[Let's take a look at 10 lamazing songs from 2012.]

Have to agree with you there re: The Killers. 'Sam's Town' was simply perfection. 'Day & Age', my love for 'Human' aside, was poor and over-produced and 'Battle Born' was simply terrible! It was obviously a Killers record but it felt like The Killers do mullet rock ('The Rising Tide' has to be the worst song they've ever recorded). I can't help but love 'The Way It Was' though.

I'm not hugely a fan of Ed Sheeran either, though he's a stonking live performer. His pre-'+' music was good and definitely had a bit more gutsiness to it. His album though ran a bit like watered down James Morrison...

[Jogging On]

Josh, this really is such a wonderful post.

I really, really commend you for not giving up even when faced with prejudice, and after so many years as well! It's great that you've finally found an constructive fitness outlet that you've come to enjoy, and are already seeing and feeling the physical and emotional benefits of. We all have problems with how we look and such - very few people ever say they're satisfied with everything, but the difference with your (past!) problem and similar problems with so many people I've met even at my Uni is that you took the incentive to get fitter and made it work for yourself, and now that's something you can truly be proud of.

Lovely to hear you've set yourself goals as well. Wishing you the best of luck and perseverance.

[Why I'm not a religious man.]

As it is I kind of pity the heavily religious in the same way I do those living their lives by the word of a clairvoyant or fortune teller, how empty their lives must be if they have to put so much of themselves into the mythical.

Having said that, Christmas is a lot of fun and then we have the chocolate festival to look forward to. Nice one Jesus!

Completely agree with these, pluk. I do genuinely feel pity for these sorts of people, adopting the ideologies and philosophies of others and being ignorant to form their own - whilst I understand it is good to have faith, it's not so desirable to live under the ideologies of others and compromise your own freedom as a result.

[How death should of been simulated in The Passing]

So where's the part they put the bag on your head?

[The Sound of Arrows is an amazing sound.]

Never heard of them, but then my finger is so far from the pulse these days I'm not sure even I'm alive.

Great blog and a great introduction in to something new for me. Conquest is the best new thing I've heard for a good while. I'm not a massive fan of putting things in genre boxes and comparing to other bands, but I get quite an MGMT (but softer) vibe from it, and there's not much higher praise than that. I like.

Glad you like pluk. In my opinion they're such a stable, consistently delivering group it's hard not to at least appreciate their efforts.

And I agree with you about 'boxing' genres into niche's and such, and of course The Sound of Arrows (in terms of musical hardwear) may appear to fit quite nicely into the dream-pop genre, but there's so much more going on that it's quite hard to define their whole package as a single, fairly limited genre like dream-pop. There's elements of psychedelia, disco lento, electropop, synth-pop and a whole host of other, non-categorical variables that make up their music. And this I love.

[Music is the answer]

Sting and Pulp people. Sting and Pulp.

Love this blog pluk. Top notch stuff.

[Natalia Kills is officially pointless and here's why that is.]

The bands and artists that go on to become something are the ones that actually go out and actually play some damn shows rather than causing gossip. Go to a local festival or £5 local band night at an O2 Academy. In the words of LCD Soundsystem, "shut up and play the hits".

Exactly that Dan. Well said - gotta love Matt Murphy. Rediscovering LCD Soundsystem of late and remembering what a stonking good album 'Sound of Silver' is.

[Why 2003 will always remain Thorpe Park's best ever season.]

Completely agree, Mark. This was a golden era for me too. Though I had never been to the park (and wouldn't go till my first visit in 2007), I was still a burgeoning enthusiast and Nemesis Inferno was simply the stuff of dreams at the tender age of nine.

I enjoyed the branding more as well. No pomp with the "THORPE PARK" name or those ****ing awful screaming head people all over the website... Not everything was deliberately destroyed as part of a theme... *sighs* Makes you stop and think when you realise the only really worthwhile investments since 2003 have been Stealth, Rush and The Swarm (and Saw financially... but moving on). Seems a lot in reality, but in Thorpe Park it's minimal.