Happy New Year folks, welcome to 2008, the year that Liverpool becomes the European City of Culture, the year of the rat, the year of change and the year I start an illicit and extremely erotic relationship with Brad Pitt! OK, that last one may be a little whimsical fantasy on my part, but the rest are true. It's around this time, the new year, that all the newspapers carry reviews of the best/worst of the previous year, not just newspapers but blogs, websites, magazines, TV shops all have their own reviews of the year. Well, you know me, I always like to be different, a bastion of originality, so ...... here's my odd collection of moments that helped make the the year that 2007 was! Oh and before you read the following and comment or email to say I've got things out of date order, I know that already, I can't remember the exact order things happened and hey, I'm a busy boy, have I got time to go back, search the net to get the dateline correct? Of course I can't, besides, that would take even a modicum of organisation, and we all know that isn't my strong point.
It's the year I became a great uncle, again, for the second time, so congrats to Louise, my niece from hell and her second born, little Hayden. But also popping out the sprogs in 2007 were Spicer Emma Bunton, Welsh bad girl with the voice of honey Charlotte Church, Katie Price, Edward's misses Sophie and the talented Miss Myleen Klass.
David and I took a number of trips up to London to see various musicals and shows, among them were the complete snooze educing Lord Of The Rings, the naughty and funny Cabaret, plus the wickedly Wicked. And one of the best was the one where Harry Potter got his kit off! No, I'm not talking about some porn parody, I'm talking of Equus staring Daniel Radcliffe that had a short run in the West End and was a box office smash. It was a wonderful experience as we had 'stage' seats, which meant we were back stage and above the action and despite having an understudy playing one of the leads, we still got to see Daniel in the all together and a wonderful and moving play. It was also wonderful to see how good an actor this youngster has become.
2007 will also go down as the year of the phone scandal, hardly a single show that encouraged viewers to phone in and vote, or enter competitions on premium rate numbers was accused, sometimes correctly and sometimes not of misleading or down right conning the viewers.
Also conning people this year was Amy Winehouse, not that she's a great singer with a great voice, that's a given, but conning people that she could stay sober enough to put on a tour. She cancelled most of her dates and was pissed as a fart for the other half!
Britney Spears continued to make headlines all the way through 2007 but none for anything positive and I think it has to be said, she surely takes the crown for the worst comeback of the year with her appalling performance at those MTV awards.
While we're on the subject's of comebacks, perhaps now would be a fitting time to mention the Spice Girls, very very rarely do comeback get any bigger and more successful than their current tour, which seems to be going from strength to strength, even if the 'girls' themselves are not!
On more than one occasion I've been accused of having a bit of a gob on me, and honestly there are times when I find it hard to be, well shall we say, quiet, but surely the 'gob' of the year has to go to Jance Dickenson! A model that hardly anyone can remember the first time round, stormed into out living rooms on 'I'm A Jungle Get Me A Celebrity' and proved to be one of the most annoying yet compulsive people on the box. I hated her, really hated her, but I loved watching her on the few shows I managed to catch.
Another gob of the year would certainly be from another 'reality' show of sorts, that strange and now tired beyond words Big Brother, although, I'm referring to the 'Celebrity' version of the show that featured the second of this years main gobs! The whole thing was far and away the most talked about show, but not for the right reasons, the whole Jade Goodie and Shilpa Shetty race row erupted and took over the nation for a few weeks and for a moment I thought we were going to have race riots on our streets. If ever there was a master class in how to loose popularity it was this show and Jade the professor!
Another big gob of the year, but this time in a nice way was the lovely, charming, funny Paul O'Grady and his tea-time chat show. It's so funny at times that I'm balling my eyes out with laughter and other times it can be touching and emotive. Plus, he has some pretty big and amazing stars on that sofa of his, along with Buster and Olga. So I think it's only fair that Paul takes the chat show of the year gong. (if indeed I was giving out gongs, or awards or anything for that matter)
As we're on about chat shows, I do have to make a brief passing comment about the worst chat show of the year and possibly of all time. The true train crash TV that was the Katie and Pete show, need I say more?
