought to look for (ChungKing? a solo album from the original lead guitarist for Orange Juice?)
• getting some serious reading done
• American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson -- Joseph J. Ellis
• When We Were Orphans -- Kazuo Ishiguro (superb novel)
  
• Brighton Rock -- Graham Greene
• The Age of Extremes: A History of the World 1914-1991 -- Eric Hobsbawm
  
• seeing the one and only Uncle Monty live and in person (Alan Bennett play at The National, jolly good show, don't you know)
• J stumbling upon the Sounds Of The Universe record shop, which doubles as ground zero for the mighty Soul Jazz label...in other words, the actual epicentre of cool for the Western Hemisphere.
  
• eating a hellaciously delicious Veal in Roquefort sauce in a proper French bistro
• eating The World's Greatest Falafel for lunch in Paris and the best Indian food I've ever eaten for dinner in London
• eating English chocolate whenever I wanted (usually at least two bars a day)
• great television
• spending lots of time with my wife, for a change

Anyway, enough about that. It's almost the end of the year, and that means the obligatory blogger media review. I'm not quite ready to open the kimono yet, but I do think it's safe to say that it was a particularly strong year for women, at least in the Bee-verse. As a teaser, I will say that the four best songs of the year were each composed and sung by a woman:

Estelle -- 1980
Feist -- Mushaboom
Rilo Kiley -- It's A Hit
Sam Phillips -- Reflecting Light

| posted by Alex at 1:52 AM