2017: a year in stats

First of all, apologies to Sarah for the complete absence of infographics in this blog! I’m afraid all I can offer at this stage is some excel graphs.

Gigs attended: 19. This increase on recent years probably represents an attempt to cram in a few more before the arrival of my latest project deliverable.

Artists: 41

Gig of the year: Any year that contains gigs by Nick Cave and Kraftwerk is going to be a tough one to call. There were also a couple of blasts from the past in the form of Robert Forster and even the Sisters of Mercy, who were actually rather good. And, of course, the obligatory Men They Couldn’t Hang gig. For new bands though I’m going to go with the Darts at the Finsbury.

Although this was a great gig, the photos don’t really capture it so I’ll throw in a bonus Nick Cave photo to make up!

Books read: 26. This is down on previous years and is probably a result of an increased consumption of magazines this year. In particular, Electronic Sound, which has some splendid articles and has introduced me to all sorts of new music.

Books of the year: I seem to have read quite a few music books this year – from Robert Forster’s Grant and I to the Iggy Pop Open Up and Bleed biography, both of which were excellent. Viv Albertine’s Clothes, Music, Boys was probably the standout one though. On the non-music front, I really enjoyed His Bloody Project by Booker Prize winner Graeme Macrae Burnet. Thanks to Gill for putting me on to this one.

Tracks added to itunes: 962. This seems quite surprising to me. It may be to do with the arrival of the aforementioned Electronic Sound in my life. It may also be to do with an influx of Fall and Velvet Underground obscurities.

Album of the year: of the 962 tracks, not that many of them were actually from 2017. Good albums from this year included the Lea Porcelain album and the second Autobahn album. Both of these were also very good live.

Tracks of the year: Electronic Sound introduced me to things like Buzz Kull‘s “Into the Void” (classic Potterrow goth), Cold Cave’s “Glory” (pure 80s synthpop) and Wolf Shield‘s Residuum album (haunting electronica – I’m sure there must a new genre for such things). Track of the year though goes to Fews with “Metal” (classic post-punk). I also took the opportunity this year to update the songs that made my life playlist.

Countries visited: 5 (Cape Verde, Belgium, Georgia, Italy, San Marino)

New countries: 3 (Cape Verde, Georgia, San Marino). I suspect this number may not be very large in coming years, now that I’ve reached the magical target of 100 countries. Now I can go back to places and stay for more than 10 minutes.

Current total: 100! I’ve plotted the 100 over the years. You can see, from a start of 2 countries in 1979 (France and Spain), there were no new countries then until 1989 when I went inter-railing for the first time. Then there is another peak around 98/99 when I came back from Japan and a final push around 2012/13 to get me to towards 100.

David Bowie 7″ singles to go: 7/53. This is a new category for this year. In case you’re wondering I’m collecting a picture sleeve copy of each Bowie single from Space Oddity to White Light/White Heat. By my reckoning there are 53 of these and I have 7 left to get. Obviously, these are now the really pricey ones. However, I suspect the arrival of this book sometime later this year will change the 7 and the 53.

51 songs that made my life

It’s been 10 years since I made my 40th playlist and what a 10 years it’s been, and not just musically speaking.

If you recall, the only rule for this playlist is only one song per artist. Some years are much harder than others and sometimes you end up with not necessarily the best song by a particular artist in order to squeeze them in somewhere. These are not necessarily my 50 favourite artists but some of them just had to be included somehow. Other years were particularly difficult with apparently no decent music released at all!

Over the past 10 years though there have been a couple of changes to the 40th playlist. Some songs haven’t stood the test of time and others have been deposed by incomers.

