Despite morphing into a bit of a Hello! Magazine “Welcome to my gracious drawing room” celebrity, we still celebrate Alanuary for reasons such as the above – the genius of Hands Clean remains undiminished with time.

Well-played Alanis.

On a slightly more me-focussed note: with the changing of the year I will be hard at work blogging again for your – presumed – enjoyment.

Hopefully you have not forgot this old acquaintance.

Happy New Year!

As you may or may not be aware The Saturdays are a British girl group that have been around since the relatively pop-barren times of 2007. They have historically been a bit shit.

All that began to change last year however with the release of banging summer hit – and Popjustice 20 Quid Music Prize winning – single, Higher (dodgy choreography alert).

Being honest I’ve never really liked The Saturdays. There’s something not particularly endearing about them. Despite never being massive they’ve never really captured that underdog spirit that the Spice Girls somehow managed to continue harnessing despite conquering the aural world. It feels a bit like some hot girls got together and formed a band. That doesn’t really make any sense but nonetheless there’s something unspontaneous about The Saturdays and it’s not just that they’re manufactured, they just don’t seem to have been able to get past that feeling-wise.

Or maybe “it’s all about the music” as Emma Bunton once said.

Baby has a point. As much as I’m loath to admit it The Saturdays have been winning me over with their nonstop pop onslaught of amazing. They followed up Higher with the listenable, if not completely amazing, Notorious and then they really kicked things into high gear with the completely and unarguably amazing Xenomania produced All Fired Up.

At this point I was all “OK ladies, you’ve got my attention, where can you take it from here?”

But take me they did, to the snow-dappled shores of a Northern plain and the ballad-o-clock stormer that is My Heart Takes Over.

This song/video combo is as inspired as the last taking The Saturdays effortlessly from summer stomper to winter power ballad. Although I do feel a bit bad for Rochelle, clearly getting stuck with the worst solo backdrop in which to warble her bits of the song.

I have decided that my favourite Saturday is Vanessa who gets all the best bits vocally, followed by Frankie who has the best hair and the most fierce posing skills. My least favourite is Una who clearly thinks she is the star of the group what with all the excessive use of seriousface and group-differentiated poses. The other two I like but don’t love. Such is the normal order of things.

The latest news from Saturdayland is that the girls have been signed to a reality show on E! and will be trying to crack America in the coming year, which perhaps explains the huge amount of money clearly being poured into this album campaign (for the fantastically named On Your Radar). While it seems strange to me that The Saturdays should be the next big British girl band (TM Louis Walsh) to make it big Stateside and not Girls Aloud, I guess that’s what you get for going on indefinite hiatus.

2. It is a bit amazing.

3. The video’s a bit shit.

4. But it does have some good bits notably [2:50] “I’m just being me!” and [3:11] key change + rooftop gospel choir = AMAZING.

5. Let’s be honest here Dappy could teach Guilty Pleasures 101 with this.

6. I have started yelling “I’m just being me” whenever someone calls me a bitch or similar. Or just when I feel so inclined.

7. I’m just being me.

So after the shenanigans of the previous evening we arose from bed at the perfectly reasonable hour of two in the afternoon. Feeling refreshed (if a little worse for wear) three intrepid explorers departed the apartment for adventures as yet unknown.

We went to the pub.

Actually I think there was perhaps some sort of lunchtime meetup somewhere in there but being both jetlagged and murderously hungover my faculties were not at their best; there was a big EUFA game on that night so Matt, Heather and I headed to the nicest most inexpensive watering hole we could find. The local Weatherspoon’s (The Standing Order) did not disappoint. We ate drank and became particularly merry, later meeting up with other wedding revellers for continued merriment.

As the night wore on and the bell rang for last call many in our party called it a night with the wedding looming the next day. Some might call these people wise. Needless to say I did not head home at this point, instead roving the streets of Edinburgh with Matt, Heather, and now the aforementioned Janet in tow. Upon being told nearly everywhere was closing we politely inquired as to the closest local drinking hole still serving. "Karma” a door lady told us, “but whatever you do don’t go there.”

I should hope at this point it is obvious that we visited Karma.

En route, however, we met a policeman – who almost missed an emergency call because he discovered we were Canadian and wanted to chat about the Vancouver Canucks – and later parted ways with, an at this point infuriated, Janet who had lost her gay – for whom we had traipsed halfway across Edinburgh only to discover he was at the other end and had given us bum, as it were, directions.

