Shopping...

Playlist
Paul McCartney – The Space Between Us
Pink Floyd – Dark Side of the Moon (Live)
Spock’s Beard - Spock’s Beard
Various - The Orb:Back to Mine
The Beatles – Love
Scissor Sisters – Ta-Dah!
Sarah McLachlan – Bloom Remixes
Various - Jukebox Shuffleplay
The Killers – Sam’s Town
Cloudland Blue Quartet – Hey Hollywood Nimrod
Lupe Fiasco – Food & Liquor

Up at 7:20 despite last night’s late finish and I immediately watched two programmes recorded for me by Anne..

Firstly, a documentary/concert from Paul McCartney’s last tour – amazing to see the looks of sheer joy on so many of the faces in the audience at hearing these famous songs played live by the man who wrote them...

Then, Pink Floyd playing the whole of “The Dark Side of the Moon” live from London in 1994. Obviously flawed due to the absence of Roger Waters (and the presence of an extra drummer) but a spectacular sight nonetheless...

Drove to Patisserie Florentin and picked up some croissants for breakfast and some tasty bread for lunch...

Started a summary of 2006 by reading through the blog and noting what I’ve been up to this year by way of concerts, visits etc for my end of year stats – I’ve now been keeping this daily diary for over 22 months non-stop...

Meanwhile Anne put up the small artificial tree and Xmas lights....

After lunch, I took Anne to her mum’s as they were off to see Hearts v Aberdeen (they lost 1-0) while I went into town to do my Christmas shopping...

I spent not too long really, maybe around two and a half hours, trudging the streets going from this place to that, collecting various items which I think/hope Anne will like/enjoy...

Drove home and fired up the PC and checked the footie by going thru the BBC videprinter thingy which records all the goals etc as they happen, in chronological order from 3pm till 4:45pm...

It was via this that I learned the Hearts score and, for the third time recently, that Queen of the South had been leading only to lose a late goal and drop two more valuable points. They remain bottom of their league...

I watched “Strictly Come Dancing” with Anne for the first time. It’s actually quite enjoyable and the non-dancers show an incredible amount of talent in learning two dances from scratch in a week...

After this, I drove to pick up our habitual Saturday night Indian takeaway...

Then we watched a bit of the dreadful X Factor – just how dreadful? Well they had Westlife and Take That dueting with the two finalists...

The girl won. Rightly so, she is a great singer but with a tad too much of the old Mariah Carey/Whitney Houston vocal histrionics about her for my liking...

A couple of good laughs to be had from “The Culture Show” and its last show of the year, including the results of the “Greatest UK Living Icon” – a kind of X Factor for the middle classes if you like...

The three finalists were Paul McCartney, David Attenborough and, erm, Morrissey. Don’t get me wrong, I like and admire Morrissey – I have all his albums, save his latest, and quite a few by the Smiths – but he is not an Icon surely....

I felt certain that Macca would win but he came third and Sir David took the honours...

I berated him initially as a “voice-over” artist but, in light of a short montage of his films, I realised he was indeed a worthy winner – though I still feel McCartney is a greater Icon...

Wrote up the blog for the last three days whilst listening to some of the albums taken from Craig’s shoe box on Thursday night...

Of those I sampled today, only Lupe Fiasco goes in the bin – it’s self aggrandising rubbish quite frankly...

Finished off a tiring but enjoyable day with “Match of the Day” of course....

Highlight of the Day : Xmas Shopping for Anne