1967	Your love keeps lifting me higher and higher No playlist should be without this!	Jackie Wilson
1968	Breaking down the walls of heartache Got to have a bit of Northern Soul in there!	Johnny Johnson & the Bandwagon
1969	Pale blue eyes	Velvet Underground
1970	54-46 was my number	Toots & the Maytals
1971	Maggie May	Rod Stewart
1972	Many rivers to cross	Jimmy Cliff
1973	Do the strand	Roxy Music
1974	Rebel rebel So many songs to choose from!	David Bowie
1975	Loving you First time round I really struggled to find something for this year but since then I’ve “discovered” the joys of Bruce Springsteen and a deeper appreciation for Kraftwerk. In the end I’ve gone with  Thunder Road  Although I could have gone with  Radioactivity	Minnie Ripperton Bruce Springsteen Kraftwerk
1976	I need a roof	The Mighty Diamonds
1977	Lust for life Had to have some Iggy in there. 1973 was full – no room for Raw Power, or Transformer or Ziggy Stardust for that matter, so went with one of the many 1977 options.	Iggy Pop
1978	Guns on the roof A great song but maybe not their best but, again, 1979, 1980 and 1982 were taken by other classics.	The Clash
1979	Eton rifles	The Jam
1980	Holiday in Cambodia	Dead Kennedys
1981	Plan B	Dexys Midnight Runners
1982	The back of love	Echo and the bunnymen
1983	The temple of love	The Sisters of Mercy
1984	Come back	The Mighty Wah!
1985	The sick bed of Cuchulainn	The Pogues
1986	Bigmouth strikes again	The Smiths
1987	Stop killing me	The Primitives
1988	What for	James
1989	Debaser	The Pixies
1990	The only one I know Honourable mention: Soon	The Charlatans My Bloody Valentine Really should have got them in there somewhere!
1991	Justified and ancient Now we’re starting to get into the duff years. Don’t talk to me about grunge!	The KLF
1992	Ebeneezer Goode Again, not the greatest of years to choose from	The Shamen
1993	Open up	Leftfield
1994	Red right hand	Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
1995	Truth, rest your head	Gene
1996	Born slippy	Underworld
1997	Kowalski	Primal Scream
1998	The boy with the arab strap	Belle & Sebastian
1999	Aisha	Death in Vegas
2000	Music: response	The Chemical Brothers
2001	Crystal The 80s were jam packed but luckily they were still releasing good music years later	New Order
2002	Let’s push things forward	The Streets
2003	I need two hearts	Ballboy
2004	Johnny Cash	Sons & Daughters
2005	Mr Brightside Am happy to receive suggestions to replace this! I’ve a good mind to replace it with:  Go to hell, Miss Rydell	The Killers Pelle Carlberg
2006	Collection of stamps	I’m from Barcelona
2007	Golden skans I only had 9 months in which to choose from originally so this one was a bit random so have now reflected and replaced it with: Those dancing days	The Klaxons Those Dancing Days
2008	You! Me! Dancing! Album version for all you nitpickers out there!	Los Campesiños
2009	French Navy	Camera Obscura
2010	All I wanna do	The School
2011	Found love in a graveyard Again, am open to suggestions for this year	Veronica Falls
2012	March of the Saxons	Baltic Fleet
2013	Sugarcrush	Joanna Gruesome
2014	Absolved This is a really good song but are there not better options somewhere?	The Heartbreaks
2015	Illuminations See 2014	Lusts
2016	In deep See 2014	The KVB
2017	The love See 2014. As with 2007, I’ve only had 9 months to choose from but, even so, there doesn’t seem to be a great choice so far.	Lea Porcelain

So no Shop Assistants, That Petrol Emotion, Martha Reeves, JAMC, Joy Division, Weather Prophets, the Fall (surely I could have squeezed them in there somewhere??), Congos, Men They Couldn’t Hang, Orange Juice, the Beat, the Specials, the Cure, Long Blondes, The The, Spacemen 3, Sonic Youth, Cramps, or even the Wedding Present, but you can’t have everything. Maybe I should have gone with two songs per year…

RampItUp: the journey

The first challenge I faced on my AbleChildAfrica RampItUp journey was getting out the front door! Not only is the house full of stairs but there’s a step at the front door which is negotiable with a buggy but not with a wheelchair. So … assuming I had installed some sort of ramp, I left the house at 7.40. On a normal day I would get to work around 8.55. What time would I get there today I wondered.

inaccessible front door

Next little challenge on my route is the fact that Crystal Palace is famous for its alpine climate i.e. it’s built on the side of a mountain! A 13% slope might be fun to go down in a wheelchair but not much fun coming back up again on the way home.

steep road ahead!

After negotiating the big hill it was a 10 minute walk to the station, with dropped kerbs all the way so no particular problems there. The station itself is well equipped with lifts to the platforms, complete with Braille signs and induction loops.

Crystal Palace lift

Getting on the train itself was not that straightforward as there was a sizeable gap between the platform and the train but I am assuming that it would be possible to get a member of staff to bring a ramp to help a wheelchair user get on the train. Getting to Canada Water was easy enough, although the train was fairly packed by the time it got there. At Canada Water it was a lift up and then another one back down again to change to the Jubilee line.

sign in Canada water tube station

As it happened there was a man in a wheelchair in my carriage at Canada Water so this is definitely an accessible route. At Waterloo there was a very easy interchange to the lift which took me straight to the street exit.

the lift at Waterloo

Outside Waterloo there were some impressive queues for the buses but I managed to get on one that didn’t seem to be so popular. Again I would have needed to ask the driver to extend the ramp for me to get on.

Waterloo bus queue

On the bus I took advantage of the designated seating for disabled, pregnant, less able to stand and elderly passengers.

sign on the bus

Across Waterloo Bridge, along the Strand and up Charing Cross Road we went, without too many traffic jams or delays. And after a short walk I was at the office, which has a lovely gently sloping ramp at the front door.

ramp outside the office

Once inside the office though, things were a different matter, with a succession of heavy security doors that are difficult enough to open normally, never mind sitting in a wheelchair.

heavy security door

In the end I made it to the office at 9.20, so about 25 minutes longer than my normal journey. So, all in all, not too difficult, although not a journey I would have been able to make unaided. And that’s in the capital city of a highly developed country. Imagine trying to make an equivalent journey in a developing country in Africa.

So now I need to think about who I am going to nominate to also take on the RampItUp challenge.