Upon arrival at Karma we paid a very reasonable cover and descended some dodgy stairs into what can only be described as the tackiest club in Britain (keeping in mind that I’ve imbibed at The Masquerade in Liverpool). While at Karma we purchased some ludicrously inexpensive drinks, were escorted from the dance floor after hauling said drinks with us to shake our tail feathers, and witnessed no less than two fights unfold. It was fabulous.

We later emerged from the club bleary-eyed and ready for food but upon standing in line at a nearby taxi rank and chatting with some locals we were dismayed to discover that everything in the immediate vicinity had closed for the night. This man spoke with true authority having just returned from a closing kebab shop with a carrier bag full of styrofoam containers. Being an all-round good egg he actually offered us a container full of chips. We couldn’t take food from a stranger could we? Actually we politely declined his offer until he placed the container on the ground and said so strong was his desire to be gentlemanly that he would leave the chips if we didn’t consume them; although Matt still had reservations. Cut to me and Heather scarfing a box of chips as our cab happily whizzed us back to our now familiar accommodation.

We quickly ended up back at the ScotMid and later eating a cornucopia of pre-packed food from the floor of our rented apartment as the new morning sun began to flood the room indicating it was once again time for sleep.

Brilliant.

As many of you are well aware I went to a wedding earlier this year in Edinburgh. It was fantastic. As many of you are also well aware, I have a tendency to embarrass myself at weddings; this one being no different.

The weekend started off with a 10 hour flight from Vancouver to London Gatwick where I enjoyed breakfast (read: a quick bite and a few pints) with my Uncle before hopping another plane to Edinburgh and having a litre bottle of Johnny Walker Black unceremoniously removed from me at security (bastards). Upon deplaning – I love that word – in Edinburgh, however, I was in a festive mood and ready to party. So too, as it turns out, were my lodging companions Matt and Heather. After a brief sojourn to what would become our local (see below), we had found our well-appointed apartment and were ready to hit the town.

The first night being the stag party, Matt and I dropped Heather off at the ladies supper and proceeded to Leith’s banana flats, AKA an apartment building shaped a little bit like a banana in a dodgy part of town that our taxi driver tried to dissuade us from stopping in. We were meeting up with the men (and a larger than life opera singer named Janet) for a Trainspotting walking tour. The tour itself was pretty informative although it did feel a mite exploitative as we wandered through a still economically depressed area talking about how horrible it was. Being only the first stop in an evening of excessive drinking, it goes without saying that we were well and truly bladdered when the revelry ended at 4am.

In the meantime, we enjoyed a vaguely Italian dinner, hit up a subterranean club at which I danced my socks off and almost pulled, and ended up at a club with a structurally questionable dancefloor where I continued to trip the light fantastic. It is at this point, stumbling out of a club at 4am that the groom, Dan, handed me scribbled note and informed me that I am to be an usher, with Matt, at the ceremony. More on this later.

As the sun began to rise across Scotland’s rolling hills, Matt and I ventured to a 24 hour ScotMid and mingled with the bleary eyed 17 year olds for whom this kind of partying was the norm, rather than excused by a transatlantic celebratory haze.

All in all a very good first day in Scotland.

The new Nicola Roberts video has hit youtube and while you may be sick of me banging on about her you can’t deny it’s nothing short of AMAZING. Nicola Roberts is everything you want in a popstar and I am currently completely obsessed. Look at this single cover:

IT’S NICOLA ROBERTS DRAPED ATOP THE WASHING MACHINES AT A LAUNDRETTE.

Seriously, you can’t deny (her biology, lolz) that kind of amazingness! The song is a co-write with the ludicrously talented Dragonette and deserves to be number one worldwide until sometime in early 2013.

Having said that, the album drops on September 26 – which I have now dubbed CE Day as it’s titled Cinderella’s Eyes – and I’m sure I’ll be overrun with more Nicola goodness to be obsessed with at that point.

There is literally nothing more exciting in the musical sphere at the minute. Not unlike Robyn, Nicola Roberts is effortlessly straddling the worlds of hipster cool and mainstream melodies. September 26 cannot come quickly enough.

#TeamGinge

I was looking at a box of sparkling mineral water at work today and it took me back to when I was but a wee child and legitimately believed such water flowed from the Earth ready-bubbly. I used to wonder where these magical sparkling water springs were located as I loved – and still do – fizzy water, as I then called it. I also used to ponder the mechanics of bottling naturally carbonated water “at the source.”

