I’m afraid there’s going to be two Will Smith songs in a row. I’m terrible with lyrics. I always think I know all the words, and then only find out halfway through that I don’t. For some reason, I genuinely do know all the words to this, and I have no idea why.

I’m not that interested in Glastonbury, really, except for the bits and pieces I get to see on TV, and the excellent Big Picture features that appear afterwards. Live music is not really my thing, and when you throw in massive crowds, mud and camping, you can count me out. However, it’s hard to ignore the headlines when they scream that the Wombles are going to appear on stage at Glastonbury. Mr C informed me of this breaking news, and I scoffed. “Yea, of course.”

It can only be this. It is physically impossible for me to sit still to this. Impossible! “Will, we loved your last hit.”

I’ve just finished watching this video (via Kottke) of a photographer who collects the best moments of sporting events and collates them all into one image. That’s oversimplifying it somewhat, why not take a look? I love the concept. A picture captures a snapshot in time, but why not extend that idea to bring in lots of singular moments into the one image.

Recently, I have talked a lot about writing. I talked about the process of doing it: I’m quite lucky in that what I’m doing has specific sections so I know how far I am through it. Seeing the percentage creep up each day is really motivating, although the days when it stays the same is less so. It’s also good to say, when I get to this percentage then I can have a reward. I haven’t decided what my reward should be for finishing the whole thing. Maybe cake.

If I’d actually given this any thought, I would have planned it better so that I could have posted the Backstreet Boys video today, my birthday. But I didn’t, so never mind, we shall move straight on to the land of nod. I can’t really listen to music to fall asleep, although I know I used to when I was much younger. These days it’s all about the podcasts. Nevertheless, this song does make me feel very relaxed and perhaps even drowsy.

This week, I got my update from the WWF about their work with pandas. When I first sponsored a panda, they sent over information about Zhu Xiong, suggesting this was the specific panda that my money was going towards. I doubted that very much, but either way, that has come to an end anyway. From the newsletter: …it’s been a while since our team in China have spotted her. We think she may have retired to an area where it’s too remote and inaccessible to find her anymore.

The Backstreet Boys, obviously. I can’t help it, those years as an obsessed teenager are pretty hard to break. This is an album track, pretty popular in live shows, but not yet a single. Silly boys. I even chose this one for my blog version of Desert Island Discs a while back. And hey, if you don’t like the song, there are bonus subtitles to learn a foreign language with. Panico!

This evening, I finished watching the second part of a two-part Queen documentary called: Queen - Days of Our Lives. I’m slightly late to this, as I missed it first time round. I captured it to watch, as something of a Queen fan, but Mr C and I started to view it and realised it would require a lot more of our attention than we had to give it.

There’s no one I really hate, but there are people that make me roll my eyes when I hear them on the radio or see them on TV. This category seems odd, because if I hate them, why would I want to embed a video of theirs in my site? Oh well. This isn’t a band, just one person. I can just about put up with this video because it has Dawson in it. Yay for Dawson.

A recent post on Kottke linked to the first part of a four-part video series on Vimeo called Everything’s a Remix. It is amazing. There are only two parts so far, one covering music and one covering films. Mr C and I watched them together and it’s fair to say that both of the videos blew our minds just a little bit.

A while back, I seem to recall telling off someone, it may have been Alex, for watching A Christmas Carol when it was nowhere near Christmas. I’m going to have to take that back, I think. Just recently, it suddenly occurred to me that I should start looking at soundtracks. I’m watching more films these days, and they have good music in them too. Who knew? Anyway, all of this to say that I bought the Christmas Carol soundtrack and I have been listening to it even though it is not December. I’m sorry.

My music tastes are quite eclectic really, and_ I_ never know what I’m going to like, let alone anyone else. However, this is a song I probably wouldn’t normally enjoy - not a big rap fan, and although I do like a couple of Linkin Park songs, they’re a bit angsty for me. This, I absolutely adore.

I’ve struggled with this one, probably because I took it a bit too seriously. I spent a good couple of hours agonising over lyrics and thinking, well, I do like this song and it is sort of me but that doesn’t really fit. I don’t want people to get the wrong impression… Then I got over myself, and decided this would do because a lot of the time I am “off again in my world.”

Just in case there’s any confusion, the subtitles here are obviously the week of the schedule and then the day of the schedule as well. There’s no day 15 in a seven day week. But it’s day 15 overall. Week 3. Day 15. Argh! And indeed, I repeat ARGH! Today’s workout was a daunting one - taking on 8km when my best so far has been not quite 6.5km. It was tipping it down with rain too, but I felt pretty good when I headed out.