2007 was also the year of the WAG wedding, so many of them said I do that there was hardly a month go by without a footballers nuptials splashed over the pages of Hello and OK! I mean for crying out loud there were four on just one day June!
But the best wedding of the year has to go to Jo and Carolyn, whose celebration of love was one of the most pleasing days of my year, even if I did have to wear brown and write a speech. Oh what fun!
Not everyone was happy in 2007, oh no, it also saw it's fair share of break ups too. I mean Kate Moss and Pete Doherty split and I'm sure the entire Moss family breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Also parting the ways were skinny sexy Ryan Phillipe and Reese Witherspoon. Chantelle and Preston ending their marriage after just 10 months, prompting many to say they were just in it for the money. Max and Tim split, but then you don't know them and I promised not to say anything anyway. Opps!
I didn't get to read as much as I would have liked during 2007, indeed there's a queue of 6 tomes o
n my bedside gathering dust waiting for me to turn their pages and savour the words enclosed. But of the books I have read I have to say 'Lovers & Loser's' by Paul Burston would stand head and shoulders above all as the book of the year. It's funny and moving, emotional and entertaining and just perfect for a great great read. Plus his 'Star People' is pretty darn good as well, so if you haven't yet discovered Paul yet, I think it's high time you scurried off to your nearest book retailer and purchased one or two of his titles. And, meeting the man himself was a boon and delight, along with hospitality from John.
n my bedside gathering dust waiting for me to turn their pages and savour the words enclosed. But of the books I have read I have to say 'Lovers & Loser's' by Paul Burston would stand head and shoulders above all as the book of the year. It's funny and moving, emotional and entertaining and just perfect for a great great read. Plus his 'Star People' is pretty darn good as well, so if you haven't yet discovered Paul yet, I think it's high time you scurried off to your nearest book retailer and purchased one or two of his titles. And, meeting the man himself was a boon and delight, along with hospitality from John.
Other highlights of the year would have to include doing a charity walk with David and Antony Cotton for Stonewall, I'm not sure my feet will ever be the same. A drunk day and night of excess with David and Nyree up in London town, drinking in swanky wine bars and the not so swanky G-A-Y. Gay Pride and the Police concert with the lovable Angus
from the land of Scott, not too mention the many nights of pub crawling, how my liver has survived, I'll never know. Providing a washing machine and tea for Jake, although tea was not always drunk the washing still some how got done. The 1am lunches with David and the conversations and frustration venting proved to be the savior of many a night shift.
2007 also saw us say goodbye's to the following, whose time on this earth came to an end, Anita Roddick the Body Shop founder, music master and Factory Records Tony Wilson, probably the World's greatest tenor Pavarotti, un-funny comic Bernard Manning, semi-funny comic Mike Reid. Very funny John 'I'm Free' Inman, the actors Gareth Hunt and Ian Richardson both played their final part in this play that is life, as did the wonderful Deborah Kerr and Ingmar Bergman. I'm sure they will not, ever be forgotten.
I'm sure there are many other things I could mention here if this were a complete review of the year, like David chundering his guts at the bus stop at 8 in the morning. Or kissing trannys in Legend at 5am. Snorting the devils dandruff off the belly of a 20 year old dancer, before during and after a passionate afternoon of rumpy pumpy. Or perhaps I could mention that it was also this year that Jakey found his true calling as a nude waiter, although the apron does cover his boy-stick and conkers. Indeed, there are so many other memories of the year that has now be consigned to life's waste bin that if I recalled them all here, I'd probably be writing until it would be time to write a review of 2008! So gang, I'll just leave it here and say a big thank you to all those who have contributed to making 2007 what it has been. So whether you've been a best mate, a lover or a shag, a friend or mate, old or new, a work colleague or indeed enemy, a reader or a writer, I do send my thanks to you and my wishes of luck, health and happiness are your for 2008!
Thank you.