When you’re a child and the world in general is so vast and incomprehensible, you have yet to develop the incredulity of experience. Before being stripped of that innocence by the world at large, we are more willing to accept things that we don’t even know are strange. Innocence lost, and all that entails.

I also remember that when we used to go to church – as I attended Catholic school – this chimey bell would ring out when the Priest lifted the eucharist for blessing. “Well, obviously God exists, listen to that bell” I would think to myself sitting in the pew in my little school uniform. I still remember the day I noticed one of the altar boys rang the bell underneath his chair. I was crushed. I continue to think seeing that bell being rung was the first step in my long journey to atheism, but that is beside the point. The point is that to my 7 year old brain, the idea of naturally sparkling water and a magical ringing bell seemed completely within the realm of possibility.

As an adult it is very difficult to maintain that kind of openness to new ideas. Not only difficult but to a degree unwise. In children we call it innocence but in adults we often deride the same characteristic as gullibility. You have to develop a certain amount of scepticism to function in the world.

I suppose I always cringe a little when people mourn their lost innocence. It just seems a little ridiculous. As much as it was nice to be completely open to new ideas, I certainly don’t miss thinking that sparkling water came bursting from the ground in France. I think people often confuse innocence with wonder, and I try to find wonder in the world every day. Not to get too Oprah all up in here but I would definitely mourn the loss of wonder in my life. For as much as I may now be able to reason and be skeptical, there is wonder everywhere. Wonder is experiencing a moment and fully appreciating how lucky you are just to be there, and how unique each moment truly is.

Experience takes away our innocence but it doesn’t have to take away your sense of wonder.

So I know I’ve been banging on rather a lot about Nicola Roberts recently but that’s only because she’s completely amazing and deserving of many more pages of hyperbole and accolades than I can possibly aspire to on this humble blog. SHE DEFINES AMAZING.

After unleashing genre-defying-massive-in-every-way first single “Beat Of My Drum,” Nicola did not rest upon her laurels as some of her lazier pop contemporaries might, Nicola only went and attached the b-side to end all b-sides: “Disco Blisters & A Comedown.”

I really am at odds as to how someone could listen to the above track and not conclude that Nicola Roberts is a popstar of the highest order. “Why do the lights in the kebab shop make this guy look less hot” will almost certainly go down in the annals of pop history as one of the single greatest lyrics ever uttered. Who would have the audacity and aural bravado to release such a ridiculously brilliant b-side?

NICOLA FUCKING ROBERTS!

Say it with me: NICOLA. FUCKING. ROBERTS.

AMAZING.

Significantly amazing is the correct answer. If you have never had the pleasure before fetch the Kleenex give it a go.

Hopefully the video for Collide is a lot like this and nothing like Beyonce’s latest abortion of a music video, that for “Best Thing I Never Had,” which looks like a commercial for Bridal Fantasy. Embarrassing.

The new Leona Lewis track “Collide” found its way into the world this week and it has to be said that musically it is an unqualified success. That is to say that the world is a better place for having this song among the canon of tears on the dancefloor anthems and one can easily imagine jumping up and down, hands aloft, screaming “CRASH INTO MEEEEEE!” with tear-stained cheeks in a room full of equally as revelsome partygoers.

It is a triumph.

Upon release, however, even not so keen observers noticed that it’s basically Leona warbling over Avicii’s “Penguin,” an instrumental dance track that had yet to gain any serious traction on mainstream radio. Then the plot thickened like someone dumped a pound of corn starch in it when Avicii’s label claimed no prior knowledge of the Leona track or any agreement to license the song which is attached below.

Ministry of Sound, the label in question, went on to say they had been developing the same track for 6 months, now titled “Fade Into Darkness,” with some dude singing over it.

Mud-slinging ensued with Ministry of Sound accusing Syco (Leona’s label) of stealing the song right out from under them and Team Leona claiming that Avicii had long agreed to license the track for a significant cut of the profits.

Whose the winner in the situation dear readers?

The answer is us, the music-listening drama-enjoying public. Not only do we get to watch this clearly UN-level drama unfold before us, we get to do it while listening to the euphoric, if slightly melancholic, screams of one Leona Lewis.

Crash into me, indeed.