I only had a vague idea of a potential place to visit for this letter. I knew what K was, and I knew what M would be, so I needed to find something in between. My one idea seemed less appealing by the time I was ready to go, so I did a quick bit of googling and found this option instead - Landguard Fort in Felixstowe. I was curious to see Felixstowe anyway, as I worked for a logistics company a long while ago and saw the place on many documents, without ever having been there. In reality, you’ve seen one port city, you’ve seen them all, but it was still interesting. The Fort is at the end of a really long hideous road full of speed bumps - I mean, at least five minute’s of bouncing around. It was worth it though.

Lukeh alerted me to the breaking news that Michael J Fox will be making a cameo voiceover appearance in the final part of this five-part game series, and that made me realise that I hadn’t checked for new episodes on the iPad for a while. Imagine my surprise, then, to find out that both 3 and 4 had arrived without me noticing. I got right on and started playing - I’ve got no major spoilers in here, but don’t read on if you’re saving yourself.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say I loved this song, but it is an example of the Glee effect. I’ve talked about Glee before, and I’m still impressed with how it has opened up music of all kinds to a wider audience. But, and it’s a pretty big but, it can also ruin songs for you. Now, I cannot hear Gives You Hell, without hearing Rachel Berry saying: “here’s your picket fence, love,” in that mock-angry-but-butter-wouldn’t-melt-really way. It’s not bad, really, but it just doesn’t fit the song, and I can’t take it seriously.

With this writing lark, I’m sort of at a stage where proofreading comes into play. I’m pretty good at proofreading. I’ve spent the past several years sub-editing posts on Sidepodcast to check for spelling and grammar and that kind of thing. I’ve spent plenty of time reading and re-reading posts on here to make sure they at least flow, if not make some kind of sense. I even spent a couple of months professionally proofreading, which was very enjoyable, if exhausting.

I was seriously dreading this episode. Supposedly a big cliffhanger, a game-changer some have said. I don’t know. So far I have not gelled with this series as I would have liked, so the normal trust I put in Moffat over big moments like this has been shaken. It started out well enough. I was glad we didn’t have to see Amy in labour. She put her baby, Melody Pond, in a little basket/tub thing and it reminded me very much of Superman being sent off to Earth to keep him safe.

The big news this month is the fallout of David’s confession to Elizabeth that it was his idea to take Nigel up on the roof. It was a great idea to make this happen on some random sunny afternoon, rather than at a high-pressure moment such as the inquest or the funeral. Rather, the tension bubbled up inside David, he couldn’t take the praise anymore and he just burst. It does seem very one-sided of the family, all suggesting that Elizabeth should just let it go. The woman has just lost her husband and has struggled to keep a family business going, every day a reminder of what she’s lost. Why shouldn’t she be angry if someone takes the blame for it? Surely rather than every member of the family trying to change her mind - first Jill, then Kenton, then Shula - just let time work it’s magic.

This song has been following me around for the last month or so, and anytime I turn on a radio there it is. Funny, because it has radio in the title too. It gets stuck in my head, going round and round. “Nothing on but the radio, the RADIO!”

There’s a new trailer out for the next Tomb Raider game and I have to say, at first glance, I thought it was real. Even if this is not gameplay, it’s not live action and I was somewhat flabbergasted! Of course, all the comments I’ve seen everywhere focus on the most important thing - whether this Lara is more attractive than any of her predecessors. I’m gonna have to say no, because that voice is just not powerful enough. Lets her down a little bit.

If I was doing this the right way round, this category would come immediately after “song you keep hearing on the radio” which has a nice symmetry to it. I have ruined it, of course, by being both contrary and backwards, but still. A song I wish I heard on the radio can only be something live that would never be played, or only in exceptional circumstances. Instantly, that means We Will Rock You. Sure they play Queen all the time, but not this kind of Queen. This is my favourite song from the musical (although not my favourite song by Queen). I recommend skipping to 3:35 for less musical and more music.

I have never really been a big album person. Right from when I bought my very first one, I was keen to make sure that I liked at least a couple of songs on there so I would be getting value for money. And of course, once again, this is the kind of thing that iTunes has changed. I don’t need to buy albums now. I can’t remember the last full album from a single band that I bought.

I was somewhat loathe to get rid of last month’s header. I did so enjoy the purpleness of it. However, a new month means a new design and this is what I have got. My aim with this one was to take something that I attempted to do in the previous batch of headers and do it better. So, last time I used a skyline sillhouette: City Skyline Nice enough, but I can see exactly how it came together and could probably replicate it in seconds. This took a lot more tweaking, and I like it better.

