Don't go chasing Polar Bears

The bloke second from the right may well have a Knighthood, but that don't make him the Best

I may not always be the best person to come to for advice (blog posts passim), but I'll always give you a good soundbite; since moving back (just in time - a year later and I'd have ended up like Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) and finding myself in familiar surroundings and in the company of friends old and new, I can look back at the year just gone and say 'Yeah, I think we smashed it.'

As for resolutions to carry into 2018, anyone who knows me will testify that you've got more chance of kissing the Queen's tits than me coming up with any resolutions, let alone those of a New Year variety. That said, the Great Escape from Pickering and my relocation to Nottingham has been done to death (again, this blog is littered with reams of the stuff) so, after today, we won't speak of it again; the files have been shredded and the numbers deleted from my phone. Literally.

Right, I'm glad we've got that out of the way. So, in keeping with the unwritten Blogger's Code, here's 2017 all wound up and ready to play; no Top Tens of this, that and the other, just one list. Here you go:

Best Album: Pugwash - Silverlake

Best Single: Pugwash - What Are You Like

Best Gig: Ryan McMullan - Rescue Rooms

Best Choir: Sherwood Voices

Best Novel: My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent

Best Magazine: Ferment - Adventures in the Global Craft Alcohol Movement

Best Podcast: The Allusionist

Best Indian Restaurant: The Balti House, Hockley

Best Pub: Doctor's Orders, Carrington

Best Caff: Warsaw Diner, Canning Circus

Best Beatle: Still George. Obvs.

Best Best: Ditto

Best Postcode: NG5

Best Blog: We Are Cult*

Best person to follow on Twitter: Neville Southall

Best film I went to see on my birthday: North By Northwest

Best TV Programme (Not just of 2017 by the way): Detectorists

Best TV soundtrack: Johnny Flynn (Detectorists)

Best Boxset/Netflix series I've watched this year: Mad Men. By a country mile

And finally, the Best thing I did in 2017: Move On

* Thank you to We Are Cult - always a riveting read - for reminding me earlier this year just how good McCartney II is. Whether or not 'it's the boldest statement a solo Beatle made during Lennon's lifetime' is another thing altogether. (But it makes for a great strap line.)

Macca - Waterfalls

*And that's where today's Blog Post title came from. It could even be your New Year's Resolution.

Happy New Year!

Bigger than the Beatles

Thomas Walsh - he's bigger than the Beatles

I have a knack of calling my Single of the Year before the first cuckoo of spring. In fact, if you trawl through this year's back issues I think there were a couple of early contenders who could've been back in the clubhouse before the clocks went forward.

No matter, it's not over till it's over.

Don't you just love bands who leave it late in the day to release a 45 they know will turn heads everywhere it's played? It's like rocking up at the Palace for your gong - half an hour late; the Queen pretends to be pissed off, but secretly admires your chutzpah. Pugwash left it till the arse end of October to join forces with Matt Berry on 'What Are You Like', the second single from the exquisite Silverlake. And it's a top drawer, top deck, top-loader of a song that top trumps all in its wake. (Even Beck's 'Up All Night' which had been sitting pretty until Thomas Walsh and his Dublin cronies came along and gatecrashed the party.)

Pugwash (feat. Matt Berry) - What Are You Like

Rooster

Being a Rat (b. December 1960) and with the approaching year of the Rooster (Chinese New Year - commencing 28 January), 2017 is, apparently, going to be a 'colourful' year for me; whatever that means. I'll keep you posted.

Here's Mick Taylor, the finest guitar player the Rolling Stones ever employed (and, D-O-B 17 January 1949, a fellow Rat), singing an ode to that noisiest of farmyard creatures. And/or his cock.

Mick Taylor - Little Red Rooster

Changes

It was my birthday today. And I've had a great day. James and Janneke made it special. Janneke showed me how to make a Gibson. And an Espresso Martini. And she's going to knit me a bespoke scarf. James on the other hand is taking his old man to the Royal Albert Hall next year to see Seu Jorge perform The Life Equatic live.

2017 will be a year of changes. And lots of them. Some bigger than others, but changes nonetheless.

Seu Jorge: Changes