Treacherous things, these retrospectives. A whole year’s worth hangs on whether or not I’m in a good mood at the time of writing. Bear this in mind.

Most Pleasing Sight Of The Year was someone I don’t like very much falling down some stairs. Apart from that, it was all pretty terrible. Mediocrity was elevated to the level of a new artform, the best example being Hothouse Flowers who have (and let me emphasise this) One Fucking Song!, and even that’s a Springsteen rip-off. Right. At least we got that one cleared up.

Hippies began to appear everywhere offering Neil Young covers, limp joints and unnameable diseases. Grafton Street has been taken over just as completely as the town in ‘Invasion Of The Body Snatchers’: Gimme a sten-gun and a couple rounds of ammo and I’d make Kent State look like a care Bears movie!

Guardians of decency, SPUC, decided to bring a few students to court for publishing information on abortion. Now abortion is a complex issue, but stopping the flow of information is, quite simply, fascism and I for one hope that SPUC get their financial asses kicked.

Hey, cool out, baby (fuck, it’s catching). Life may be a bag of boils but there was music and films and books and french actresses. The Pixies, who are currently the greatest rock band on the face of the earth full fucking stop, released the greatest rock album of the last ten years in ‘Surfer Rosa’ and left me feeling like God for hours. Anyone who doesn’t like them is, quite simply, wrong!

Also, McCarthy released two immense singles in the astounding ‘Should The Bible Be Banned?’ and the chillingly beautiful ‘This Nelson Rockerfeller’. Along with their album, ‘I Am A Wallet’ they certainly made it seem like there might be afterlife, after all.

That’s it.