Joining David Mitchell in the ChannelFlip stable of celebrity podcast videos is one Richard Hammond. Mitchell has a Soapbox upon which he rants about life, and I’ve discussed my favourite episodes of that before. Hammond embraces the tech geek with his show Tech Head. In it, he talks gadgets and future technologies, with an overabundance of CGI around him. Whilst less angry than Mitchell, he still has room for a rant or two as well. I’m highlighting this particular episode as it just encapsulates everything Mr C has been trying to argue.

I’m not sure this really counts as angry, but when I was struggling in those early days of trying to reach a 5k running distance, I used to listen to this song over and over and it got me through. I can’t really explain why, but there’s something about it that definitely spurred me on. I’ve never seen the video before today. That’s an odd one.

At the moment, I’m busy, busy trying to write the most lengthy thing I have ever written. No specifics, you know how it is, but writing something like this is a process I’ve read about so often and never really got this far with. Things that help: Being in a different place. I was writing whilst I was off on my alphabet adventure and at the end of the day, I would sit in my room and type type type. Equally, just moving away from my desk and taking the laptop towards the sofa makes a huge amount of difference. It’s not like there are any less distractions when I have the entire internet at my fingertips, but being away from the regular place makes it easier to do something different. Rainymood. A sudden influx of sunshine means people like to do things like mowing lawns and having loud conversations in the garden. This is where earphones and rainymood are very useful. I did find the site was glitching for me at one point, so instead I tuned in to the SleepMachine app that I mentioned here a while ago. That works just as well. Far better than listening to the spoken word, and I find my playlists very distracting because it just makes me want to sing along. Percentages. I’m quite lucky in that what I’m doing has specific sections so I know how far I am through it. Seeing the percentage creep up each day is really motivating, although the days when it stays the same is less so. It’s also good to say, when I get to this percentage then I can have a reward. I haven’t decided what my reward should be for finishing the whole thing. Maybe cake. I’m not too far off the end now which is fabulous, although, of course, I am procrastinating by writing this post. It’s such a fascinating thing that in the midst of this, it feels as though I can’t think about or do anything else until it’s done, else I’ll break the motivation and never get back to it. I pine about actually having a life again.

The last few days have been a tough criteria for me. I don’t really think, oh I am in this particular mood, I will listen to this. I suspect iTunes and the shuffle feature have ruined that for a lot of people. Still, I know this song is mostly quite cheerful and it makes me happy to hear it, which is almost the same thing. The Chain is not the only music that I associate with F1.

First we have to come to terms with the fact that there are two Doctors. The Ganger Doctor has to burn through some worrying moments before stabilising - moments where other doctor voices come out of his head, talking of jelly babies and the like. Then you get two Doctors talking to each other. “It’s just so inspiring to hear me say it,” one of them says to the other. The Doctor loves himself almost as much as he loved the TARDIS last time. It gets to the point where you start to ponder if the Doctor could be his own companion.

Week 2. Day 8. There’s quite the story behind this one. Was meant to run this one on Sunday, but it turns out F1 Sundays are quite busy for me. I probably could have squeezed it in first thing but there was some wicked wind happening outside, so I told myself I didn’t have time. Then I stayed up til 3am editing a podcast, so today, I was feeling generally a little under the weather. However, I was determined not to get too far behind on this course… not so early on anyway! Off I went. Oh god, the wind. I really, really hate it. As soon as I started, I knew that it wasn’t going to be a matter of being fast, it wasn’t going to be battling tiredness, it was more a matter of keeping the bottle up to finish the thing.

Technically, I should probably put the entire Parachutes album from Coldplay here, because I listened to that A LOT when I was going through tough teenage times. Because of that, though, I can’t bear to hear it, so it would be a bit of a waste of time. Instead, I’ll go with this. It makes me think of my BFF. It was one of those songs, for her, that is pretty depressing but she could listen to over and over again without being sad. I have a couple of songs like that too, but this was hers, and it makes me wistful.

The iPad 2 Smart Cover is all kinds of genius, yes. The hidden magnets allow it to snap automatically onto the side of the device. How on earth it does that waking up when you lift just one tiny bit, I don’t know. It’s a cover, that is smart. However, as the owner of one, I realised a pretty serious flaw. You cover the iPad, and then roll back the cover to become a stand.

Well, of course, I have kind of missed the boat on this one. Or more correctly, I got on the boat and got married already, with just some silly music to walk in the room to. Songs were not important, it was about being married and getting our hands on the champagne. However, let’s say that I was going to do the wedding again (shuddering at the thought), and do it differently, with songs and stuff. I reckon I might play this.

