Cussedness Awards 2007
- Literary event of the year: Kittenwar: The Book. The launch party was brilliant fun, thanks to everyone who turned up.
- Best book about cats not written by me and Fraser: Cat Getting Out of a Bag by Jeffrey Brown. This is a smashing little book, endearing and beautifully observed. Chronicle are clearly the quality cat-book publisher.
- Best book not about cats and not written by me and Fraser: Oystercatchers, by my mate Sue, read it now.
- Album of the year: We Can Create by Maps. Lovely.
- Most overrated album of the year: Neon Bible by Arcade Fire. Am I the only person in the world who thinks this is a load of whiny rubbish? And I liked Funeral, too. Deeply disappointing.
- Best animated feature, and about time too: Futurama - Bender’s Big Score.
- Best computer I have owned to date: 15″ Apple MacBook Pro. Not quite perfect, and Leopard is a bit crashy still, but much nicer than using Windows on some shonky PC.
- Depressing non-event of the year: our house sale. The current state of this almost eight-month long transaction is so fragile that I’m wary of discussing it in public for fear of the remote possibility that our buyers might read what I think of them and take offence, so I’m going to leave it until the sale has fallen through entirely or (unlikely, this) completed before relating the full saga. It’s a cracking story though; the whole experience has led me to believe that English property law needs serious reform, perhaps involving the statutory deployment of stocks and public floggings as deterrent measures for recalcitrant parties.
- Scary number of the year: 30.
That’s about it, see you next year.
stu says:
I was disappointed in Neon Bible too - i loved Funeral massively though. Keep The Car Running and Ocean of Noise i do like though, the latter was pretty special live.
2007-12-31 15:40
Tom Ryan says:
I’ll admit that there are a couple of good tracks on the album.
What annoys me is the way that everyone seems to rate them somewhere around Beethoven and Brian Wilson (or whoever) on the scale of musical genius, when on the basis of Neon Bible they’re clearly nowhere near that level.
2008-01-02 16:45
stu says:
I dont think that musically they are anywhere near, but theres something a little special about them - i think its the energy and comittedness (in both senses of the word) about them - its hard to get across electronically but that just-on-the-point-of-insanity fervour they convey live is electric.
2008-01-03 11:26
Tom Ryan says:
I’ve not seen them live, so perhaps if their next album is a bit more fun I’ll consider splashing out on a ticket.
2008-01-09 19:45
stu says:
I bought We Can Create the other day - its great!
2008-02-12 18:19