Happy Christmas folks - regular visitors, occasional readers and those that just happen by while bloghopping or Googling (even that person contemplating a meal of testicles). Regular service will resume in the new year.

Well Mr. Trimble, you may call our country pathetic but we think your party is 'dysfunctional'. Some Irish civil servant has dropped our government in the shit by accidentally leaving a confidential briefing document lying around in a room full of press men. No doubt www.sluggerotoole.com will have the latest on the craíc with this.

Jane's Addiction to release a new Album in 2003. What are the chances that they will take off from exactly where they left it after 'Ritual De Lo Habitual'?

Oh look - maybe this explains the recent surge in interest in 'Recipes for Human Testicles'.

You might find them boring but I love year end best-of lists - none of that year in review type stuff, just the plain top ten of things that matter so I can quantify and compare with years past. And whats a blog for but for posts like this?

So here are my top ten favourite albums that I bought this year:-

1. Lambchop - Is a Woman
2. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
3. Bob Dylan - Live 1975
4. The Microphones - The Glow Pt 2
5. Jim O'Rourke - Insignificance
6. The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
7. Neko Case - Blacklisted
8. Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf
9. Bruce Springsteen - The Rising
10.Tift Merritt - Bramble Rose

Okay - not sure about the last couple, maybe Aimee Mann's 'Lost in Space' or Sonic Youth's 'Murray Street' should be there and James Yorkston's album was pretty good too. Anyway it was a pretty average year for music (or at least for the kind I like) with most of the best stuff released by March . Not a classic by any measure I think.

Too busy to blog. Cruising along nicely all year on the wash of the Tech implosion then flat out busy in December - just in time for Christmas. And not a present bought or a card sent. Am I too late now to send one to the States? I've an idea for a movie - it's called "Termination". It's about a man who has disproportionate emotional reactions to events, experiences, and things in general coming to an end. It's not going to be a Hollywood blockbuster.................

Top ten Critical Flaws.

Some one found this site after running a search for "human testicles recipes" onYahoo. Hope you found what you were looking for Sir (or perhaps that should be Madam?).

Despite all my rage I'm still just a rat in a cage....Right. Whatever. Funny how I had forgotten just how good some of those old Smashing Pumpkin's songs are. Even if they are lyrically ridiculous. Isn't that the beauty of Rock n' Roll?

New edition of The Evil Gerald.

The political point scoring has started already over the failure of Ireland/Scotland to land the Euro 2008 championships. Of course, it was mostly Ireland's fault that the joint bid failed - what with no actual stadia in place for it, but I didn't see the opposition rowing in behind Bertie Ahern when there was a real chance of the 'Bertie Bowl' being built.

Popular Galway cleric Fr. Dick Lyng makes the national newpapers today over his comments in last Sunday's parish newsletter describing car clampers as "miserable, mean-spirited little Hitlers". It may seem extreme but there isn't a person in Galway who doesn't know someone who has had their car clamped - often for leaving a car in a illegal space for a few minutes only. While nobody denies that clamping is essential in order to ensure orderly traffic in the city, a certain level of flexibility should be expected - particularily in the case of cars which aren't actually proving an obstruction or a hazard. Our elected representative in the City Council don't seem to care too much about this situation - indeed it suits them to claim that they have no control over the clamping company who are merely following the terms of their contract. The fact that interests in said company also alledgedly control several of the paid multi-story carparks in the city would be ironic if it were not a conflict of interest that stinks to high heaven.

Last night, after a gap of 19 years, I went to see a new Bond film in the cinema. I shouldn't have bothered - el cheapo special effects, embarassing attempts at humour, product placement to beat the band - it had it all. It may well be 20 years before I go to another one.

New Santa clauses introduced. Ho ho ho!

Michael Jackson baby drop game.

This seems to be doing the rounds on email:- Thinkzoo. Unusual insofar as it's an Irish effort.

Mathematics unravels optimum way of shoe lacing. Scientists have discovered that "criss-cross lacing came out on top for a short, wide set of eyeholes - that is, when the vertical distance between eyeholes is low, and horizontal distance is high. Straight lacing came out tops for a long, skinny set of eyeholes."

My faith in the record industry has been restored. Yesterday I took receipt of the Bob Dylan Bootleg Series Vol 5 - Live 1975 - A record of the first leg of Dylan's legendary 'Rolling Thunder Revue' tour. It is without doubt the best live album I have ever heard - even better than the extraordinary Dylan Live 1966 set. Originally, I had not expected it to be so awesome - primarily on account of 'Desire' being one of my least favourite Dylan albums and also being fairly non-plussed with the 'Hard Rain' set (recorded in 1976 on the second leg of the Rolling Thunder Revue Tour). But here we have radically different versions of several of his songs, Mick Ronson and T.Bone Burnett playing a stormer on guitar, Roger McGuin and Joan Baez popping up on a few tracks and the fiddler girl from Desire playing a blinder. The band is incredibly tight. There isn't a weak track on it but highlights include an awesome heavy boogie take on 'A Hard Rains a Gonna Fall', the harp playing on 'It ain't me Babe', the intense full band arrangement of 'Hattie Carroll', the incendiary 'Isis' (different to the live version on 'Biograph') and the beautiful duet with Baez on 'Mama, You Been On My Mind' - and all that is only on the first disc! I won't even attempt to list the highlights of the second CD.

Columbia/Sony must be congratulated on this release. The sound quality is peerless, the accompanying booklet is wonderful and even the DVD included with the limited edition version provides a rare video take of 'Tangled up in Blue' and 'Isis' in full 5.1DVD surround sound. I'll even forgive it the fact that it plays black and white only on my DVD player. Roll on 2003 and the release of Bootleg Series Vol 6 - Live 1964.

In defense of data privacy - Karlin Lillington's page of resources for the protection of Irish data privacy.

Kevin Spacey's pet project - the TriggerStreet online short film festival.

Strange but true. North Korea Adopts Euro.

Paul A. Fitzsimmons in The Blanket responds to Ruth Dudley Edwards' support of David Trimble's offensive assertion that "if you took away Catholicism and anti-Britishness, the [Irish] state doesn’t have a reason to exist".

Could it be true? Tallaght Likened To Switzerland.