I’m not so good at formal events like this, and I don’t particularly want a fuss at my funeral. Although, of course, I’m hoping not to be conscious of what’s going on when it does happen, so the organisers could make as much fuss as they want. Music isn’t something I’d particularly given thought to at a funeral, but eventually, I found something I’d like. Imagine the scene, the coffin travelling towards a fiery inferno and out bursts…

On his Facebook page, Franck takes questions from his fans and answers them. I’m not sure how long it’s been going on, because I don’t like Facebook very much and I’m annoyed that it’s the only place FKM seems to exist anymore. However, in this month’s Q&A, there are some startling (to me) revelations! Give or take dodgy translations: How are your baby already? It’s not too hard to get away from him?

Ahh, Tim Minchin. There aren’t many of his songs that are lacking in swear words, although it’s worth a warning that there’s a bit of a swear before this one gets going. Take my wife. Plink!

Well, sort of. When Garageband became available on the iPad, I made a good effort at the best bit.

I’ve been to Oxford a couple of times, and it seems only fair that, as a Boat Race fan, I visit the other half of the rivalry as well. Cambridge was the first stop on my Alphabet Minibreak, in which I visited three other letters as well. King’s College was first, and to avoid having to drive into the centre, I took the Park & Ride. Now, me and Park & Ride’s don’t get on too well, but this time it worked out okay. If you don’t count the bit where I waited at the bus station for twenty minutes, only to find the return bus stop was just around the corner.

I’m not 100% sure what I was expecting from this episode, but I was mildly surprised by what I found. It was pretty good. The writer, Matthew Graham, had already expressed that he wanted this two-parter to be a lot darker and have more of an impact than his previous outing - the 2012 Olympics based Fear Her. So, what do we find?

I can play the piano a little, and the guitar even less. I’ve always wished I was better at the piano, but I don’t really have the patience to put the effort in. I had this track in one of my many music books, and I tried to play it many times before eventually I gave up, and mostly stopped playing altogether. Not because of this song, I might add.

With my Runkeeper Fitness Class all signed up and paid for (about £6 for 16 weeks training), I had to wait to get started. I tried out the first run a little early to get used to how it all worked, and although just a simple run, it was fun. (Also, it was hard, but that comes from only running once in a week.) Week 1. Day 3. I find it weird that the class begins with two rest days, so that you don’t actually start until the third day, but hey… I am not in charge!

I’m not sure there is any song that makes me feel guilty. Isn’t that a weird emotion to be related to a song? Happy, absolutely. Sad, yup. Even angry occasionally. But guilty? I thought about it for a long while, but this is an odd concept. Nevertheless, I have come up with something. You know, as an F1 fan, it’s difficult to like Ms Scherzinger, but I do very much like this song. So, it might be a guilty pleasure. Or something.

When the Spice Girls first came out, when there were five of them and before they started dating footballers and having babies, I was a big fan. I like a good bit of pop music, and with all that Girl Power stuff, these ladies spoke to me. So much so that I remember having a special compilation video, taping all appearances by the Spice Girls on Top of the Pops and Royal Variety Performances and Noel’s House Party. I do believe that is what YouTube now call playlists, but back then it was hard work!

Credit: suemoff/Flickr Sad news this week, when the world’s oldest panda died aged 34. Ming-Ming lived in Guangdong Province, and passed away from kidney failure. But, she had lived a long life - the average for a panda in captivity is just 22 years!

I blogged about the 30 Day Song Challenge, pondering whether I would be able to do it or not, and after giving it far too much thought, I’m going for it. One thing to note. I’m doing it backwards. I don’t like that it starts out with your favourite song. That should be the culmination of 30 days hard work. Thus, today, I begin with my favourite song from this time last year.

Last night, on something of a whim, I downloaded the Glee app for the iPad. Don’t stop reading yet! Regardless of what you think of Glee, it’s making some incredible changes in engaging people with music. The app itself is pretty clever, and a genius money-spinner at the same time. You pick a song (a couple are free but most cost about £1), it comes up with karaoke style lyrics, and you record yourself singing it.

Whilst on my recent alphabet travels, which I will begin blogging about soon, I found myself in the vicinity of Melton Mowbray. You may or may not have heard of the place, famous for it’s most excellent pork pie recipe. The Melton Mowbray pie actually has protected origin of status designation, essentially meaning that if a pie says Melton Mowbray on it, you know it’s the real deal. So, being in the area, I thought it would be rude not to visit and pick up some pies, particularly as Mr C has developed a bit of a taste for them at the moment. There’s only one place you really need to go and that is Dickinson & Morris - so original they even managed to get the URL porkpie.co.uk.

I don’t know enough about space, and wish I knew a lot more. What I do know is that when the shuttles are retired, we’re going to miss out on some fantastic sights.