Albums of 2008 Part 3: Number 1

Enough said.

New Kaffequeeria events

Good news! The Kaffequeeria gang are planning some more events! I have happy memories of eating vegan cake on a Sunday afternoon in the Basement Cafe on Lever Street and watching Jean Genet performing in their tit tape. Aah, those were the days! Well those days are here again! Check out Kaffequeeria's forthcoming events.

Albums of 2008 Part 2: Number 2

The BIG news of 2008 was the return of one of my favourite acts ever, oh yes. The mighty Portishead returned with their long awaited (by more than myself, surely?) third album, appropriately enough called Third.

Now, some critics complained that the album had a harsh, grating quality but in my opinion this was just the sort of music that Portishead should be releasing in 2008. Having another addition to the Portishead canon and seeing the band back out gigging again was worth all those months and years of checking in to the band's MySpace page in hope of some news! Here's to album number four!

Totty Alert: DNA Magazine's Mate of the Year

Bryan Thomas has been voted Mate of the Year 2008 by DNA magazine readers.

See more photos of the gorgeous Bryan at DNA.

Albums of 2008 Part 1: Number 3

I can feel that time fast approaching, when I look back on the year gone by over a mince pie and mulled wine and remember the music that has accompanied me through the past twelve months. Kicking off my albums of 2008 countdown, at number three pop pickers*, is Sara Berg.



This was a recommendation posted on the Popjustice website forum and I got a cheap copy from Amazon. I have listened to the album consistently through the year, and now it is one of the rare new albums I can crow along with. Although the music behind Sara's voice is often icy cold there is a kind of passion to her vocals that keeps me coming back for more. Go Sara!

So what's going to be at number two? Martika?!

* Am I the only one who made my own pop charts when I was a kid? Every Martika single was a number one in my universe!

Club Brenda

The highlight of the Manchester Pride weekend (August bank holiday) this year had to be the bemused look on Hidden Cameras singer Joel Gibb's face as performance leg-end Divine David painted a portrait of him live on stage at Club Brenda. This reminded me of a great interview that Divine David did with Attitude magazine some years back that I really loved. There are so many great quotes in the interview including:

Steve and I went out for three months. It was beautiful. We loved one another. Then one day Steve came to me and said 'I've found someone with bigger arms and that's important to me. I hope you understand.

Welcome back Divine David.

The stats are in!

I took part in the BUPA Great Manchester Run for the third time on May 18 2008. And guess what? I came in under 50 minutes and was placed 3901st overall out of 24000+ runners which means I was in the fastest 16% of runners on the day! Wooh!

I really enjoyed the run after my many months of training (really?) and after Cardiff's rock soundtrack last year decided to go the cheesy route on my mp3 player. Here's one of the fat slices of cheddar that got me moving on the day: